What's a good starting place to teach my kids history?

Question

This is my first year homeschooling my 6 and 7 year olds and I want to incorporate history into our lesson on Mondays. What is a good place to start for their age group?

Answer 1

Start with the father of our country, George Washington.  Here we have home programs provided by the state to ensure children are getting the subjects they need . Look into it where you live.

Answer 2

History has several categories, so pick one and rotate them throughout the years, The History of your state, US History, Ancient History, World History. For that age I would start with US History or your local history. They need to be repeated through the years as the children will understand more each time the subject is covered.

Answer 3

I would focus on American History. When I was that age we started with learning about native americans that lived in our near my home state. Kids can have a lot of fun with this, especially as we get closer to Thanksgiving.

Answer 4

start with the state in which you live and then move on to the country (for this age keeping it to major historical events)

Answer 5

I'm currently homeschooling my three older children, ages 8, 6, and 5.  We just started incorporating History this year.  I thought just a little history lesson here and there would suffice, as I hated history throughout my academic career, and assumed they'd dread it as well.  But one little taste, and they were hooked.  We now watch documentaries on the History Channel sometimes, and then discuss and elaborate from there.  They particularly like when I read those legendary American stories about Davy Crockett and Daniel Boone (their favorite one right now is about the Pony Express).  And maps...  my goodness!  They just love trying to remember the states.  I've bought puzzles for the 50 states and we use a blank world map for Oceans and Continents.  It's a running contest to see who can remember the most at one time.  I'm tickled that they have a hunger for history, as it was always my weakest subject.  Hope this helps.  Good luck!

Answer 6

I like to start at the beginning.  If you are a Christian that would be with Genesis, and then of course the early civilizations around the fertile crescent.  If you believe in evolution then you might prefer to start with a brief overview of that theory of human beginnings, and then move into the early civilizations around the fertile crescent.

Some people prefer to start with the History of their own country, so if you are American that would be.... well traditionally it would be either Leif Erickson (sp?) or Christopher Columbus... but that misses the fact that the Native Americans were already living here before either of them showed up.  Which is one of many reasons I like to start at the beginning and cover the History of the world over a four or five year span, looking at how all the different events influenced other events.

Answer 7

If you check the Core Knowledge series of books out at your local library (they are the ones entitled "What Your ____th Grader Needs To Know) it can give you some guidance on what you can cover each year.  So far, my son has done some world history, American history and geography each year.  There is a spiraling format over the years so you will revisit each event in more depth throughout the years.  We do supplement with other resources, but have found these books to be a remarkable framework on which to build a curriculum.  

They also have a great website that include free lesson plans from their schools.  What a treasure.   It is found at http://www.coreknowledge.org

We also really enjoy the Story of the World series of books and activity guides along with the core knowledge plan.  They are more chronological, but you can pick and choose the order in which you teach the material.  The kiddos especially enjoy these books.  They are more like reading a story than a dry, boring text.  

Enjoy the homeschooling adventure.

Answer 8

I'd start at the begining as much as possible.  The Middle East, Africa, the Mediertanian area.

This is where, for example, math comes from and does arcitecture, language, paiting, sculpturing.

Then I'd move on to China and then Europe.

It wouldn't hurt to incorporate religion into the situation.  The development of Judaism, Buddhish, Hindu, Christian, Muslim and how these lands got build around these pillars, because it links yesterday to today.

Start from ancient times, go into the dark ages, middle ages and the rennesance.

Then the exploration, art and science aspects.  Then the new world.

Answer 9

My youngest child is now 7 as well. He is our 4th one being homeschooled. All the others are in their teens and 20s now.

The best thing you can do at this age is to not think about what objectives they need to know or what facts the state says they should know. Your job now, at this age, is to inspire a love of history. I read a quote the other day. It said something along the lines of: Teaching without inspiring is like pounding cold iron.

I remember the first few currciculums I came across 15 years ago when my oldest kids where around that same age. The curriculums were textbooks and worksheets. I instinctively bristled. There had to be something better. Textbooks and worksheets would come in due time, but I knew that they would kill my kid's interest in history if I had used them. I kept looking and began finding resources that made history come alive for the kids (and me too). The kids made mocassins while I read a children's novel about the childhood of Daniel Boone and story's of Native American life during that era. We went tracking using a fieldguide and wearing our mocassins after we finished reading it. They built the castle from the Castle in the Attic that I read aloud to them when we studied the middle ages. If you are not good with coming up with fun hands-on history activities, try KONOS currciculum. The ladies who wrote this curriculum were very creative with ideas for their children.

The kids' bedtime was 8pm but the light stayed on and they could read silently until 9pm. At 9pm the lights went out and we turned on dramatised history stories for the children. They went to sleep enjoying the lives of important people in history. Your Story Hour has some really good children's audio dramatisations.

The kids and I developed a deep love of history by playing with it and enjoying it. Eventually, the fun gives way to textbooks, but by then so much history has been absorbed and the love so deep that even the textbooks don't erode the passion.

By the way, you can bypass science textbooks in similar fashion as well. Get kids and children's trade books instead of textbooks. Forgo worksheets and use discussion. You can because you only have two children not 20. A teacher in the classroom uses worksheets because she doesn't have time to talk to all her students to be sure they undertsand it. You do. :)