Social Science planning

When possible I like studying world history and world geography together. When we study the Celts I want us to study Scotland (so excited for that week!), as an example. That isn't always possible because sometimes 2 or more topics take place in the same place and, aside from England, I don't want to study the same place twice because I want to introduce as many places as I can. I also managed to mostly arrange the geography topics by continent, just by luck. We will be reading books on each country and putting together lap books. Many of our geography materials are coming from a program called Expedition Earth and also from Continent Boxes. Some of the countries we plan to study are not included in the Expedition Earth so I have to search the internet to find materials. Hopefully it won't be a problem. As I've mentioned before our history comes from here.  
This is the list of what we are doing when-


     HISTORY                                                             GEOGRAPHY

1. Overview of the Medieval World                     Over View of World Geography
2. The Byzantine Empire                                      Turkey
3. Charlemagne                                                    Belgium
4. Monks of the Christian Church                         Italy/Vatican City
5. Islam/Arabs                                                     Iran
6. The Vikings                                                     Sweden/Norway
7. The Danes/Holy Roman Empire                       Denmark
8. The Normans                                                  France
9. 100 Years War and the Black Death               England
10. The Feudal System                                         Germany
11. Knights                                                           Wales
12. Castles                                                            Ireland
13. Medieval Villages and Towns                          The Netherlands
14. Christian Church/Medieval Architecture           Spain
15. Pilgrimages and the Crusades                          Israel 
16. Richard the Lionhearted and Robin Hood        England
17. The Celts                                                        Scotland
18. Burundians/Habsburgs/War of the Roses        Austria
19. The Mongols                                                  Mongolia
20. The Russians                                                  Russia
21. Africa                                                            Africa  *Africa is listed as it's own topic in history so I thought we would take 2 extra days during the week and study the entire continent at once. We will make time later to study each place on it's own.
22. India/South East Asia                                    India
23. China                                                           China
24. Japan                                                           Japan
25. Explorers                                                     Australia
26. Pacific Ocean Islands                                   New Zealand
27. Native Americans -North                             Canada
28. Native Americans- North                             Mexico
29. Central/South America                                 Brazil
30. Central/South America                                 Argentina 
31. The Turks/Ottomans                                    Peru
32. The Renaissance                                          Panama
33. More World Expansion                               Venezuela
34. The Mughals/Reformation/Counter-Reformation  South Korea
35. Elizabeth I/William Shakespeare                    Thailand
36. Middle Ages Keepsake Books                    Arctic/Antarctica 

Over our Winter Break I am planning a unit on celebrations around the world. We are mostly of German, English and Scottish extraction so I am planning to incorporate more of those countries traditions into our family celebrations (we have been celebrating St Nicholas Day for years and the boys always looks forward to having St Nicholas put candy and a toy in their shoes).

Secular history

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.