Time Travel Throughout the World {or History and Geography in Our Homeschool}

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Welcome back to the third week of the Virtual Curriculum Fair hosted by Homeschooling Hearts & Minds.  This week the theme is Exploring Our World: Social Studies and more Science.  I’m going to share about our history and geography studies.  Growing up, history was my least favorite subject – it was so boring all the names and dates.  I hope my children will look back and feel differently about their history experience.

Our history studies began with world history solely and now we divide our time between world history and American history.  We lean heavily on literature, though I cannot fight that feeling that we need to use more than just living books to cover history well.  We have found a few curriculum selections that allow us to be as relaxed as we like, while still keeping us on track (mostly).  I read the lessons aloud with all of our learners together.  I love keeping everyone together for as much learning as possible.

When I decided we needed to add a formal history curriculum to our plans, I was looking for something chronological and Biblical-based.  Mystery of History was a perfect fit.  Biblical history is presented alongside world history, chronologically and of equal importance.  The lessons are short and read in a narrative style.  We do the accompanying mapwork and keep a timeline, too.  There are additional activities for various ages, too.  Sometimes we do everything suggested for a lesson — adding in library books and occasionally a movie, too.  Other times, I read the lesson, we discuss a bit and move on.

During our study of the Exodus and Egypt, one of my daughters was wondering about the people who used to live there.  We had an opportunity for a field trip where there were artifacts from the time of pharaohs and another exhibit on modern Egypt.  We learned this daughter didn’t realize people still lived in Egypt.  This opened my eyes to the need for more than just mapwork to cover geography.

Of course, our favorite way to learn more about countries and cultures is through their food (Eating Around the World blog series).  We also enjoy picture books and other literature from around the world.  Some of my children like having pages to color or other seat-work activities.  We have found Galloping the Globe to be a great resource to add these activities in.  There are pages to print, recipes to make, lists of books (many from our Five in a Row studies, too).  We pick and choose what fits and don’t worry about “doing it all”.  I plan the GtG unit based upon the predominant culture from our history studies.  We are still working our way around the globe, covering each country one at a time.  Sometimes we will spend a week, other countries even more.  It was easier to match the culture to the history covered earlier in our history studies, but I am determined to cover every country.

We also like reading living history books.  We have found some wonderful treasures in the pages of TruthQuest History.  Even though I consider us relaxed in our schooling, I need a bit more structure than what I find in TruthQuest.  Using the accompanying Binder Builder by a Journey Through Learning has provided just what I was looking for.  Enough structure to give us “things” to do, but no schedule to worry about falling behind on.  There are times we will do history only from TruthQuest and the recommended literature for a section.  Other times, I find more meat in the Mystery of History lesson.  These three together make a well-rounded combination.

Since Mystery of History only covers world history, it does not go in-depth into American History.  There are some things similar to MoH out there covering American history, but it wasn’t until we received Notgrass’ America the Beautiful that we had “the one” for our family.  It may seem we use quite a few resources, but these things provide a buffet for us to choose from.  This eclectic style fits our family well.

What do you use for history, geography or science?  Do you have another curriculum I might just need to try?  Hello!  My name is Hillary and I am a curriculum junkie.

Be sure to read the other posts for this week for the Virtual Curriculum Fair.