Welcome to the History Department. In this section, we will be discussing how to create a history curriculum. I have tried to suggest religious connections when I think of them, for those who have religious homeschools. We are actually fairly secular in ours, but religion, as a part of our life, is also a part of our school, and the subject comes up frequently. We will start with a basic introduction and then you can follow links to any time period you're interested in.
The public school system of teaching history has never made any sense to me. It is usually taught geographically, starting with a child's neighborhood, and moving to the city, the state, the country and maybe, if there is enough time, the world. The problem with this system is that the students have no foundation for the material they are learning. How can they understand the European explorations of the so-called New World if they don't know what was going on in Europe that made people want to search? How can they understand the colonization by the Puritans or the Pilgrims if they don't understand how government and religion were so closely intermingled? When I first homeschooled my oldest daughter, I used the district schedule, but I soon realized I was spending too much time trying to explain the background of each event. When my younger children started homeschooling, I decided to teach them chronologically. We started with ancient history and worked our way through time. The trend now is to teach a very international curriculum, and I tried it using a multicultural text, but I found the transitions through time and culture were too confusing for young children. We went back to an outdated, Eurocentric curriculm, and I tried to toss in the multicultural material in other areas. Naturally, if any particular country is important to your heritage, you will want to spend some time learning that culture.
Here is how we have broken down our curriculum so far:(The first year, the children were in second and third grade. We'll talk about starting younger in a few minutes.)
Year one: ancient history through Greece and Rome, ending with what used to be called the Dark Ages.
Year Two: The middle ages. I intended to combine this with the Renaissance, but we got so interested, we forgot to move on!
Year three: The Renaissance, and through the European explorations of America.
Year four: We settled America and get to the Civil War.
This Year: We actually worked on the Civil War last year, but the kids got whooping cough and it really only got skimmed, so this year, we backed up. We're doing the California gold rush and moving forward as far as we get, depending on how interested we become and whether or not we move this year.
If you start with kindergarten, try covering the pre-history time period by itself. To learn how to adapt a history curriculum to meet the needs of several children, check out my article on Secrets of the One Room School.
This is the basic schedule I use for teaching any subject: First I use a textbook to cover the basics. If the children are old enough, they can read it themselves. If they aren't, you can read it to them, or read it yourself and then tell them about it. You might be able to find good library books on the subject to interest littler children. After we get the basics, and answer the questions at the end of the chapter, we read the interesting books from the library and check out internet or museum sources. This is where we get the stuff that makes homeschooling fun-the activities, the debates, the literature.
Eventually, I hope this history section will contain complete lesson plans for unit studies. For now, though, it mainly contains summaries of the material you need to teach in each time and a few ideas if I think of them. I'll be adding web links as I find them as well. I don't use a packaged curriculum, so I always need to know what material to cover in each section. This makes planning and research go faster. I tend to emphasize vocabulary, so you'll find a lot of that here. Check back because I'm building as fast as I can.
As you'll see, this is, for now, a U.S. centered curriculum, since that's where I live. If you know of a good curriculum based around other cultures, I'd love to know about it.
New: Hawaii is one of our most popular states. Here is a lesson plan based on an article I wrote for Suite101.com. In it, students will explore Hawaii and evaluate their feelings on how we acquired this stolen addition to our flag.
Using Genealogy to Enrich Your Curriculum
Archaeology This is a good way to help children learn how we know what we know about ancient times. Terms, activities and links
Prehistory Prehistory is the time before writing. With your new background in archaeology, you are ready to learn about this fascinating time period.
When History and Religion Conflict Sometimes your study of prehistory will conflict with your religious views. How do we explain the dinosaurs and cave men? Here are some suggestions for coping with the conflicts. (Please be aware, these are my opinions and are not meant to offend anyone.)
The Babylonians An important ancient culture. Background information on the culture
The Sumerians: First Civilization The fascinating land of Mesopotamia
Egypt: Part One Ancient Egypt is fascinating to children. There are good materials in your library and on the Internet as well. This is the first of two articles, with links, on the culture.
Egypt; Part Two Covers the New Kingdom time period of the culture, and has suggestions for activities.
Teaching the California Gold Rush This is a very extensive lesson plan for teaching this subject. This introductory page leads to a series of pages you can use in teaching the gold rush, including a printable text for your children, links, connections to other subject and a vocabulary guide. It is internet based, and I used it to teach my own children this year.
Building a History-based Unit Study Step-by-step guide to putting together your own units. Then try your hand at the Mulan unit described below. After that, you'll be ready to try your own from scratch!
Preparing a unit study on Mulan Many parents wonder how to create a history unit. This is based on the Disney movie of Mulan. The article gives you links and curriculum connections and shows you how to use these to create a thematic unit.