I had thought about doing Sonlight because I have heard rave reviews of their history program, but it looks like a little more work that what I want to do for history. I am already doing Phonics, handwriting, religion, science and math and I don't want to overwhelm him with too much stuff at such a young age. I was hoping to do some living books for history. I am doing a mostly Charlotte Mason education. Can anyone recommend some books? I am not really sure if I should work on a certain area of the world or time period or just kind of do a couple of books here and there to get him excited about history. I was planning on doing some readings with narrations about twice a week in the afternoons in our more informal learning time (during naptime for the other kids). I am going to do art and music appreciation on the other days. Any help you could offer would be greatly appreciated!
Ok, I don't do Charlotte Mason. I don't really understand her method very much. But I can tell you what I am doing for History. I have a 2nd grader and a K. I have a 2nd grade history book that I am using to guide me. Right now, the chapter is about Christopher Columbus. I am also reading a book about Christopher Columbus to them and have printed off several different printable about him, with each printable for their specific level of learning. As far as time period, what is he most interested in? I don't do un schooling, but for history and science, I think a child led concept is awesome. My mom used to say, "Your brain can only comprehend what your butt can endure." I hope this helps a bit!,
Also, depending on what or how you are teaching religion, that could count as history if you do a bit of background on your specific religion.
In PS social studies for K revolves around holidays and seasons, so anything you do will probably be more than that! ) Love of history would be my goal, so either world or US timeline could be used. Our favorites were always using the Magic Treehouse series as a stepping stone to studying a time period further. We also have enjoyed the "If you were there when" series in the primary years. Some of the titles are "If you were there when they signed the Constitution", "If you Sailed on the Mayflower", "If you lived in the time of the Revolution", etc. They are question and answer type books that are great for short spurts and inquiring minds. Read them straight through or just the parts you're interested in. For hands on projects, we love History Pockets by Evan Moor. There is one set for K-2, one for older. We mixed and matched across the ages. There is a nice one on Ancient Cultures for little ones -- paper dolls, pyramids, zodiacs, etc. My older one was doing Story of the World Ancients at the time and the little one (K-4) still loved to listen in, especially on the storybook supplemental resources we pulled from the library from the lists of resources in her workbook. The art projects in the workbook were fun for both of them. We focused mainly on Egypt, Greece and Rome that year with cool experiments like drawing cave pictures inside an old box, mummifying an apple, creating secret messages using hieroglyphics, creating and wrapping a plaster mummy, building lego mastabas and pryamids, etc. I'm not sure if you mentioned gender, but my girls also loved the American Girl Series. Most are good fictional stories set in historical context. History is my background, and I was impressed with all except the Kirsten series with historical accuracy.
