Teaching Homeschool History - The First Year

As promised, I'm going to do a handful of homeschool posts grouped by school subject to kind of outline how we cover them. Remember, this is just what we do or have done so far. It's not meant for everyone, and the process is evolving for us as well. I'm still pretty new to all this, with The Big One just being seven, so I'm learning as I go along. Still, if you're a new homeschooler or want-to-be homeschooler, or just curious, and it helps you to see how other people plan and organize their homeschool days, feel free to read on.

I mentioned in my last post, How do you homeschool? Part 3 - A method to the madness, that history is the backbone of our studies. I also mentioned that we loosely follow the plan outlined in the book A Well Trained Mind, which divides history into four chronological sections. Right now we're in the middle of going through the sections the first time on a basic level. Then we will repeat them again on a more detailed level, and finally once more on a deep and analytical level. At least that's the idea. So far we've covered ancient history, and are now most of the way through Medieval history (or, the period from the fall of Rome to the start of the Renaissance). Next year we will cover Renaissance to early modern history, and then modern history the year after.

To prepare for learning ancient history in 1st grade, we started with pre-history as one of our last topics in kindergarten. At the time, like many 5 year-old boys, The Big One had an interest in dinosaurs. We had just finished spending some time on the basics of the solar system, as he also had an interest in space.

His first science fair project.

To transition from space to dinosaurs, we talked about the birth of the Earth and geologic time. Along with basic level books from the library and videos online, we printed, read, and illustrated the mini-books from this website - http://www.fossils-facts-and-finds.com/montessori_materials.html. We talked about the creatures of the late Permian period forward and proceded chronologically, giving a really super basic discussion of evolution as we went. Much of what we learned at the end of the kindergarten year falls on the line between what's considered "science" vs what's considered "history", but again this was just a kindergarten level set-up.

Clearly, we are secular homeschoolers. I recognize that some families wouldn't find these topics acceptable or desirable in their curriculum.

The Big One really loves movies and generally watches with interest, even if things are beyond his scope of understanding, so we watched BBC's "Walking with Monsters" series, then "Walking with Dinosaurs" and "Walking with Beasts". For language arts, we read from whatever applicable books we could find at the library. The Big One practiced his reading skills in books from the I Can Read series like Beyond the Dinosaurs, The Day the Dinosaurs Died, and After the Dinosaurs, as well as the Pre-level 1 DK Reader Meet the Dinosaurs. He practiced writing by keeping a list of all the dinosaurs he read about, along with what era they were from and whether they were omnivore, carnivore, or herbivore. In math, he made a chart of the numbers of dinosaurs he encountered from each time period and made bar graphs of the dinosaurs he read about by period and diet.

A list of dinosaurs.

Eventually, this all lead to man. We watched the History Channel special "Ape to Man" as well as BBCs "Walking with Cavemen". We also took a family field trip to the Smithsonian Natural History Museum in Washington DC to see all the things we read and learned about up close.

His kindergarten work was much beyond the level of my own.

That's where we stood as we started ancient history for 1st grade. I was lucky in that The Big One was a fast and eager learner, even in kindergarten, and was willing to do things when I asked for the most part. With The Little One doing kindergarten next year, I'm sure I'm going to have to come up with a very different plan.

Starting in 1st grade, we got into more of a formalized schedule. I put a lot of time over the summer before 1st grade in planning out how I wanted things to go. Key word being "wanted". I decided on three days a week of history, to be done on Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday, with roughly an hour or so devoted to history each of those days.

For our core history texts, I bought copies of The Kingfisher Book of the Ancient World and The Usborne Encyclopedia of World History. I divided up the Kingfisher book into about 40 weeks of lessons*, grouped loosely by geographic area. These books were supplemented by whatever I could find on the subject in the library, plus websites and sometimes videos online or on Netflix.

(*Side note - How many weeks you out spend of the year "doing school" depends on your local homeschooling laws and how how you want to organize or not organize things. I prefer to pretty much work through the summer, and take weeks off whenever we want or need to throughout the year instead of one long "summer break". We take weeks off for holidays, birthdays, vacations, etc. Other people may prefer to follow the public school calendar, while still others probably do fewer weeks of school overall. It's up to what's best for you, your student, and your family.)

While completing history work three times a week, we had general goals or tasks we were to complete for each day of the week.

On Monday, we would introduce the topic. These are the notes I made to myself in my planner:

"History subject introduction

-discuss what we will be covering this week

-give basic overview

-watch video on topic, if available

-start reading books on topic, if available

Map and Timeline page

-see example in history notebook"

Monday, introduction day, would usually start with a discussion of the geographical location we were reading about. The Kingfisher book includes a lot of great maps, and of course there are always maps and graphics online. This means we don't cover geography as a separate subject. "History" for us is really more like "social studies". We cover history, geography, religion, and politics all together as one. This makes logical sense to me as all of those topics are really linked closely together.

Continuing with our Monday plan - Once we understood what area of the world we were talking about, I'd skim some of the pages in Kingfisher and we'd look at the pictures and captions. The Usborne History Encyclopedia is pretty simple and to the point, so we'd usually go ahead and read the corresponding pages of that on Monday. The sentences in the captions are especially easy to read, and The Big One would ask to read them out loud as his contribution to the reading. After reading, if I'd found a video on the topic, we'd watch that. There are tons of videos available online but of course they require adult previewing before showing students. I just this year found this mom's blog where she links to all the videos she found for her history topics. It is a great resource. Before I found this I searched for everything on my own, hopefully in advance though sometimes I didn't plan as well.

After reading and videos, I'd print out a small map of the area we were discussing and have The Big One cut and paste it to a sheet of lined paper. Together we'd pick out three dates of importance from what we read, and he would write them, timeline style, on his paper. This served as writing practice, as well as helping to keep things in chronological context.

My Sample Map and Timeline Page

Tuesday was reading day. Here are my Tuesday notes:

"History

-Read related sections from history texts

-Visit applicable websites for more information, animations, games, quizzes (Use Usborne Quicklinks search for webpages if needed)"

On Tuesday we would read the Kingfisher book more closely. It is written at a level above what most 1st graders can handle, but I found this to be a good way to pick up vocabulary and I appreciated that the topics weren't over simplified or dumbed down. Reading this higher level book meant that I needed to pause to give explanations here and there, which took a bit of time, so reading would be most of our hour that day. The Usborne book includes access to a website with reviewed links for kids on the topics for each page. I started the year by searching out my own websites, but often found them already listed on the Usborne site, so just using that saved planning time. The Big One loves computers and games, and there are really some neat online children's activities for ancient history. One day I'll get some lists of links together. On other websites we would just skim and look at the pictures and be done.

Finally, Thursday was wrapping up day. My Thursday notes to myself read:

"History

-read from library books on history topic to deepen understanding

-refer to example in history notebook for example history notebook page"

Once a week, on whichever day before Thursday worked out best, we would go to the library and fill a bag with whatever we could find relating to our topic. Or, I would do that while The Big One searched for Pokemon and other TV-show-based books. On Thursday, then, if we hadn't gotten too excited and read all the books ahead of time, we would read library books relating to our topic. Sometimes these were more nonfiction sources, like the DK Eyewitness books. Sometimes these were fiction sources, like a children's version of the Odyssey. Both kids also began to enjoy books on CD, and I found a good selection of folktales and fables at our library that were grouped by geographical location of origin. They're produced by Rabbit Ears Listening Library. So, for example, while learning about ancient India we could listen in the car to stories that came from India. 

Finally, on Thursday, we would do what I call a "narration page". For this, The Big One would tell us everything he could remember about the week's topic, and as he narrated I (or Matt) wrote it down. In this first year, we focused little on form. Towards the end of the year we started to talk some about introduction and closing sentences, but the main point was to get him to put the history lesson into his own words. Sometimes that required a good deal of prompting with questions, sometimes not. When he'd finished, The Big One would read what we'd taken down, and then draw a picture of something relating to the week's topic.

Sample narration page.

Here's how the year's schedule broke down:

Prehistory

-Week 1 

Formations of Earth – Hadean, Archean, Proterozoic (Usborne History pg 13 & 20-25)

-Week 2 

First creatures – Paleozoic, Mesozoic (Usborne Science pg 186-187; Usborne History pg 18-19 & 26-59)

-Week 3 

Start of Cenozoic era (Usborne Science pg 187), Mammals (Usborne History pg 60-77) 

-Week 4 

First people (Usborne History pg 78-101; Ancient World pg 12-15)

The Fertile Crescent 

-Week 5

Geography of Fertile Crescent, First Farmers and Cities

Mesopotamia and Sumer

Sumerians – invention of writing, crafts and trade, invention of the wheel, kings and war

First cities – city of Ur

(Ancient World pg 16- 21, Usborne History pg 108-113)

-Week 6

Mesopotamia and Babylon

Hammurabi

The Hittites and the Assyrians

(Ancient World pg 22-25; Usborne History pg 132-133, 146-151)

-Week 7

The Chaldeans and Babylon

Nebuchadnezzar

The Hanging Gardens

(Ancient World pg 26-27; Usborne History pg 150-151)

Ancient Egypt

-Week 8

The Old Kingdom

Geography of Egypt and Nile

The Great Pyramid at Giza

Ra –Sun God

Hieroglyphics

(Ancient World pg 28-31; Usborne History pg 114-115, 117)

-Week 9

Middle Kingdom

Mentuhotep II

Mummification

Gods, Goddesses, and Temples

Orisis and Isis – God and Goddess of the Underworld

Music

(Ancient World pg 32-33; Usborne History pg 116 & 134-137)

-Week 10

The New Kingdom: A Golden Age

Tutankhamen – King Tut

Cleanliness and Health

Queen Hatshepsut

(Ancient World pg 34-35)

-Week 11

End of the Egyptian Empire

The Ptolemies

Cleopatra

Rosetta Stone

(Ancient World pg 36-37; Usborne History pg 138-139)

The Aegean Civilizations

-Week 12

Geography

Ancient Crete: the Minoans

The Palace at Knossos

King Minos

Theseus and the legend of the minotaur

(Ancient World pg 64-65; Usborne History pg 124-127)

-Week 13

The Mycanaean Civilization

Trojan War

The Dark Ages of Greece

Homer

The acropolis

Athens and Sparta

(Ancient World pg 66-69, Usborne History pg 128-131; 154-155)

-Week 14

The Golden Age of Greece

Athens, Pericles, and democracy

Temples, columns

Greek Gods – Apollo, Zeus, Poseidon, Artemis

The Olympics

Hippocrates and ancient medicine

Euclid, Pythagorus and mathematics

Drama and plays

Philosophers – Socrates, Plato, Aristotle

The Peloponnesian War

(Ancient World pg 70-73; Usbourne History pg 156-159)

-Week 15

Alexander the Great

Arabia

City of Petra

(Ancient World pg 74-75; Usborne History pg 160-161; 171)

Ancient Rome

-Week 16

Geography

The Foundations of Rome

Romulus and Remus

Roman Gods

Etruscans

Latin

Togas

(Ancient History pg 76-79; Usborne History pg 164)

-Week 17

Heading Toward an Empire

Punic Wars

Hannibal

Julius Caesar

Government – Republic, senate, dictator

The Roman Army

(Ancient World pg 80-81; Usborne History pg 185-187)

-Week 18

Life in the Roman Empire

Roads

Bath houses

Chariot racing

Gladiators

City of Pompeii and Mt Vesuvius

Augustus

Aqueducts

(Ancient World pg 82-85; Usborne History pg 188-191)

-Week 19

The Decline of the Roman Empire

Barbarians

Emperor Constantine

Hadrian’s Wall

(Ancient World pg 86-87; Usborne History pg 194-195)

Ancient Europe

-Week 20

Geography

The Monuments of Megalithic Europe

Stonehenge

The Bronze Age

(Ancient World pg 102; Usborne History pg 120-123)

-Week 21

The Celts

Druids

The Gauls

Hilltop forts

“In Search of New Lands”

The Saxons

The Angles

The Jutes

Runes

(Ancient World pg 108-113; Usborne History pg 182-183, 204)

The Middle East

-Week 22

Geography of the Middle East

The Phoenician Civilization

City of Tyre

Crafts – Glassblowing, ivory carvings

Purple dye from murex shell – dyed cloth

Carthage

Phoenician alphabet

(Ancient History pg 89-91; Usborne History pg 144-145)

-Week 23

The Hebrews and the Land of Israel

Abraham

Moses and the Ten Commandments

King David

Jerusalem

King Soloman

Judaism

(Ancient History pg 92-93; Usborne History pg 142-143)

-Week 24

The Mighty Persian Empire

Darius I

Persepolis

Zoroastrianism and Zarathustra

The Parthian and Sassanian Empires

Feudal society

Shapur I

(Ancient History pg 94-97; Usborne History pg 152-153)

-Week 25

The Lands of Palestine and Judea

Exile of Jews by King Nebuchadnezzar

Seleucids, king Antiochus IV, Jews revolt

King Herod

Pontius Pilate

Romans destruction of Temple in Jerusalem

(Ancient History pg 98-99)

-Week 26

The Spread of Christianity

Jesus

Resurrection

Paul and Peter

The Dead Sea Scrolls

(Ancient History pg 100-101; Usborne History pg 192-193)

The Indus Valley and India

-Week 27

Geography

Mohenjo-Daro and Harappa

The Great Bath

Aryan India: Tribal Times

Nomads

Sanskirt

Classes of society

The Vedas

(Ancient History pg 54-56; Usborne History pg 118-119)

-Week 28

The Mauryan Empire and Gupta Dynasty

Asoka

Arts and entertainment – Indian music, dance, painting, poetry

Hinduism

Brahman – Brahma, Vishnu, Shiva

Caste system

(Ancient History pg 58-61; Usborne History pg 174-175)

-Week 29

Buddhism

Siddhartha Gautama

Nirvana

Meditation

(Ancient History pg 58-61; Usborne History pg 174-175)

The Far East

-Week 30

Geography

The First Chinese Civilizations

The Zhou Dynasty: Upheavals

Confucious

Lao Tzu

Ying and Yang

(Ancient World pg 38-43; Usborne history pg 164-165)

-Week 31

The Qin Dynasty: Shi Huangdi

Great Wall of China

Shi Huangdi and the Terracotta Army

The Han Dynasty: Uniting the Land

A Time of Chaos: A Divided Land

(Ancient World pg 44-49; Usborne History pg 166-169)

-Week 32

The Early Peoples of Japan

Shinto

(Ancient History p 50-51; Usborne History pg 170)

Africa

-Week 33, 34, 35

The Americas

-Week 36, 37, 38

Oceania

-Week 39, 40

Just a note - I do not see the last three geographic areas, with no details listed, as any less important than the others. I simply ran out of time while doing my summer planning to write out all the notes I wanted. This is all copied and pasted from a planning document I had made before starting the school year. "Ancient History" refers to the Kingfisher Book of Ancient History and "Usborne History" refers to the Usborne Encyclopedia of World History. You'll notice that the topics are grouped first by geographical area and then in chronological order. I found this easier than setting everything up chronologically and then jumping around the globe, at least for the first year. Maybe when we do ancient history again for the second or third time we'll look at it more chronologically. 

For record keeping, The Big One as a notebook dedicated to just history papers. It has three tabs - Narration Pages, Map and Timeline Pages, and People. He files his Map and Timeline, and Narration papers under the applicable tab. People is a tab we started part-way into the year, where I would write the names and basic facts about important people that came up in our reading. Halfway through the year we did a matching quiz on the important people we'd learned so far. We intended to do a second one at the end of year, but then forgot.

So, for example, here's what week 22, The Phoenecian Civilization, would have looked like:

Monday -
-Talk about geography of the Middle East. Look at maps and check out geographical and land features.
-browse Ancient History pg 89-91 and look at the pictures
-read Usborne History pg 144-145
-watch Sailing With the Phoenecians
-complete a map and timeline page

Tuesday-
-read Ancient History pg 89-91
-watch video on glass blowing
-visit websites:
Ancient Civilizations
Carthage.edu
Metropolitan Museum of Art
Ancient Encyclopedia of History (timeline on side)
National Geographic (pictures and map on side)
WikiJunior

Thursday-
-read library books
-dye fabric purple and try writing name in Phoencian alphabet (in art)
-narration page

Our topics in art and music tied into what we did in history, and will be covered in their own posts soon, along with the other subjects.

And that's how we covered history in our first official homeschool year.