Spring 2021

HOMESCHOOLIOWA.ORG

Across the Street

& Around the State

with the Homeschool Iowa Facebook Discussion Group

Curriculum Talk: History

hy should you teach your kids history? Ask this ques-

tion in a Facebook Group and you’ll get a wide variety

of answers! Go on to ask what curriculum you should

use to teach that history, and the answers just get more varied! A

key part of teaching and learning history is to remember that ev-

erything written about history is written from a point of bias. Bias

is unavoidable! What is written will reflect the bias of the person

writing it. And when we read and study those things that have

been written, we will bring our own bias into the discussion. His-

tory doesn’t have formulas that can be right or wrong. In math,

we know that two plus two equals four. It always equals four no

matter what two things we are adding. In science, we form a hy-

pothesis, conduct experiments, and use the results to make con-

clusions. But history is unique. It’s the study of people, the study of

culture, the study of things that happened in our world to shape

what it is today. With that as the foundation for this article, let’s

consider what members of our Homeschool Iowa Facebook Dis-

cussion Group are using to study history.

Preschoolers:

Are preschoolers too young to learn history? Melissa asked the

question, and our community was quick to say,

“Preschool is a

great age to start learning history!”

This advice was followed by sev-

eral helpful suggestions on how to teach preschoolers history in

low-key, fun ways, including:

• Teach your kids about their family history: about when their

parents were little, about their grandparents, about neat things

that happened to your family in the past.

• Read aloud short books about historic events and people.

• Visit museums and historical sites in your community. Keep

your visit brief (due to preschoolers’ short attention spans) and try

to focus on only a few key items that catch your little one’s inter-

est. Then, after you get home, find resources to expand upon what

most intrigued your preschooler.

• Learn about dinosaurs and talk about the things that happened

a long time ago and how the flood changed the world.

Early Elementary:

Kellie asked for recommendations on what American history

course to use as the foundation for her elementary-aged kids and

mentioned that she was specifically looking at Notgrass History

and MasterBooks.

Rachel joined the conversation by saying that she was going to

use MasterBooks’

America’s Story

for her 3rd grader and noted that

she and her daughter both appreciated the layout of the textbook

and the amount of pictures that were included. Stacy said her

family also uses

America’s Story

for her family and that all of her

kids, from elementary to high school, are enjoying it.

We had several other families who also endorsed

America’s Story

from Masterbooks, and Connie also said that her family really en-

joyed the textbook and that they use it

“as a read-aloud and review

each day before we move forward to the next reading.”

Sara Carothers, an education consultant with Rainbow Resourc-

es, told Kellie that both Masterbooks and Notgrass were good op-

tions, but mentioned that Notgrass was a bit deeper and more

complete. Jenny, Rebecca, and Lori also mentioned that they were

using the Notgrass History books and were enjoying the learning.

Briane and Bridget both said that they have been watching

Liber-

ty’s Kids

videos to start teaching their young kids about history.

(Edi-

tor’s note: These are available on YouTube.)

Several of our other group

members also recommended the YouTube Channel “Homeschool

POP” for fun and educational history videos.

Abigail and Hannah both recommended the history curriculum

from My Father’s World. Abigail added,

“I made good use of the

‘book basket’ and added in lots of books that I felt gave a more bal-

anced view of history. We had good discussions while going through

the read-alouds and scheduled history books, just talking over ‘How

do you think that made them feel?’ and ‘What do you think would

have been a better choice?’ and other questions like that! Additionally,

we had a lot of discussions on how we can’t change history, but we

can, with God’s help, make good choices now.”

Lindsay recommended checking out the

Who Is...

and

What

Is....

books for your kids to read. And Jenn recommends using

the

I Survived

books as well.

To wrap up the conversation, TJ made a great point about keeping

history fun.

“Whatever curriculum you choose, try to mix it up a bit too

by adding in some videos (Drive Thru History videos are great for this

age!), some topical picture books, and even some crafts or recipes re-

flective of the era. For the dead of winter, choose to do historical skits of

events (and dress up!) History is hard to conceptualize for younger kids

so whatever you can do to allow them to learn in different ways helps

make history more interesting and understandable.”

Upper Elementary, Middle &High School:

As we moved on to discuss history resources for teaching our old-

er kids, Notgrass remained as a strong part of the conversation. We

also heard many recommendations for Mystery of History, Sonlight,

7 Sisters Homeschool, Simply Charlotte Mason, Easy Peasy, Abeka,

BJU, and Story of the World. Additionally, many of our members

are supplementing their original history spine with resources that

focus on minorities and a non-European perspective of world and

modern history.

From Kae: “

We will be using Sonlight combined with Woke Home-

schooling.”

From Kaitlyn: “

We are using Road Trip USA, which is a good intro

to US History and Geography. We’ve been supplementing with videos