Hi! I don't post on here too often, so I'll give a quick background. I have 2 boys, 8 and 5, that I've been homeschooling from the start. I like the classical approach and I follow a lot of what is in 'The Well Trained Mind', though I do change around things when the need arrises. For the most part, everything is going pretty well. The exception would be history. I hate to admit it but I've never had much of an interest in history, which probably doesn't help matters. We've been trying to use 'The Story of the World' for the past 1 1/2 yrs and while I like the cyclic nature of it and the story format, my son gets /nothing/ out of it. I can read a sentance and he will not be able to tell me a single thing that I said. He likes doing the activities, but that's about it. We've also been watching 'America: The Story of US' on Netflix (until they pulled it) and he definitely got something out of that. So I know he's definitely a visual and hands on learner. Is there anything out there that does history in cycles and is visual? I've looked into Mystery of History, but since it uses SOTW as a base, I really don't think it will work. Would it be 'wrong' to just find videos from different time periods we want to learn about? Next year I've decided to just go back to the beginning again since my younger son will be doing 1st grade work. I'm hoping to do it right, for them, this time. Sorry for all the rambling thoughts. If anyone has any tips or ideas, I'd appreciate them.
I'm not sure what you mean by MoH using SotW as a base. :? They're not the same publisher and don't refer to each other in any way. I use MoH and like it (taking a 1 year break to do geography... but we mostly use MoH otherwise). SotW is an elementary curriculum that is primarily secular. MoH is a K-12 curriculum that weaves Christian history into secular history. It has activities for younger, middle, and older students, and there is so much in it that you can't possibly do it all the first time through (unless your entire curriculum is centered around history... it gives suggestions for novels and writing and stuff too, sometimes).
Oh, whoops. There's another one I was thinking of that has a bunch of activities and notebooking which uses SOTW as a spine. I did look at MoH too, but I'm not religious, so it won't work. It does look an interesting curriculum though.
Well, my kids are exactly the same. They have zero interest in history, and anytime I go through something with them, they won't remember a word of it. It feels like I am wasting my breath when I read history type things to them. The video idea you are using sounds just fine, especially at that age. You could just keep up with that and then go into more detail when they get older. Have you tried lapbooking history projects? You could try doing a lapbook after the video to reinforce what you learned. I'm thinking about trying some history lapbooks next.
Drive Thru History- a video based history, I think it has workbooks but they might be a little advanced. Liberty Kids- About the American Revolution, Has some web based activities and a website (I think). It was on Netflix but they rotate things around so much. Lapbooking has already been suggested. Buy a cheap digital video camera (if you don't already have one) and have them do a "News Report" on their history. If you record it you can play it back for them to "edit".
Thanks Blizzard and Marty. We do lapbooking projects. sometimes. I should do it more often. They enjoy them. I'll have to check out Drive thru History, I hadn't heard of that one. A news report is a great idea. They love making videos. I bet they'd also like making props for it too.
I wouldn't worry about them not getting anything out of history at this age. A grasp of history often doesn't come until kids get older. If your son enjoys the projects, keep doing them. He's probably getting more than you think.
At that age, we used many of the books on Sonlight's list. We also watched a lot of videos. Seems that PBS had a cartoon series for American history years ago. We also purchased Kingfisher's History Encyclopedia. LOVE the format. It is chronological with a running timeline across the top of every page. You see what was happening in China at the same time something else was going on in Rome. It is very colorful and has smaller chunks of info with the illustrations so my Ds never got bored. We have used it from early elementary to even a reference for high school.
Veritas Press is a classical approach to history, and they now have their history courses online and interactive.
Selecting DVDs and videos from a certain period in history is totally fine. Don't think it needs to be formal. Your goal is to have your child learn, correct? If your child learns well with videos then use them.
I wouldn't worry about retention too much, especially at a young age. Forced history lessons don't go too far in my opinion. I didn't care for history at all when I was young. Now, I read for my own pleasure from time to time about historical events. Some of the topics I have enjoyed are stories about missionaries and shipwrecks (Titanic is especially fascinating). I may have a very different opinion than a lot of people, but I don't worry AT ALL about covering the vast expanse of history. I would rather my son know a lot about some places, events and time periods than know just little snippets about the huge amount of information out there. Right now my son is interested in Russia. I just bought some books about Russia. I also don't plan on asking him 100 questions about what he reads. Maybe we will discuss it maybe I will just let him enjoy it on his own. If your son is interested in trains, let him read about the history of them or read aloud to him. He will learn about trains and history. That is just one example, but you get the idea.
My son is using the History Channel Multimedia Classroom dvd sets as his history. He did world history last year and we are doing US history this year. It's a great way to learn history. But....it's super, super expensive. Luckily we are able to borrow the sets. Youtube has history videos. Maybe you can check also out this site. And, when you are doing ancient and medieval history...you could add in History Portfolio Jr for some added hands on (a bit easier, I think, than making lap books from scratch). ETA: Here are some youtube kid history videos. Also, I forgot about Animated Hero Classic dvds. There are a few full episodes on youtube. Maybe Netflix has them?? Or, maybe your library can get them...they are pricey.
