My History Plan

My oldest is 17 years old and a junior in high school. He has just recently completed American History and World History and did quite well. I think a few things that we did during his early years helped him to have a good understanding of history and when things happened.

We started with bible history. Whenever we learned a bible story, from Adam and Eve through to St. Paul, I made sure he understood the geography of where the stories were taking place. I had several bible maps and atlases around. We also talked about what the culture was like, what kinds of food the people ate, what they did for a living and how they died. All of those pieces came to life and made the stories more real for him.

I blogged before that Calvin had always had trouble when he was younger with reading, so his early education just leant itself to a lot of reading of stories and historical fiction because he could not read a text book for himself and because the sound of me reading a text book to him was very dull!

We also incorporated a lot of movies into our homeschool whereever they were appropriate. For American history we wathed the entire Roots Series in one long marathon! I also remember watching John Wayne in The Alamo when we studied that. These didn’t teach history in and of themselves, but they gave him a touchstone to frame historical references to and they made the stories and the people come alive!

My current four students are taking a similar approach to history. As Sam finishes the 8th grade I am concentrating less on his history text book, All Ye Lands: World Cultures And Geography,and more on the reading and movie selections the All Ye Lands – Teacher’s Manualprovides to get him interested in the time period. Then I am going through the text book to fill in the gaps. For example, right now he is studying China and reading the book, Young Fu of the Upper Yangtze.

From his reading he understands the importance of the Yellow River and the Yangtze river and how they fit into the lives of the people.

My younger three present a different sort of challenge because I finally have a little girl to interest as well!! I just discovered the Little House prequels, and I intend to read through them slowly and attach historical events and geography as we go along.

To tie it all together, we will be putting pictures and notes on our time line in the class room which will always be a good reference point.

If I can at least give my children an appreciation for history and an understanding of why and how events occurred that shape our current world, I will consider it a success!

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