What is your child/children doing for history today?

[phathui5]

What is your family doing for history today?

We're reading chapter ten in Story of the World and I am reserving the additional literature books for chapter 11 online. I also found a bunch of video clips about ancient china on cosmeo.com for the kids to watch.

[AngelBee]

We are doing a flash through history this week. We started kinda going back in time and reviewing Ancients/Early Middle Ages.

I am also taking advantage of what we already have or what I can get free so we are also doing CORE 3 from Sonlight which covers early American History.

So for today: Review Hebrew people using CHOW ch 9, Kingfisher (couple spreads to read and make in Book of Centuries), each are doing independant reads (A Lion to Guard Us, Courage of Sarah Noble, and Benjamin Franklin bio) We did Bible too already which can count as History

That may be all we have time for as today is really Science.

[Marimami]

Nothing. We focus more on social studies, religion, that kind of thing at this age (6 years). For the past 6 weeks one of our homeschooling groups have done cultural sharing. This is our homeschoolers of color group so it's a very diverse group with many folks being 1st and 2nd gen Americans, some immigrants, some adoptees, etc. So, they traveled to Mexico, Guatemala, Ghana, Portugal, Puerto Rico, Ethiopia, China, Japan, and a bunch more that I'm totally forgetting (DH attends with her, not me.. I work full time.)

We recently read some about Eid and fasting to help DD understand some of her uncle/aunt/cousins recent pictures on Facebook. We had a discussion about Jesus's childhood after looking at some art by Murillo. We had a discussion about Pagan religions after attending a Mabon gathering.

Basically, we are really focusing on exploring cultures with which she interacts regularly right now.

She has started to show some interest in ancient cultures, but much more from a scientific perspective. For example, we just had a chat about Salt the other day and I mentioned I knew about a book that told the history of Salt, and we decided we should get it. http://www.amazon.com/Story-Salt-Mar...6896401&sr=1-2

I know many people love SOTW and an official history curriculum, but that's just not for us.

Holli

[Rivka5]

We're in our second week of exploring the Middle Ages with Five in a Row. My husband is taking my 5yo on a "pilgrimage." They're going to set out on a long and dangerous journey five blocks away from our house to visit our city's cathedral.

He also printed out some satellite photos of castles from Google Maps and they're going to cut them out and superimpose them on a same-scale map of our neighborhood, so she can get a really concrete sense of how big castles were.

[AngelBee]

Originally Posted by Rivka5

We're in our second week of exploring the Middle Ages with Five in a Row. My husband is taking my 5yo on a "pilgrimage." They're going to set out on a long and dangerous journey five blocks away from our house to visit our city's cathedral.

He also printed out some satellite photos of castles from Google Maps and they're going to cut them out and superimpose them on a same-scale map of our neighborhood, so she can get a really concrete sense of how big castles were.

What Five in a Row are you using? i didnt realize they lined up with history.

[zjande]

Today, History Odyssey level 2 ancients, lesson 11.

[elizawill]

well, we woke up and watched a national geographic show on mt everest....that can count toward history. later on with my daughter, we read about john smith. for geography, we mapped portugal, spain, and italy.

my son did science today, as we rotate it with history. he watch beakmans world on netflix & we read a book about how apples grow.

[elizawill]

Originally Posted by Rivka5

We're in our second week of exploring the Middle Ages with Five in a Row. My husband is taking my 5yo on a "pilgrimage." They're going to set out on a long and dangerous journey five blocks away from our house to visit our city's cathedral.

He also printed out some satellite photos of castles from Google Maps and they're going to cut them out and superimpose them on a same-scale map of our neighborhood, so she can get a really concrete sense of how big castles were.

that's super sweet. what a good daddy!

[Rivka5]

Originally Posted by AngelBee

What Five in a Row are you using? i didnt realize they lined up with history.

They don't "line up" with history, but many of the books have historical settings, and history is included within the social studies lessons for FIAR. Last week our book was The Duchess Bakes a Cake from FIAR Vol 3, which has a quasi-medieval setting. We're continuing on with more medieval lessons this week because we had so much fun.

[mich]

We are reading Abrahan Lincoln by Ingri and Edgar D'Aulaire. I love their books.

[MyLittleWonders]

We are reading Ch. 22 and 23 from SOTW Ancient Times this week (History Odyssey level 1 lesson 21 - we are skipping all the chapters from CHOTW this week). I have a Spartan coloring page for them to do while I read. After that, we'll read some of D'Aulaire's Greek Mythology book (the older two have been listening to a lot of Percy Jackson and now want to reread the Greek Mythology book ) and I think chapter 1 from Archimedes and the Door of Science.

[jeffsdear]

We read several sections of "Pedros Journal" which is about a fictional cabin boy for Christopher Columbus, and a chapter of "Walk the World's Rim" which is about 3 16th century Spaniards and their slave who walked from Florida to Mexico via the Rockies (!) and stay with many different Indian tribes. And my son read 2 chapters in "The Corn Grows Ripe" which is about a Mayan Indian boy. (We are working on Sonlight Core 3). My kids are really enjoying reading together, although initially my son said he didn't want to learn about Native Americans, he wanted to learn about American history... I had to inform him that the Native Americans were here long before the Europeans came over!

[simple living mama]

Kids are 12 and 13.
They read a historical fiction book for an hour every day and I also read them historical fiction. So today we started an interesting book called Shades of Grey by Tim O'Brian about a boy who goes to live with his Uncle and Aunt just after the civil war. He's angry about his new family as he lost his entire family to the war and his uncle refused to fight for the confederate cause. Very interesting scenario and I can't wait to keep reading to see how it all plays out. Then we listen to NPR's "Fresh Air"
Historian Eric Foner traces how Lincoln's thoughts about slavery -- and freed slaves -- mirrored America's own transformation in The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery.

[sleet76]

We are doing Crossroads History (http://www.eduref.org/cgi-bin/printl...rossroads.html) a free US History curriculum, and loving it! They have different plans for different ages, and we're combining the books (purchased used and borrowed from the library) from K-2 and having a reading fest! My 7yo DD is loving it! I didn't feel like SOTW and Sonlight history that we tried last year made a whole lot of sense to her since she had no frame-of reference for the time periods. Plus, she kept seeing US history stuff around, and I found myself explaining all these great stories to DD and DS, and thought we should just do a year of study. Loving it!

[Gem0406]

so interesting to read what everyone is working on!

we finished the wonderful novel Boy of the Pyramids - everyone has really enjoyed it! what for tomorrow?

[elizawill]

Originally Posted by sleet76

We are doing Crossroads History (http://www.eduref.org/cgi-bin/printl...rossroads.html) a free US History curriculum, and loving it!

looks good! never seen it before. thanks!!

[NightOwlwithowlet]

We had a long conversation about the rescued Chilean miners and it led to a talk about how dangerous mining can be. I wound up telling him about Mother Jones and how she helped unionize the child miners in the United States in the early 1900's.

Somehow we got side tracked to my grandmother and great uncle who helped unionize the garment district after the Triangle factory fire. Somehow that led to stories about my parents growing up in the Depression and during WWII and different their childhoods were from their parents because of child labor laws. My grandparents all went to work by the age of 14, my dad's father was only 9 when he started in a factory in 1908.

[simple living mama]

NightOwlwithowlet, it would have been nice being a fly on your wall today, listening to that talk.

[naturegirl7]

We on doing HO/SOTW and are on Mesopotamia right now.

We read about Sargon in SOTW, then read some more about him in our Usborne Ancient History Encyclopedia (we also have the World History which we use to intro the topic, but then use the Ancient History cuz it is soooo much more indepth). Talked about what a dictator is, and what a military dictator is, which led to a great discussion on various methods of government such a democracies c elected officials, kings, military dictators....Great how much DS had absorbed already thru his readings....
Then we got out his wooden blocks. We created some ancient Sumer cities - a big ziggurat temple, a ruling king's palace, and the commoners houses. Then walls around the city, a market place, etc. Then DS decided the little toy knights had to be involved, so he dug those out and started a war for control of the city. LOL Led to a nice discussion about armies and they kinds of weapons they had back then.

Will be expanding to learn about the first writings and plan to make our own clay tablets and also make some clay seals. Should be fun. I think we will also do a basic pottery project since pottery was a special craft then, and the potters wheel was one of the BIG inventions during that time (which led to other things like wheeled carts - YAY for wheels!) Still have our history pockets to do too.


BTW - Can I just say that we LOVE LOVE LOVE cosmeo here!

[TEAK's Mom]

Originally Posted by MyLittleWonders

We are reading Ch. 22 and 23 from SOTW Ancient Times this week (History Odyssey level 1 lesson 21 - we are skipping all the chapters from CHOTW this week). I have a Spartan coloring page for them to do while I read. After that, we'll read some of D'Aulaire's Greek Mythology book (the older two have been listening to a lot of Percy Jackson and now want to reread the Greek Mythology book ) and I think chapter 1 from Archimedes and the Door of Science.

My 8 year old has been on a Greek mythology bender lately, too, thanks to Percy Jackson. (Do your kids have The Lost Hero yet?) After finishing with the D'Aulaire book, she started on Edith Hamilton's Mythology and has been loving it. Just thought I'd mention it in case your kiddos need another good resource.