My
oldest took U.S. History a few years ago when he was in the 7th grade. I
was concerned about how we would approach that subject since I have
never been particularly interested in History in any form. I think part of the reason for that is because it was taught in such a dry way (from a textbook) when I was in school. I
didn’t want that to be the case for my son as well. So, I prayed and
considered a few ways to go about it. What we ultimately
ended up doing worked very well and I would like to share it with you.
I purchased a book that gave very brief accounts of major events in U.S. History. And I used that book as a guide to know what to learn, and in what order. Then during our weekly library trips, I would let my son pick out any books he wanted that pertained to the following week’s History topic. For example, for the Industrial Revolution I let him pick out ANY book or books that looked interesting to him. Because it was his choice, he found very informative and entertaining books.
Sometimes he would get so into a topic that we would get more books the following week and extend the lesson. Those were also times that I would tell him to do a project on the topic. Again, I left it up to him. But I was available to offer suggestions if he was having a hard time coming up with something. Other times, he wasn’t very amused with that particular topic so we moved on quickly.
My son also kept a timeline so that he could refer back to what he learned later on. I used Donna Young’s approach for that. Like I said, I did purchase a U.S. History book, so the way we did it wasn’t completely free. But you can use a timeline online, like this one from Wikipedia. And then the subject wouldn’t have to cost you a dime. We did not cover every major event, time didn’t permit that. But my son did learn a lot about the history of our country that year. He sometimes discusses what he learned with others who also share an interest in U.S. History.
I purchased a book that gave very brief accounts of major events in U.S. History. And I used that book as a guide to know what to learn, and in what order. Then during our weekly library trips, I would let my son pick out any books he wanted that pertained to the following week’s History topic. For example, for the Industrial Revolution I let him pick out ANY book or books that looked interesting to him. Because it was his choice, he found very informative and entertaining books.
Sometimes he would get so into a topic that we would get more books the following week and extend the lesson. Those were also times that I would tell him to do a project on the topic. Again, I left it up to him. But I was available to offer suggestions if he was having a hard time coming up with something. Other times, he wasn’t very amused with that particular topic so we moved on quickly.
My son also kept a timeline so that he could refer back to what he learned later on. I used Donna Young’s approach for that. Like I said, I did purchase a U.S. History book, so the way we did it wasn’t completely free. But you can use a timeline online, like this one from Wikipedia. And then the subject wouldn’t have to cost you a dime. We did not cover every major event, time didn’t permit that. But my son did learn a lot about the history of our country that year. He sometimes discusses what he learned with others who also share an interest in U.S. History.
Serfronya Wallace
The six loves of Serfronya Wallace's life are God, her husband, and her 4 children - whom she homeschools. Serfronya enjoys sharing educational tips and writing about her family's homeschooling journey at Cookie's Domain.
The six loves of Serfronya Wallace's life are God, her husband, and her 4 children - whom she homeschools. Serfronya enjoys sharing educational tips and writing about her family's homeschooling journey at Cookie's Domain.
1 comment:
I could not do home schooling and I wish I could. I admire mom and dad's that can. I love history, and how events repeat themselves, man never seems to learn sometimes. Medieval history is amazing, with all the monarchs related they still were brutal with each other. The most important lesson I was taught was in college, a very great professor told me to always remember two things when you are reading about history or any article in the news paper. History is written by the victor and there is usually another side to it also that things you see in the history books today may be gone in a few years and more current events take their places. Lastly that because of this always read between the lines to see who is benefiting from the story and you will get a lot more out of it. A great way to teach this is looking at current events in the news paper, often if you find opposing views on the same topic like the health bill (easy example) one will be Democratic and the other usually Republican. Stories about American Indians are all like that, they were written by white men, never by Indians. When you look at History like this and read to find the story in the story it always opened it up for me more.
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