One of the hardest pieces of our curriculum to pick has been history. My state doesn't require history specifically only "social studies" which meant that after our pick for Babalu's first grade year didn't work out (Story of the World volume 1) we were able to stick with geography and reading random books about relevant topics. This continued into his second grade year when I became annoyed by Sonlight's Core B "lets pray for the 'godless' people". On the other hand Sonlight has an amazing selection of books about history for kids so we use the books but without the instructor's guide.
Part of the difficulty is that we are a secular homeschool. Most of the history programs I have found are Christian based. I don't have a problem with that but I do not want to teach history with that view in mind. After constant searching I have found History Odyssey by Pandia Press. Basically you buy an e-book that has a schedule, list of required books, suggested books and projects. They also go from ancient history all the way to modern. We follow the classical method in this way (it is also the way I wish I had been taught history).
Because we didn't start this new program until early this year we skipped a great deal of it as to finish in June. It is working out really well. We are skipping the map work this year because Rookie is still young but beginning in the fall (when we begin the study of the middle ages) we will be doing that. So far we have studied the beginning of time, the ancient Egyptians and currently the Ancient Greeks. Babalu is enjoying the reading but so far Rookie finds it a bit boring (everyone loves the projects!). Hopefully as we continue on our homeschool journey he will begin to enjoy it.
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