Making History Fun!

Hello fellow students of life! Today I wanted to show you how we make our history lessons more fun, hands-on, and memorable!

 

 

It is my belief that when students are creating things themselves they tend to remember it better. And since history isn’t always the most exciting subject for some kids, we like to do things to make it a little more fun. And to help them remember all of the main events and things that are important!

To help supplement our history curriculum this year we’ve been adding in the Evan-Moor History Pockets and the Scholastic Interactive 3-D American History maps. I shared a post already on how we love them, but now that our year is coming to a close I wanted to show you some of what we’ve created over the course of the year.

Most of these are from the Life in Plymouth Colony History Pocket. Since we were studying American History for the majority of the year, these fit in really well with our units. And like I mentioned, they are a lot of fun, and really help our kiddos remember people, places, and things from our early settlements!

 

Plymouth Colony:

We started off with a unit called “Voyage to the New World” where we discussed the actual journey that the pilgrims made, what it was like, and what they found when they got here.

 

Next we did a unit called “The New World” where we learned about the Mayflower Compact, a little about the land itself, and about the first Thanksgiving. We also learned what a town crier was and made up our own news announcement to share. Below Turbo is laughing as he reads his…

 

Next we did a unit called “Building a Village” where we talked about coming to the new world, what it was like, various terms such as militia and musket. And we learned what it was like to build a village from nothing.

 

Our next unit was called “Home Sweet Home”. This unit was all about what the pilgrim’s homes were like, what they age, how they cooked, and some of the things they ate.

 

We also made diorama’s of the inside of our homes. Strawberry Shortcake took hers a little further and made a two room home with added embellishments. I love her creativity!

 

Our next unit was all about pilgrim families. We learned all about their clothing choices, and what it meant to have good manners. We also made pilgrim puppets with the various outfits they wore.

 

We also did a unit on working in Plymouth Colony where we learned about the various jobs that were available and necessary for building a community. Then each of them got to pick a vocation and create a sign for their shop. We also did a small unit on quilting and colored various quilting patterns as well as created our own.

 

Of course we did a unit on “Going to School”! This was mostly review, but they got to create their own horn book, New England Primer mini-book, and read all about going to school back in the day!

 

 

We completed our unit with a reflection on some of the things that the Pilgrims gave us as a nation. We talked about manners, customs, herbs, gardening, and the various crafts the pilgrims contributed. We even tried a hasty pudding recipe. Which didn’t go well. But at least we tried!

And we finished off by pretending we were pilgrims, and writing a letter to a friend back in England telling them of our journey and adventures!

 

We really enjoyed this unit, and now we have a momento of our studies as well.

As you can see, it’s not too difficult to make your curriculum a little more exciting!

Hope you enjoy, and happy homeschooling :o)

 

Disclosure: This post was not sponsored in any way. All products were purchased using our own money and I’m sharing them because we love ‘em!