Thursday, September 8, 2011

Curriculum: History

While I was contemplating homeschool, history was the one subject that excited me and ultimately threw me over the fence into the homeschooling population.

My own knowledge of history is pretty spotty. So I was pretty excited to join Grace in a study this year of Ancient History.

We use this text:

This text is written for elementary students. And it has its problems. For example. I am not a big fan of some of the dialogue invented. I prefer straight history. But I am an adult. And Grace seems to appreciate the dialogue.

We read 1-2 chapters per week. She colors maps associated with the activities, and we do activities or watch movies having to do with the subject material.

After every four chapters, we make flashcards about the material we've learned, we study it, and then Grace takes a test. It's very fun. She loves the tests. (Our first test is here.)

Also. Once per month we have a school party. It's on Saturday. We invite friends, we have food, and lots of fun. For our first party, we learned about Egypt. The kids found Egypt on the globe, they learned about the Nile, they wrote their names in hieroglyphs, and they turned each other into mummies.

We had a blast. See?


(The real purpose of the school party is to get the kids thinking homeschool is SO COOL that they want to do it too. But shh. Don't tell their parents.)

2 comments:

  1. Thanks, Elise. I'm getting so frustrated with stupid people telling me that homeschooling is a bad idea. Funny though, the only argument they seem to have is that my kids will have 'social problems' if I homeschool. Dummies. How about you move here and then our kids can be socially awkward together?

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  2. It's official. You are the best mom/ teacher in the world.

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