SOTW my way

Edited to add: In elementary and middle school, we work on memorizing the lists given in the WTM to go along with each year cycle, and we also work through learning the countries of the world by continent. We also have a blank timeline on the wall and a blank map on the wall and we input the informaton we study from each SOTW chapter on those 2 resources each day we do history. We do history 2 days a week around here.

As I mentioned in my first post on history here, I re-order Story of the World.  No, I don't think this is necessary.  I think you can use Story of the World straight through and it is fine.  It is really excellently written (and I am picky about history).  However, it jumps too much for us, and I also want to set it up in a way that is conducive to using unit studies and slowing down to study a topic with more depth.  And so I re-order and group Story of the World.  Below is our basic structure for each year of the WTM cycle as requested.

(Look for some of my year specific posts soon on some of my favorite resources for each year of the WTM cycle.  I also love this link which gives you great ideas for books to go along with SOTW that are included in the Sonlight program.)

Year 1:  Intro-what is history-week 1--intro, ch. 1
              Egypt--weeks 2-5--ch. 2, 3, 4, 12, 13
              Mesopotamia--weeks 6-9--ch. 5, 6, 7, 8, 14, 15, 16, 17
              India---weeks 10-12--ch. 9, 30, 31
              China--weeks 13-15--ch. 10, 32, 33
              Africa--weeks 16-17--ch. 11
              Greeks--weeks 18-22--ch. 18, 19, 20, 22, 23, 24
              Persia--weeks 23-24--ch. 21
              Hellenistic world--weeks 25, 26--ch. 25
              Rome--weeks 27-32--ch. 27, 28, 29, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42
              Americas--weeks 33-36--ch. 26

Year 2:  Fall of Rome/Germanic Tribes--weeks 1-2--ch. 1, 4
              Islamic Empire--weeks 3-5--ch. 6, 7, 12, 24
              Europe:  Knights, castles, Vikings, Crusades, etc--weeks. 6-13--ch. 2, 3, 15, 16, 11, 13, 14, 17, 18, 19, 20, 23
              India--weeks 14-15--ch. 5, 30
              China--weeks 16-17--ch. 8, 21, 22
              Japan--weeks 18-19--ch. 9, 10
              Americas and africa--weeks 20-21--ch. 29, 32
              Fall of the Middle Ages--weeks 22-24--ch. 25, 26, 27
              Renaissance--weeks 25-27--ch. 35, 39
              Reformation--weeks 28-30--ch. 34, 36
              Exploration--weeks 31-36--ch. 28, 31, 33, 37, 38, 40, 41, 42

Year 3:  Pre-European North America, colonies--weeks 1-4--ch. 1, 4, 6, 7
              Stuarts and Civil War in England--weeks 5-7--ch. 3, 9, 12, 8, 18
              Tokugawa Japan, Imperialism--weeks 8-12--ch. 5, 10, 11, 19, 20, 24, 28, 39, 41
              Absolutism--weeks 13-15--ch. 13, 14, 15, 21
              Englightenment--weeks 16-17--ch. 16, 17, 26
              18th century colonial life, Revolution, constitution--weeks 18-26--ch. 22, 23, 36, 37
              French Rev, Latin Am Rev, Industrial Rev--weeks 27-32--ch. 25, 29, 33, 30, 34, 35, 27, 31
              Westward Migration--weeks 33-36--ch. 32, 38, 40, 42

(We also build our state history studies into Year 4.  I have extra reading on our particular state's history that we add into our studies in context.  ex.  We study the Civil War, and we also read a section on our state's history specifically in the Civil War.)
Years 4:  Asia and Africa--weeks 1-4--ch. 1b, 2a, 3, 4b, 8b, 9, 10, 11, 12b
                Industrial Revolution and Modernism--weeks 5-8--ch. 8a, 1a, 2a, 12a, 14
                Americas:  Civil War, Latin America, Mexican Rev.--weeks 9-15--ch. 6, 13, 5, 16
                Unification of Germany, WWI, Russian Rev--weeks 16-20--ch. 4a, 7, 18, 15, 20, 21, 23
                Post War, Depression, Fascism, WWII, Holocaust, Atom Bomb--weeks 21-29--ch. 26, 24, 27, 19, 28, 29, 31, 22
                Cold War, 50s-80s--weeks 30-36--ch. 35, 38, 32, 33, 34, 30, 36, 37, 39, 40, 41, 42