Posted in History

We generally have read so much historical fiction and listened to so many history tapes that I have never really been concerned that we weren't learning enough in this area.  I wish I was one of those moms who enjoy doing unit studies with all kinds of fun activities to learn history, and I wish that we had a wonderful timeline that my children had filled in through the years.....but I'm not....and we don't.  I tried and tried to do things like this and we would end up in misery and setting aside whatever it was we were using.        I'm not even going to list the various unit study curriculums here that we have tried because I did finally accept the fact that it was me and my teaching style that was the problem -- not the curriculum.  (Goes back to "If Mama ain't happy....".....well, you know the rest.)  So here is what we are doing this year...

My oldest son asked before the summer if he could just have a history textbook so he could go through it by himself at his own pace.  Hmmm....said I......okay!  I ended up getting him a Bob Jones 9th grade Geography book (decided this just by looking at the different texts for 8th and 9th grade and bought the one I thought he would learn the most from that wouldn't be repetitive for him).  This book does a good job of combining geography and world history.  And, of course, I also bought the maps and the tests to go along with it.  After all, isn't that part of "doing" a textbook???  Well, several months later, he is enjoying reading the textbook at his own pace and sometimes even shares with the rest of us some of the interesting things he has learned!  (He is a very visual learner and this seems to work for him.  We put aside the maps and tests.  As long as he can tell me about what he has learned, that's good enough for me in this subject area for now.)

My next son is really enjoying Story of the World Vol. 2.  I realize this curriculum says it is for younger grades but he is going through it on his own and doing all of the map work that is in the activity book.  He really enjoys the map work and the memory cards and is retaining much of what he has read about.  He did this with Volume 1 last year.  I gave him the option of doing something different this year and he really wanted to continue with this series.  Sometimes you just can't pay attention to the "grade level" of the book.  I know that he will learn a lot by doing this on his own and will have a definite frame of reference when he studies history in his high school years.  He just follows a schedule that I made up for him and marks it off as he gets it done. 

I started out this year going through Beautiful Feet Early American History with my younger two this year.  They really enjoyed it but we are taking a break while they are working on United States Notebooks that they wanted to do.  I plan to get back to the Beautiful Feet history in a few weeks with them.  We school through the summer, so I don't worry too much about getting finished by the end of the school year, etc.  (Summer is so hot where we live, we might as well continue with our homeschooling unless something comes up that we want to do.  We take breaks during fall and winter when we can enjoy being outside more.)

My kids still enjoy reading lots of historical fiction books and I know they are retaining so much more about history than I ever did when I was in school!  (I was one of those students who could learn it, remember it to do well on the test, and then completely forget it).