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
Before 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.
When 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
I 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
To 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
In 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
On September 11, 2001, I got up early because that was the only time my apartment of six was quiet. I read the entire New York Times and headed up to my early Economics class. When I got there, I learned of the attacks in New York. It’s hard to consider how to teach of
It is an unfortunate truth that we have to teach our kids about the horrors of the world, such as what happened in New York City on September 11, 2001. Doing so, however, should be a concept learned little by little, line upon line, as they grow. Here are some sensible ways to teach about
Pioneer Day is celebrated July 24 in Utah, which is where a lot of my husband’s family lives. It celebrates the first arrival of pioneers in the Salt Lake Valley. Although we aren’t living there, we thought it would be a good time to slip in a study about covered wagon pioneers. After our covered wagon
Little House in the Big Woods introduces children of today to how children in the 1800s lived, ate, and played. My kids and I have read Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House in the Big Woods a few times of the past few years (Click here to see the book listed on Amazon). I was delighted
We do not usually do a lot of formal learning during the summer, because we are running around with swim team and family trips. This coming school year we’ll be studying American History! The middle-of-the-summer celebration of Independence Day gives a nice chance to slip some history review into our day over the summer. Since
With Thanksgiving coming, it’s time to reflect on what it means to us personally, as well as the context in which we traditional celebrate the holiday. For my older students in my homeschool writing co-op, I found writing about history is a nice way to approach it. Why Read and Write about Thanksgiving?When it’s time
