Welcome to day 4 of my Homeschool Curriculum Forum/Discussions! Today we’re talking all about the subject of history. Now I have to say that historically speaking history has been a large part of most homeschooling families.
I on the other hand haven’t been quite so enthusiastic regarding the topic! While I have done my own Road Trip USA which includes a basic history of the United States of America for younger learners, I haven’t been too out of the box for this subject yet. So I’m sure you all have some great ideas and opinions on this topic to share!
This current year I was really overwhelmed with so many things going on that we decided to simplify wherever we could. History and Science, which we’ll discuss later, were two areas that we tried to make my life a little easier and less stressful.
So this year, and most likely next year we’re going to be doing Abeka’s History curriculum. Since Turbo and Strawberry Shortcake are only one grade level apart, they do the same level. Tinker Bell listens in on the lessons, but I don’t require her to take any tests or complete worksheets at their level.
Instead we take our own time together to do history on her level which is mainly just reading right now.
Pros:
- Easy to use
- Thorough review of historical topics
- Minimal pre-planning required (if any)
- Lesson reading is appropriate for each grade level
- Lessons don’t take very long
- Children seem to remember what they’ve learned
- Includes quizzes, tests, and mapping skills worksheets
Cons:
- Not super “exciting”
- Not very hands-on
Another thing I like to add in to Abeka just to make it a little more hands-on are the Time Traveler’s Units and the Evan Moor History Pockets.
Both are fun hands-on activities that correlate with various events in history and make the more traditional style of the Abeka history a little more interesting and fun for our family. And since the Abeka is pretty easy to do, i.e. almost zero pre-planning on my part, it’s a little easier to have time to add in these other fun activities to supplement what we are learning.
Pros:
- Hands-on and fun addition!
Cons:
- A lot of pre-planning and priting required to get this curriculum ready, even as a supplement.
Another history curriculum that I’ve looked into and actually purchased, but haven’t used yet is the Mystery of History series. I purchased volume 1 last year and planned to use it before our decision to “simplify”. I do like this curriculum, and think that it looks like a lot of fun, we just haven’t used it yet, but I wanted to mention it as it does look like fun.
So, now comes the fun part!
What are your favorite History curriculum, resources, websites, etc? Leave a comment below discussing your choices for this year and why.
Feel free to ask questions or reply to each other too!
It’s my way of doing a forum without actually doing a forum haha!
And hopefully this will help us all as we start the process of researching curriculum, and trying to decide what will be the best fit for our homeschool.
Note: Please keep today’s conversations geared towards History, I will be posting one for each subject separately so we can keep our comments organized.
–> Click here to see all of the Homeschool Curriculum Forum posts!
Disclosure: This was not a sponsored post, I may however be affiliated with one or more products mentioned. The opinions expressed in this post were not influenced by the company. They are products I have used and felt like sharing, cuz’ it’s my blog and I can if I want to.
just love these “forums”! well we have done time travelers w/ 4th gr & 7th grade, 2 yr old & infant! tons of great info there. agree with others, lots to print out and prep for with my age ranges. a bit too much “hands on” all the time. we loved how the lapbooks turned out. using the lapbooks as a stepping stone for a final project for 5th & 8th grades this year. used story of the world vol.1 for 5th gr this year & streams of civilization vol 1 for 8th gr w/help from http://www.donnayoung.org for schedules, bookmarks and made up my own tests for streams of civilization. the tests that you can buy are just not completely up to my standards for testing (want more short essay questions and not all information is easy to find in those tests). my kids are history buffs and they retain info well. we have tried a variety and sticking with s.o.t.w for the most part. love erica’s e. e. and will try it will my little peeps when they are ready. in fact, next year we are going to use s.o.t.w vol 2 with 6th gr and combine some ideas from e.e- like passports & animals to make it fun for pre-schooler. s.o.t.w is a bit on the younger side for my soon to be 6th grader but i know she enjoys reading it. will require her to take notes next year. considering buying the cd’s so she can listen and stop when she needs to write something down. also, going to require her to take tests on what she knows next year. the activity guide is good for daily review/geography. she is strong in geography too. bought a large write-on-wipe-off world map and toddler/preschooler/soon to be 6th grader are loving that! middle ages here we come!
Has anyone used Heritage History? http://www.heritage-history.com/www/heritage.php
I’m thinking about it for next year with my 6th grader.
We attend a hybrid school where we homeschool 2 days and the children attend a classroom 3 days a week. We use Mystery of History and most of the families do NOT enjoy it. It is far too detailed for 1st-4th graders even when parents are summarizing for them.
We, myself and my three boys, ages 8,6,4 have been using Sonlight for 4 years now and we LOVE it and are learning a lot. They use a few textbook type books (Landmark History of the American People for example) but primarily they use living books which my boys love. Pros: can combine multiple ages into 1 or 2 cores, great books for couch time, teaches more about historical life than just the dry facts. Cons: Can be expensive if you purchase the entire Core from Sonlight, however I’ve always bought their instructor guides than I try to purchase almost all our books used and there is a lot of reading which we’ve always enjoyed but for some it may be a lot.
We have been apart of a Classical Conversations community for 3 years and it has been a huge blessing. Along with history, science, math, Latin, art, geography and english are all covered as well. I have 4 children two whom are elementary age and 1 preschooler, I love that they are all memorizing the same material the only difference is it is presented to them at their age level. Not to mention all the memory work is set to pretty fun and totally catchy songs.
We love, love, love Story of the World!!! It is well written, reads smoothly – all my kids listen and there are always hands on activities. You can add additional resources and books for older kids. We tried Mystery of HIstory and although there are some great things about it – it was a bit more scriptures with history tied in rather than history with scriptures tied in. It is all really preference.
We just started using Epi Kardia this year. I have two 7 year old boys. We tried Veritas but half way through we were tired of Egypt. Epi kardia covers Creation through the present each year in elementary with a different emphasis each year. By repeating all of history each year, more of it will, hopefully be retained. It is a Charlotte Mason approach with a lot of great books and art/music appreciation, grammar spellng and handwriting and even science are all integrated with the history.
Di
We are using Beautiful Feet. My 2nd grader begs to do history. He managed to read and notebook a years worth of history curriculum in about 6 months he enjoyed it so much. It doesn’t require much prep work from mom. I rounded it out with History Pockets, the Life in Plymouth Colony and the American Indians. We also bought/checked out several really good DVDs about history. I had a third grade Abeka history book on hand also. Beautiful Feet books is tons more interesting and gives many more details. My son took a placement test for a school and placed into 5th grade history. As a 2nd going into 3rd grade. I’d highly recommend BF history!
Hey gals,
I posted above already, and maybe this is too late to be read now. . . I hust saw this this week and wanted to share:
I wanted to chime in and add that Ron Paul will be offering Free (yes I think FREE for K-5 starting in Sept) K-12 curriculum online.
So check it out and see if you’d like to supplement with this. It will be built over 2 years. The price is right and I like to teach truth and freedom without all the agendas to my kids. It sounds really promising teaching self-discipline at a young age.
Here’s the link!
http://www.ronpaulcurriculum.com
We used Story of the World this last year, but we really struggled with it. My kids barely paid any attention to it. My daughter retained the information pretty well for her age (almost 6), but my 1st grader had a harder time – he doesn’t remember anything I just read. I was looking at Homeschool in the Woods program, but it is for grades 3-8 and I’ll be having a 2nd and 1st grader next year. It seems more hands on. SOTW does have projects, and they loved those, but with the actual learning part — that was not so great. I’m thinking if I do it again next year I’ll get the audio CD because my voice and brain is so tired from reading aloud so stinkin’ much all day long. Also, a lot of the curriculum you guys were talking about seem great, but with the Charter we go through we can’t use Religious curric, so I need different alternatives than most of what was listed. I may stick it out with SOTW until I can find something more fitting.