- High School History - Interesting and Alive!

Mar. 2, 2007

High School History - Interesting and Alive!

Must we as homeschoolers resort to using textbooks for High School History?

Many homeschool Moms do wonderfully teaching history with real, living books throughout the elementary years, but begin to worry as the high school years approach if these will be enough. A high quality high school history curriculum is possible by simply reading, studying, and writing about interesting non-fiction history books.

Think about it for a moment - where do text book writers get their information from? They go to the source - non fiction works, biographies, etc. Wouldn't it be great to go to the source and get the full story as they do and not just the condensed down version that the relatively small amount of space in a textbook allows?

We, as homeschoolers, have whole libraries at our service: using an online library service (Books by Mail) we have the benefit of many libraries at our service. Real books, not condensed, not watered down, not edited to only give us what they think we should know, but the whole story.

If our students go to the source, just as the textbook writers do, think of all the knowledge they'll gain. Have them write about what they read and they will essentially be writing "textbooks" of their own!

History is so exciting and so interesting, yet many, many people believe it to be boring and dry stuff. Why? Because when you mention history to the average adult they are remembering the textbooks they had to read in school. We can give our students a full, rich, live and interesting history curriculum. Why would we want anything less for our children?

~Penni

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Comments

Jun. 26, 2007 - maine-ly blogging

Posted by Anonymous

Thanks for your post, Penni. I'm using this approach with my kids for history and other subjects. I love historical novels and biographies and have learned so much that way.

Shine On,
Lill

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Aug. 8, 2007 - My favorite subject

Posted by Karen Davis

Penny, I couldn't agree more! History is my favorite homeschooling subject. It is the one subject that I simply unschool. We mostly read and read. Narratives, biographies, historical fiction. A textbook here and there to give an overview. I have learned so much in the past 15 years!

~Karen
www.karenshistoryproject.com

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About Me

The years have slipped bye so quickly. It seems as though it was just yesterday we were starting out homeschooling with a six year old and a 3 year old. Now my sons are 21 and 18 and this is my last year of homeschooling. A new season in life is ahead ~ the best is yet to come.