I’ve had a niggling sensation in my head for a while
that I wasn’t really happy with most of the history programs for homeschoolers.
I never could put my finger on what I felt was wrong, so I finally decided that
it was me (as a former history teacher) being too close to the subject at hand.
About six weeks ago, a couple of things happened that
helped me clarify my thoughts on history and how I wanted us to study history
in our homeschool.
Event #1: I stumbled upon a discussion about the book Why Don’t Students Like School. The book
is not written for homeschoolers, but for public school teachers, however, the
subject matter was fascinating to me so I quickly picked up a copy. Imagine my
surprise when I’m reading this book about how repetition and memorization are
keys for children to succeed and enjoy school. Probably the thing that struck
me the most was how little importance a child’s preferred learning style
(auditory, visual, kinesthetic) impacts their ability to learn!
Event #2: A member on The Well-Trained Mind Forums
(great resource even if you are not a classical homeschooler!) shared her
history plans which utilizes a history spine (one world history and one
American history) that is read each year, then she chooses what topics to dig
into that year. She covers both world and American every year.
Both of these things allowed me to see what I don’t
like about most history approaches. I don’t like that you only cycle back
around to certain historical events once every three, four, five, or six years
depending upon which approach you choose. After reading Why Don’t Students Like School, I realize the value of having children
hear and repeat information consistently so that it is imprinted on their
brain. I don’t expect my kids to remember every. single. thing, but I do want
them to have a ready recall of the general order in which historical events took
place.
I also didn’t like that American history is only
touched on in certain years of the history cycle. Since our family does reside
in the United States, I think that learning the history of our country should
be studied every year in some aspect. So next year, we are leaving our beloved
Heart of Dakota (which I still love and recommend), but it will definitely be
my back up plan if my genius plan totally falls through!
Since I am a planner, I decided to lay out the history books I want to read through as read alouds for the next few years. I haven’t
planned beyond that because I’m not sure what I want to do once Monkey gets in
first grade which is when I would start history with him.
My future plans as of right now are:
2014
World History Overview: Story of the World Volumes 1-3 skipping any chapters pertaining to American history
American History Overview: The American Story: 100 True Tales from American History
2015
World History Overview: Builders of the Old World and Our Island Story
American History Overview: Makers of the Americas
2016
World History Overview: M.B. Synge's The Story of the World series skipping any chapters about American history.
American History Overview: A Child's First Book of American History by Earl Schenck Miers
2017
World History Overview: A Little History of the World
American History Overview: A Child's First Book of American History by Earl Schenck Miers
2017
World History Overview: A Little History of the World
American History Overview: Mara Pratt’s four-volume
American history series
At this point I’m not sure how I’m going to work our
history spines. Do I want to go back to the beginning of the spines I used
since Monkey will be listening or do I want to continue to ramp up the
listening level of the spines to hang with Chipette? Not sure on this one.
Logistically the way it will work is that the first half of our school year will be a world history book to read aloud and roughly the last half of our school year will be will be an American history book to read aloud. Every day I will read a chapter out of one of spines during Morning Meeting to the girls.
Over the coming weeks I’ll share more specifically what
our plans are for history, science, and our full-blown attempt at Charlotte
Mason next year. I’ll really looking forward to starting our new school year
and seeing how my grand experiment turns out.
Keeping history on repeat for the next few years in the
tree house,