Homeschool: History

If you did not see my previous post about our 2020-21 school plans, read that here! This week I will be sharing a separate blog post for each school subject, detailing my plans for which curriculum we will be using. For reference, I will have a 5th grader, a 3rd grader, Kindergartener, and a 3-yr old preschooler this year. Honestly, I do not have any formal "school" plans for Andrew this year. He is an energetic 3-yr old boy and not yet ready to sit and follow directions. He even refuses to color with a crayon!  So any curriculum I list is for my 3 older kiddos.

Also, I feel like I should preface all of this by saying I reserve the right to change my mind about any of this! Haha. Seriously, I will not know if this is the right fit for my kids until we actually use it, so I'm giving myself full permission to switch curriculum if at any point I know it is not working.

HISTORY: Okay so I am actually really excited about teaching history. I think it will be fun to re-learn it as an adult, because I honestly do not remember a lot! My boys have both learned random bits and pieces of history in school, and obviously Jenna has learned nothing. So I've decided to just start at the beginning and teach them all US history, together as a family. I am excited to teach history through literature. Because after all, isn't history mostly a collage of stories about people? I got my hands on this tiny little book, per my sister's recommendation.

It is basically a book list of American historical literature, beginning in the year 900. This resource suggests books for grades K-3, as well as older grades. I've already got a great stack of biographies and other exciting books I plan on reading out loud to my kids this year, and we will most likely do this 3 days a week.

However.....I also feel like I need another resource as my history "spine". Something to suggest writing prompts, activities, reports, or just fill in the information that we won't necessarily get from only reading literature. I am so excited to be using "Our Star-Spangled Story" by Notgrass History. (They have a sample on their website....go check it out!)

Our Star-Spangled Story contains narrative stories about people and families in American history. In addition, it comes with a timeline and a CD, which contains music from different points in history. I'm really excited about the music portion, as I think hearing the songs from our country's history will really make the stories come alive for my kids. I received our book this week and after flipping through, I'm confident it will a great framework for history this year. At the end of each 3-lesson unit there is a hands-on activity, and I'm quite impressed with what I see. I can imagine us listening to the unit's song on a Friday while we do our hands-on project. I'm eager to begin this book and start discovering the stories of history with my kids!