Keeping It Simple

Some of this is a rerun, but I have gotten a lot of interest in last year's American History Studies, so I thought I'd post an overview of the "Division and Civil War" portion of our studies. Mark and James (9 and 12yo) used History Pockets to document these two history units. Paul, my high school student, used notebook pages that I will add later (don't have pictures). We used " Hands on History " to document our Colonial and Revolutionary War studies, but I was not as happy with the Hands on History Civil War volume.  (By the way, if I could go back in time, I'd make this two posts. Lots of pictures and very long! It took too long to get it up, so I leave it as it is with my apologies.) American The Story of Us- Episode 4: Division  (We purchased the DVD series new at a very reasonable price after it became unavailable on Netflix) Episode Guide:  (IMPORTANT UPDATE ABOUT EPISODE GUIDES AT BOTTOM OF POST) I fi...

I wanted to share our American History book basket with you. In trying to think of an easier way to list them all, I decided to create amazon list (Listmania). I entered all the books and was making the last comments when the page disappeared!! Fortunately I had saved some of the list already. Eee gads! I did reenter the books without comments and quickly published the list so as not to lose it again. THEN I added comments-  briefly . I love sharing our thoughts on the books we read, but this was suppose to be just a few minute project. AMERICAN HISTORY PICTURE BOOK LIST Just a note- these are mostly picture books. I do have a volume about Paul Revere that is about as heavy as a flour sack that I could read with my boys, but, most of the time, I am just looking to "introduce" my children to a person or event. We can dive in deeper when needed, but these picture books are high interest and often bring a more personal look at the people and places of the time. ...

Resources that have influenced how we study history: When I began homeschooling 20 some years ago, I was introduced to Konos . I will tell you that I found it overwhelming, but I am so thankful to have had that put in front of me- it jolted me out of the "school at home" mentality very quickly. After our first year of homeschooling, I used it as a resource to add books, movies, and activities in to our studies. "Back in the day", I did not have a computer with the many resources now available at my finger tips- and believe me, Konos has as many worthy resources listed as a google search will turn up!! Beginning the second year of homeschooling with a newborn in my arms, I was looking for something that was a bit more couch friendly- as in do school while sitting on the couch. I found the perfect fit! Literature based studies from Beautiful Feet Books . I cannot tell you how much I enjoyed these study guides. We used the California History Study Guide ...

This week was notebook organization week. We went back and "dotted the i's and crossed the t's" on what we have so far. Each of my boys had things to glue on or fill out that they had left incomplete from the past months.  A lot of this post is a repeat- just all in one post this time. ;)  We are making "history pockets" to hold all of our completed pages and projects.   James' pocket for the earliest settlers.   Mark's from the Northern, Middle, and Southern colonies.  James' booklet on the French and Indian War.  This is Mark's Revolutionary War dominoes page- as we study each event leading up the war, it is written under a domino. The booklet standing up is his French and Indian War book.  Some things that go in a pocket are as simple as a worksheet like this one mounted on a sheet of colored paper. The pockets were created to hold any useful/valuable information about ...

We have been following so many rabbit trails that we find ourselves pretty thick in the forest right now. There are just so many fun books and movies to go with this time period (some more historically accurate than others!). I have made some adjustments to James' participation in our American History studies. He seemed to be getting frustrated with what I had planned for the boys to do. After giving it some thought, I realized that in spite of being the sophisticated age of nine, he really is more of a "younger elementary" student. To that end, I am picking and choosing a few projects that more fit his needs and he can just listen in for the rest. In a few years, he can have a redo. I knew that my assessment was correct when he was working on his Thanksgiving booklet and said- "I think this must be way funner than what the boys are doing." This booklet is made using US History Little Books: Famous Events . You can tell James took a little artistic l...