GENERAL HISTORY

Fall 2009

History fell into a similar category as science this Fall. Such wonderful ideas, but such incredible amounts of preparations and research required. I also think my expectations were a bit out of line, especially with the 3rd grader. It is much more difficult to teach someone HOW to research than to simply know how to do it yourself.

However, Ayden and I have been enjoying Story of the World Book I which pretty much follows my original intent for ancient civilizations. In the meantime, Alyssa watches documentaries of interest. We hope to develop a system for her to write some research papers on various important people in history - using our new NatGeo CD archive of all 100 years of National Geographic Magazine.

Fall 2008/Spring 2009

The first year of homeschooling I was completely lost and overwhelmed when it came to history. The "required" or suggested order in which a child learns about history is not clear cut like reading or mathematics. You don't really have to learn about American Indians before you study The Great Depression. You don't have to study Egypt before you study the Greeks and Romans (perhaps you should, but you don't have to).

So our first year was filled with randomness from creating a timeline, exploring BrainPop, to history of science and history of mathematics books, to a few choice field trips. The House of Blues: History of the Blues was the perfect exercise in combining two disciplines of Music and History.

The biggest field trip was our visit to the Dallas Museum of Art's exhibit on Tutankhamun & Golden Age of Pharaohs.

Witnessing the Innaguration of the 43rd President of the United States was another "witnessing history" moment I was thrilled to get to share WITH my children. They were not always equally impressed, but I have high hopes they will remember.