How do I Catch My Child Up in Science and History While Using the Timberdoodle Cores?

The following are excerpts from an email conversation here this week. Andrea asked such a great question that we are sharing it here, with her permission of course!

From Andrea in CA:
Love, love, love your curriculum. Keep up the good work. My 3 boys and I are into our 4th year and loving it, well after the initial first month hurdle. ha.

Anyway, for various reasons we missed grade one with you. So, when we picked you back up for grade 2 I had the question what to do with history and science as they had begun building on themselves starting in grade 1. So, starting in grade 2 we began with the Astronomy and book one in Story of the World and would just be a year behind your curriculum suggestions in those two subjects. I love both of these book and I just use the same book for all 3 of my boys despite the age differences. It seems to be working well, although at what point I may need to start splitting up those books I’m not quite sure yet?

My main question and advice I would like from you is looking ahead since we will be a year behind in history and science I imagine at some point I will need to skip a year to catch up with your recommendations especially once we get to high school as there are more specific requirements needed to graduate. Do you have a recommendation that if I have to skip over a history book and science book at some point which ones those would be or maybe even just combine two years into one? Wonders of Creation look like maybe they would be good to not skip but use as supplemental reading that the boys and I read on top of what we would currently be doing? What about History?

Our Response

Fantastic question!

Science
I completely agree with you. 8th grade science is review/expanding upon earth science so could be easily skipped/used as reading material if needed. However, if you really wanted to do that year another option would be to combine 9th and 11th grade science since the biology and anatomy courses were initially designed to be used in the same year. We split them apart in order to add Body of Evidence and Biology 101, but you could remove those DVDs, or if you’re really ambitious, complete all of those courses in a single year. Personally, I would prefer your solution, but if you get up to that year and feel that they need the time on review and earth science you won’t be out of options!

History
There are a couple options here. One would be to switch from All American History (included in 5th and 6th grade) to AGS United States History. AGS takes the same information and compresses it to a single year, and adds in lots of full-color elements. The only negative is that AGS is not from an explicitly Christian perspective, and I know that is a deal-breaker for many families. If you would prefer to stay with AAH than you may find it entirely reasonable to just not complete the British History course in 12th grade. Take a look at your local high school requirements but it looks to me that California does not require a British History course. Also, if your students were suddenly to want that information they could simply read through the book that year alongside their other history course.

We are so delighted to hear you are all enjoying the curriculum!