Older schedule, Research woes, & map work

[skdevore]

I've been using Preparing all year with my 5th grader. He reads at a high school level, but we hadn't covered any world history and I really wanted the one year introduction that Preparing provides. Since so many activities, writing and projects are based on the Basic and Deluxe Package, I opted to order not only these grade level materials, but also the Extension Package, so he wouldn't blaze through a book in 1 hr and be bored already from such a basic reading. And I must admit I am SO THANKFUL I did that!!! I was right about how it would go! We have loved this program, but a couple of issues continue to be an issue, week after week, and I wanted to see if someone could help me find a solution.

First off, I love that there are so many books scheduled, but I was rather disappointed to discover that the questions asked about these books are not provided with answers in the guide. Also, I would have really appreciated some kind of literature guide that corresponds to the Extension package (even just a few well written questions and answers for comprehension and deeper thinking). Since I have an older child (and younger ones who are in a different guide and need much more of my time), he does most of his reading independently.

My other issue is with the research questions. We have often poured through every resource we have available, especially wikipedia, and often spend hours trying to find the answers to the questions. I almost always come to the end of our time (when we give up on several questions!) wondering why we "waste" our time on this. On one hand, I want my child to learn to research. On the other hand, I want the questions to be easy to find and accessible since he's still learning how (and frankly doesn't care that much about the answer - it's more of an exercise for him). The more time it takes to find these answers, the more frustrated my son is about doing it, and the more it squashes his thirst for looking for answers to his questions. He'd rather not know the answer than take all day looking for it. I would really appreciate the answers to these questions in the guide if there's not going to be a specific source that has the straightforward answers. I don't know what most of these answers are myself, so that makes it extra frustrating.

Lastly, map work. It would be nice if there were a few maps throughout the course that he is filling in with the information he discovers for the geography sections. Seeing it on a globe and comparing to the book are great, but it really helps to "stick" when they also write it down or mark the area somehow.

If anyone has any suggestions for me I would certainly appreciate it! I bought this program looking for something that was completely planned out for me and had all the answers. While we've enjoyed so much of this program, these few issues force me to search out additions and that seems to go against the idea of a "complete" program.

[TrueGRIT]

I hope you found some answers for questions. (This wasn't posted on the main board or it would've had more replies.)

As far as the questions about the books being read, HOD is more "Charlotte Mason" in style, meaning most questions are open-ended and have more than one right answer.
We didn't do the extensions, so I can't help you there.

With the research we never had an issue, we always found what we needed. I did do that totally with my ds since we don't allow children on the internet by themselves. There were a couple times when I remember it being a bit harder, one on pottery.

It's been a year since I've done any Preparing so I don't remember for sure about mapping, but I thought a couple times we did a notebooking page on mapping. Maybe it was just something we did because my ds loves drawing and that is certainly an option to add in if you think it would be beneficial and not too time-consuming.

I hope something on here helps even if you already got answers. We loved our year with Preparing! My ds was a little younger and has slight reading difficulties so maybe these issues were not things we noticed.