Do you/can you teach history without doing workbook stuff?

[tammyw]

I love reading about history to my daughter (7.5) and we've been following grades 2 and 3 in the "what your .... child needs to know".

I was just wondering if anyone else is NOT using workbook type of stuff to reinforce what they learn in this area? For me, reading about it feels great, but actually having to write about it, answer questions, etc. (say the workbook of SOTW or History Odyssey (which I've never used)) just feels blech.

Just wondering if there are others who do this and find that their kids learn just fine without problems?

I'm going through a bit of insecurity right now, wanting to make sure I cover everything in the "guide" but also wanted to keep it fun and inviting to her (and me).

If you do follow this method, I'd love to hear what you are doing, which books you love.

[Multimomma]

Our history so far has been all hands on. We started locally, and traveled around our state visiting sites and talking about what has happened there. We've traveled around the country, and done the same. While we can't possibly visit the entire US, I think traveling to different corners gives a perspective that broadens their minds and helps them connect what we read about to what we see every day.

Also, keep history alive by keeping up with current events. As the kids get older (10/11/12 yo), reading the news has been a wonderful way to start conversations about WHY people would be more upset about x, y and z. Gingrich's crazy rant about the mosque has been a good intro into the Cordoba missions and what really happened in Spain a thousand years ago...and what's happening now.

Remember that history is all around us. By building a love of knowing why and how, it's a great way to open their hearts to knowing the history of every place they've been, and how it connects to our lives now.

[AAK]

Don't forget reinactments of events or just "going into character" for a specific timeperiod. That reinforces lessons more so than workbooks for us.

Amy

[kgianforti]

I plan on using Beautiful Feet next year. It's literature based.

[tammyw]

So it sounds like yes, I am fine doing this. I absolutely love the books sold at Beautiful Feet. The biggest problem for us is we are running out of space with our already huge library of books, and we are military so we move.

I wonder if they have a guide book that I could simply buy (e.g. here's the list of books to read and in what order) to make it flow better. Then I could get the books from the library (or buy whatever I can't).

I think I'll email them to ask.

[Lisa1970]

I would never do workbook stuff with history. It just ruins history. And my children are in the mid to upper 90's percentiles on the ITBS testing for social studies.

[moominmamma]

Totally! We use reference books, historical fiction, narrative history books, documentaries, hands-on projects, travel, museum visits, conversations and experiences. I can't imagine using worksheets; they're just so dry and contrived compared to the history learning my kids experience.

On a humourous and vindicating note, my eldest went to school for three days to try it out near the end of 3rd grade and was the only student to get a perfect score on a history worksheet quiz -- on material she hadn't been in class for when it was taught, material I honestly couldn't remember "covering" with her. But I guess she had encountered it, and I guess she'd retained it just fine!

Miranda

[tammyw]

I know this is probably a no-brainer question for many of you, but it is very relieving. I think I just got a little panicky (we also just went through a major move from Hawaii to California) and wondered "are we doing enough" even though yes, our daughter seems to know a lot more history than any of her same aged former neighbors who went to school.

I guess then, my biggest problem, is organization. What books to read and in what order. Does anyone have suggestions to that? Even just a rough starting point of a good timeline to follow? We've been reading a mish-mash of stuff here and there for a couple years but I think it might be nice for putting it all together and having it make sense if we had a sense of order to the reading. I certainly don't mind paying for a great guidebook either. Seems to me it would be worth its weight in gold in this house!

I need to start thinking about various places across the US that we could vacation, that would also be great for learning purposes (without billing it as "learning" lol). There needs to be a book titled "Great places for homeschoolers to vacation" or something like that

[dotnetdiva]

Workbooks is the last thing I associate history with! We do use SOTW and the Activity Guide, but I don't by any means think of it as workbook. I think of it as fun activities/crafts to do with my daughter that we love. Suggestions for read-alouds....

[lorrielink]

We don't follow a guide and use many different materials to explore history/geography/cultural studies. And we use largely a living/literature angle to covering these subjects as well as plenty of games and videos.

Heres a random list of some of our favorite resources and some things I am buying for this year.

books:
Horrible History

Build World Myths
If the world were a village
How to build your own country


Games
Oregon Trail
10 days in the Americas
Ace of Empires


Timelines (we have a huge one on our wall as well as make books/art papers for specific subjects)
Prehistory
Tech
How to


Hope some of those help, let me know if you would like more.

[zjande]

I've been scratching my head trying to figure out how SOTW could be considered a workbook. We've done SOTW 2 & 3. There is so much recommended related reading in the activity guide that I just loved, it became the spine of our homeschool. I did ask my son questions about what he read... Oh, there are maps at the back of the book you can have your child fill out, but we didn't use those often. I also added a little more reading now & then from living history book lists, and movies from Netflix or the History Channel online.

Anyway, I was going to answer the OP's question by saying "Us! We don't use workbooks either, we use SOTW!" But nevermind.

[tammyw]

I must be completely confused then about the activity guide for SOTW. I thought it was more "workbook" style. Sorry about the confusion!

[moominmamma]

Originally Posted by tammyw

I must be completely confused then about the activity guide for SOTW. I thought it was more "workbook" style. Sorry about the confusion!

It's got some pretty workbooky stuff in it. Maps and colouring sheets. Lots of other stuff too, though.

Miranda

[ChinaDoll]

We use Sonlight, a Christian literature-based curricula, and love it - history from living books, no workbooks! Many people use just the reading list, getting books from the library.

[littlest birds]

We do reading only--nothing written. We read out loud mostly, taking turns. DS has Asperger's and processing questions and writing just are too hard to be worth it. We ruled it out 100% for history.

(My 15yo does written, though, I am referring to 10yo, and only these two of our kids are homescholing. DD strongly prefers, after many years of varied activities and options, to work through workbooks alone for a lot of things--go figure.)

[ikesmom]

We just pick books from the library that interest us on the particular history topic we are learning about.

I use the Core Knowledge books too and they have a group for hs

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ckhomeschoolers/

We use the Highlights top secret adventures and the boys love it ..mysteries, puzzles, codes ect. We are reading about Mayan culture in the What your 5th Grader should Know. The Mexico adventure has a lot of Mayan activities.

http://shop.highlights.com/webapp/wc...17603&category

We also use PBS and Netflix..we have learned about the Sphinx, coral reefs, Holocaust , Slavery, Thomas Edison, ect. Liberty Kids is a favorite on Netflix..about the American Revolution.

We also like to look at the pictures in the DK books
http://us.dk.com/static/cs/us/11/features/eyewitness/
You can just read though..have her draw a picture while you read, take turns, and just enjoy it. Nothing wrong with that and probably saves you a lot of time

[briansmama]

Originally Posted by tammyw

I love reading about history to my daughter (7.5) and we've been following grades 2 and 3 in the "what your .... child needs to know".

I was just wondering if anyone else is NOT using workbook type of stuff to reinforce what they learn in this area? For me, reading about it feels great, but actually having to write about it, answer questions, etc. (say the workbook of SOTW or History Odyssey (which I've never used)) just feels blech.

Just wondering if there are others who do this and find that their kids learn just fine without problems?

I'm going through a bit of insecurity right now, wanting to make sure I cover everything in the "guide" but also wanted to keep it fun and inviting to her (and me).

If you do follow this method, I'd love to hear what you are doing, which books you love.

I think great literature is often rich with history and the best way to share historical info with children We do not supplement quality literature with any workbooks, that would kill the joy of great stories for my dc.
We do a lot of discussion about the books we read and I do reserve books topically so we cover certain historical periods and events and spend a lot of time delving into them.
We may look up the geographical area we're discussing on the globe and my dh will send us links to new findings about what we're learning about so we can look it up on the internet. We basically immerse ourselves in the info and enjoy the process.

But we do not use any worksheets, textbooks, workbooks or tests.

[phathui5]

I don't really think of the activity guide that goes with SOTW as a workbook. We mostly use it for the awesome reading lists that go with each chapter of the book. What I do is reserve the books online at our library for the chapters we'll be doing each month. Then we have the books around when we're on that period of history.

My kids like the coloring pages in the SOTW activity guide too.

[OkiMom]

I need to make a list of all these suggestions for later! History was my dreaded subject in school. I HATED IT with a passion and Im worried its going to rub off on my daughter if I don't find a way to enjoy it just a bit.
My plan when we reach that stage is a lot of history based literature (these that explain how it really was during that time), a lot of field trips and maybe some reenactments and stuff like that if I can find any. Right now we live in a history gold mine for WWII (we live on Okiawa, theres memorials, momuments, museums etc that has all sorts of information about WWII) so Im going to take a ton of pictures since shes to young to grasp much of it (my oldest is 3 1/2, curious but not an age I want to discuss the realities of war, especially since her Daddy is military and shes already senstive about his leaving all the time) and show them/use them when she gets older and we start studying more history related stuff.