Yesterday Is History; Showing Your Child His or Her Place In The History Books

The homeschool history curriculum has the luxury of freedom for independent exploration. A beneficial way to increase your child’s comprehension of history is to make the subject matter more concrete. History can be an exciting topic for any child if it is presented in an upbeat manner. A unique homeschool history curriculum that is valuable to both teacher and student is to explore history in the making. Using personal family history to inspire your child is to explore the “history” of the year that they were born. There are many period books available that show the history of recent years. These inexpensive paperback books are available in card shops and craft stores, providing basic facts, fads and prices for recent years. It is possible to purchase much more expensive books which are more intensive in detail and cover periods over the past fifty to sixty years, the inexpensive version will provide enough concrete information for a short history unit. An exploratory unit on history could be a comparison/contrast unit of the teacher’s year of birth with the student’s year of birth. This comparison/contract unit would provide interesting facts about both individuals and open the door to interesting time-relevant changes within your own family. This type of historical homeschool unit would also open doors of communication and sharing between parent and child. If the lesson is facilitating further questions in your student, extend the historical study focus to include aunts, uncles, and grandparents and even go into the local history for the city in which you live. It would not be uncommon for something like this to turn into a genealogy project for an older homeschool student. Once a student realizes that their own lives are in fact becoming “historical” and they see their own place within the world, they may begin to carry this unit over into areas you had not even imagined.

Art and Homeschool History

A lifetime could be spent studying the artwork of Michelangelo. But he also lived in an era rich in history, political intrigue, and religious growth.

Use the whole learning approach to homeschool history teaching with the book Michelangelo by Diane Stanley. The book relates the story of Michelangelo and includes large, beautiful illustrations.

Travel Through Time With A Biography Unit All The While Learning To Love History

Often homeschool history students will find a particular time period or professional occupation of special interest; grab this opportunity to inspire your child to study history. A student that is interested in flying might discover the historical importance with the creation of the airplane and the key personalities within the history of flight. Using historical figures as a segue into extended historial facts makes a concrete and realistic transition for any learner in their efforts to comprehend that which at first seemed incomprehensible.

If history is used as a foundation, built upon in a manner that makes the information valuable to the learner, retention and enjoyment are sure to be by-products of the completed class work. A quality history program or unit will create a sense of wonder within the student, a internal urgency to push for further information, a more detailed understanding about their subject and the way the world was affected by it. The benefit of a homeschool classroom is immense in that a student that becomes enthralled with a subject can be constructively guided to study many different curricular topics while still studying their current interest.