Despite my best intentions, when I teach my year-long overview of American history, it is simply not possible to cover all the thousands of cultural groups that lived in America before the arrival of European explorers. It would take a year of study on its own! As a result, when I introduce my young kindergartner
Read MoreBefore we jump in to our lessons about American history, I wanted to make sure my daughter had a general understanding of the geography of the USA. The United States of America would be nothing without the land. Before we study the people who live here, we need to understand where “here” is! Our introduction to U.S.
Read MoreWhen I read Recipes for Play (reviewed on Rebecca Reads), I started feeling the urge to try something messy and drastically different. I saved some newsprint and bought paints. To learn about the geography of the United States, we made a three-dimensional paper mache model of the United States. I learned to let mess in, and
Read MoreI first wrote the booklet about early Native American homes because I could not find something simple for a brief introduction to Native Americans for my son. I wanted him to understand that there was a variety of cultures living on the American continent before Europeans arrived. I wanted him to understand that the vastness
Read MoreTo begin my hands-on American History class at my homeschool co-op, I decided to introduce the world explorers by playing our Guess Who?-inspired game: Guess the World Explorer! Not all of the kids knew details about the various world explorers, so we revisited the information cards to learn as we played.Setting up the World Explorers
Read MoreIn anticipation of the upcoming holiday, we read The Very First Thanksgiving Day. I made my preschool daughter a simple puppet template related to the traditional first Thanksgiving dinner with the Pilgrims and the Wampanoags. Although she is young, playing with First Thanksgiving Story Puppets is a nice start to understanding the meaning of the
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