I wanted to let you know about a great sale on the Mystery of History curriculum. It is 30% off at Christianbook.com. If you are curious, please see my review of Mystery of History and how to use it
here. In thinking about this sale, I thought it appropriate to share a few tips for helping kids love history.
Kids love stories. History is just stories of past events. The only thing I can think of when a kid declares a dislike of history is how dryly that history must have been presented. We finish every lesson with game, craft or discussion. The co-op latest favorite history activity was coming up with a list of things they should bring to the New World to ensure survival and successful settlement. This was during our lesson on Jamestown.
Here are some of our favorite history lesson enhancing ideas:
1. Make food that relates to the story.
2. Build a dwelling to react history – forts, teepees, pueblos, hogans, castles, etc. Appliance boxes are always a catalyst for such fun.
3. Create authentic looking maps, documents, and scrolls. They will copy almost anything down (thereby internalizing some of it) if promised they can rip the edges and dye it in tea. Or better yet, help them burn the edges!
4. Learn a goofy song that relates. HistoryTeachers on youtube.com has some hilarious videos on major events and figures to the tune of pop songs. My group loves Charlemagne to Blondie’s Call Me.
5. Re-enact battles, like the defeat of the Spanish Armada.
6. Check out some historical movies (some literature based). We enjoyed Apollo 13, Henry V, Luther, Les Miserables and The Eagle from the library. More recently we’ve enjoyed Race (Jesse Owens), Invictus, Bridge of Spies, and Lincoln. Check ratings and age appropriateness, of course. And freshly from theaters I highly recommend Hacksaw Ridge (high school and above only!) and Hidden Figures for the whole family.
What are your favorite history movies and fun activities?
Related
