How a Four-Year History Rotation Looks for Us

I love that four-year history rotation — but I also love learning about people who aren’t rich white men. Here’s a year-by-year guide to how we cover history, literature, and science in our homeschool, following a more inclusive history cycle.

One thing that I think has anchored our homeschool life is the four-year history rotation — and since history is the center of our homeschool, this ends up being the academic spine of what we do. I like this system because it gives us structure without a rigid to-do list — it’s a spine, but it can bend in all kinds of fun directions. I am not a traditionalist in terms of the things we cover — partly because the very classical model tends to leave out big chunks of the non-European world and partly because I want to focus on the stuff I enjoy and skip the stuff I don’t, which is totally personal opinion. The very classical model builds around four years: ancient history, middle ages to the Renaissance, reformation and colonization, and the “modern world” (which I put in quotation marks because it usually starts with the Victorians and doesn’t always get very much past WWII). That’s a fine plan if you like it, but we have switched it up so that we do the ancient world, European history, U.S. history, and Asian/African history, focusing on different periods as we revisit each era. So our homeschool plan ends up looking kind of like this:

Kindergarten

(I treat kindergarten like pre-1st grade, so we actually do the ancients twice in a row in K and 1st)

• Literature: Origin myths from around the world

• Science: The Big Bang and the origins of our solar system

1st grade

• History: Ancient Egypt

• Literature: World mythology

• Science: Backyard astronomy

2nd grade

• History: Medieval Europe

• Literature: Medieval legends, historical fiction about the middle ages

• Science: Weather cycles

3rd grade

• History: Native American history

• Literature: Native American myths and literature

• Science: Scientific problem solving

4th grade

• History: Chinese history

• Literature: Chinese myths, literature, and historical fiction about China

• Science: The laws of motion

5th grade

• History: The Roman Empire

• Literature: Julius Caesar, Roman myths, historical fiction about ancient Rome

• Science: Astronomy 

6th grade

• History: World War I and World War II

• Literature: Historical fiction and contemporary books set during World War I and World War II

• Science: Biology

7th grade

• History: The American Revolution and the Civil War

• Literature: Historical fiction and contemporary books set during the Revolution and the Civil War

• Science: Chemistry 

8th grade

• History: African history

• Literature: African fiction

• Science: Physics

Here’s the 8th grade reading list.

9th grade

• History: Ancient Greece and Rome

• Literature: Greek and Roman literature

• Science: Astronomy

10th grade

• History: The Enlightenment / The Victorians

• Literature: Enlightenment literature / Victorian literature

• Science: Biology

11th grade

• History: U.S. History (with an emphasis on women, people of color, immigrants, and LGBTQ+ people’s lives)

• Literature: American literature

• Science: Chemistry

12th grade

• History: Asian history

• Literature: Asian literature

• Science: Physics

Obviously other stuff happens in our homeschool! We do a lot of readalouds of newer books, and we often do separate classes around stuff we’re interested in (like dragons or Studio Ghibli adaptations or dystopian futures). We start Latin in 3rd grade and continue through 8th grade — then the kids choose what language they want to do for high school. We do math and critical thinking every year, and we do always include philosophy in our literature and history. Nature study is one of the things that we try to do every day, along with a little handwork of some kind. (Knitting and crocheting are the most popular now, but we’ve tried everything from soap carving to creative mending.) And the high school and middle school years are kind of interchangeable — my daughter didn’t start homeschooling until 2nd grade, so our cycles were off and we did U.S. history in 9th grade with no problems. But the history/literature/science cycle is the core of our homeschool, and it’s worked really well for us. (If there’s interest, some day I might do a full reading list for each year, so let me know if that’s something you would be interested in.)

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