by Lorinda K. F. Newton
In my previous post, I explained how learning US history preserves our freedoms. Now, I will share how you can make your history lessons come alive.
Early in my homeschool journey, I attended a workshop by Diana Waring, author of the History Revealed curriculum. She encouraged us homeschool moms to move beyond textbooks and integrate our senses in our study of history.
To illustrate this, she gave us the smell of Napoleon. Apparently, Napoleon Bonaparte enjoyed to drench himself with Eau de Cologne each day so people would smell him before they saw him. Diana passed around a few samples for the audience to sniff.
Follow her lead and enrich your history lessons with quality resources, connections, and hands-on activities.
Quality Resources
Victorian educator Charlotte Mason declared that schoolbooks of her day were twaddle. These dry, dull texts bored children and failed to inspire them to learn. Instead, she insisted on living books for her school and for parents to use at home. Living books are typically written by one author, whose passion for his subject transfers to the reader.
The writing style of textbooks hasn’t changed much over the past century and continue to use bland language. So, when selecting history materials, choose living books.
Christian Worldview Curricula
Many popular homeschool curricula include living books: Beautiful Feet, BibioPlan for Families, My Father’s World, Sonlight, and Tapestry of Grace. The Mystery of History, although a set of four text books, are written by one author. Linda Lacour Hobar loves bringing to life historical events and biographies from a biblical worldview.
Secular Curricula
The popular Usborne and DK books attract children’s attention with their numerous illustrations and factoids. While not treating topics in depth, these books provide an excellent introduction to a subject. For those who disagree with their evolutionary point of view, use the references to that theory as conversation starters with your children.
Veritas Press and Sonlight have incorporated the secular The History of US series by Joy Hakim in their history program. Hakim writes in an upbeat style that captures the attention of young teens.
Supplementary Sources
If you prefer using a standard history text but want to add a variety of voices to your children’s lessons, consider these resources: Let the Authors Speak: A Guide to Worthy Books Based on Historical Setting by Carolyn Hatcher and All Through the Ages: History Through Literature Guide by Christine Miller. Each lists books for various ages by time period.
Digital Options
I prefer hard-copy books; however, digital media may help a child better understand a concept or bring history alive in a way that the printed page can’t. The Great Courses, designed for adult enrichment, can be used by high schoolers as well. We borrowed the Ancient Greek Civilization lecture DVD series from our library and used it in my then 14-year-old daughter’s ancient history course.
Hillsdale College has designed free, short courses on US government and history for adults, but I’m sure high schoolers will find them informative and engaging.
To dig deeper into US History, check Wallbuilders, Five-Minute American History, or the History Channel. Or for a quick bite, see PragerU.
Hollywood has produced several historical movies, but often with embellishment. Learning With the Movies: A Guide for Education and Fun by Beth Holland (2009) lists films for all school subjects and suggests quality ones. Also, read Focus on the Family’s PluggedIn reviews for viewer appropriateness.
Make Connections
Maps can illustrate how various nations have interacted with each other in war or trade, or demonstrate an empire’s growth. Providing a sense of place in history, maps will give your children another mental hook by which to remember an event or person.
For contemporary maps, I used Uncle Josh’s Outline Maps. For historical maps, I used Map Trek (review).
Timelines display the meta-narrative history and allow your children to see what events around the world happened simultaneously. When I taught my son first-grade ancient history, I mounted a timeline on the wall. Studying it, my husband and I became fascinated at how biblical history overlapped other ancient civilizations. It helped us place Old Testament events into historical context. See Homeschool in the Woods for timeline figures (review).
My maternal grandfather, and later my aunt, researched my mom’s family history. Since our ancestors arrived in America during the colonial period, I could add the names of those who fought in the Revolutionary War and Civil War to our timelines.
If you don’t have ancestral records, you can still tie into recent history. For instance, my father-in-law, who was a machinist, built parts for Apollo 13.
Hands-on Experiences
Most history lessons tend to revolve around a textbook. But you should add some spice to your studies occasionally.
Use your senses: In addition to smelling Napoleon, try cooking a meal from a historical period. Or make homemade butter as my daughter’s American Girl class did by shaking milk in baby food jars. We used The US History Cookbook and discovered some yummy recipes. Listen to period or cultural music while enjoying the taste and smell of history.
To get a “feel” for ancient history, I made an archaeological dig for my son when he was six. I buried some “artifacts” in the backyard and had him dig them up with a small shovel and brush.
Projects: Create lapbooks on a historical subject. You can devise your own (see The Ultimate Lap Book Handbook) or use the excellent ones designed by Homeschool in the Woods, which contain lesson plans and short texts to read.
Because my son loves Legos, I bought a bag of brown ones to build a ziggurat and an Assyrian siege tower. In middle school, he constructed a paper/foam kit of the Pantheon.
Sew a period costume or mimic the art of a time period or culture. For ideas, see Chicago Review Press’s series of historical/cultural activity books that include Ancient Egyptians and Their Neighbors: An Activity Guide. This one covers projects on architecture, clothing, writing, occupations, food, and religion. For US History, see the book collection on minority groups such as A Kid’s Guide to African American History.
Historically themed games: Learn US geography while having fun with the Great States! Game. Try your survival skills with Jamestown Survival Game (we usually didn’t survive) or experience the Pacific Ocean trail with the Lewis and Clark Adventure Game.
Field Trips: Find nearby cultural and historical sites. In the Puget Sound region, we have several including the Burke Museum, the Klondike Gold Rush Museum, and the Pioneer Farm Museum and Ohop Indian Village.
Turn family vacations into an extended field trip. In 2004, we visited Lewis and Clark’s Fort Clatsop site in Oregon. We explored Laura Ingalls Wilder’s “Little Town on the Prairie,” De Smet, South Dakota, in 2012.
Don’t just read a textbook and answer the questions at the end of the chapter. Put life into your study of history with living books, visual resources, maps, timelines, hands-on projects, and field trips. History will never be boring again.
Lorinda K. F. Newton began homeschooling her children in 2004, and her family joined Academy Northwest in 2014. Her family lives on beautiful Whidbey Island north of Seattle, Washington. She writes about faith, culture, and governing from a biblical worldview at Lorinda’s Ponderings and Lorinda’s Ponderings on Facebook. ©2020 by Lorinda K. F. Newton.
