American history for K/1st

[Terabith]

I'm wondering about a general, easy peasy, relaxed program to cover some of the basics/ high points of American history with my daughter who will be six in November. (She's reading mid 2nd grade level approximately.) I don't want a big to-do curriculum like Winter Promise's, although it looks awesome. I just want to cover some cultural knowledge and give her an introduction to history in a way that will whet the appetite but be accessible and understandable. We're not super into crafts, although if there were some awesome hands on activities, we could do a few. (But not mindless coloring or anything fancy every week.) Religious is fine, but I would prefer it not be too hard core. Anyone have suggestions?

[Peek a Boo]

I'm wondering about a general, easy peasy, relaxed program to cover some of the basics/ high points of American history with my daughter who will be six in November. (She's reading mid 2nd grade level approximately.) I don't want a big to-do curriculum like Winter Promise's, although it looks awesome. I just want to cover some cultural knowledge and give her an introduction to history in a way that will whet the appetite but be accessible and understandable. We're not super into crafts, although if there were some awesome hands on activities, we could do a few. (But not mindless coloring or anything fancy every week.) Religious is fine, but I would prefer it not be too hard core. Anyone have suggestions?

If you just want exposure, the David Adler series "A Picture Book Biography of [insert famous person here]" is GREAT!!! covers all sorts of figures rom almost every time period.

I tend to go a bit more hardcore, so i'll stop there ;)

[Terabith]

So, if you were going to go a bit more hard core, what would you use?

[Peek a Boo]

So, if you were going to go a bit more hard core, what would you use?

what i have done and plan on doing next year:

1. Spend the first several weeks on a unit study of Indians. I started in mid-August and used a thematic unit that I picked up at a used curriculum sale- it had a big old-out map, but i think i needed to add the Alaskan indians. Start w/ the Inuits in Alaska, work our way down the west coast, across the midwest, then the southeast, and end w/ the northeast in early November. We do geographical maps of each region *as the Indians knew the land* -no political boundaries yet. I used several books from the library to fill in info about specific regions as interest was piqued.

2. We studied Columbus on Columbus Day and other explorers between then and Thanksgiving [Mayflower]. We draw maps of some of the routes taken by the early explorers, including the country from which they set sail. i think....Zoom?.. explorers had some great printables for this. We also started a time line on the wall at this point. Ours went up the stairwell.

3. December is spent studying the colonists: maps of the colonies, interaction w/ the Indians, and we have a Colonial Christmas making old-fashioned gifts. i like the "Sea to Shining Sea" book that shares some cultural songs and stories. we do a lot of maps, so you can pretty much assume a map is completed at least once a week over SOME event.

There are a couple books that came in handy here: "If you lived at the time of" series includes the Pilgrims and the colonists. And those David Adler books.

4. By the New Year, our colonists are ready for a New Country. spend the first week discussing the Declaration of Ind, the second the rev War, third, Articles of Confed, and 4th, Constitution. We touch on a LOT of famous Founders at this point. back to those adler books. This also lines up w/ President's Day :) We start a States Notebook and President's Tree this month too: as states are admitted to teh union, we add them. 50states.com

5. For the first week in Feb, we talk about a couple of the "minor" wars and have a lot of fun correcting grammar in the War of 1812 song by ...Jimmy Horton?... "In 1814 we took a little trip...." Then we get into the issue of slavery and study the underground railroad. By the 3d week we are onto the War of Northern Aggression ;) and wrap up Feb w/ reconstruction.

6. March is spent studying westward expansion and other stuff up till 1900.

7. April is spent studying 20th century: ww1, ww2, korea, vietnam, cold war, etc.

8. May is spent studying current events and reviewing what we've learned.

i used several US History books. There's the Complete Book of US History that is great for this level. Other big glossy picture books at the stores/ libraries too. For each week, I would simply flip thru whatever we were using as a reference and get several books from the library about those periods/ people. I have a list of my favorite gems of books that I can look up and post a bit later.

this year i'll be using the Little House on the prairie books and the American Girl books. My 7th grader will read thru the American Adventure series.

hope that helps :)

[clane]

Subbing for ideas. Thanks ladies!

[lotsofpumpkins]

We are getting ready to start American History. What I did was go to Beautiful Feet's website and look at their primary American history package. I decided not to use their guide, but I did make a note of the books they use. I got a bunch of books that we'll read somewhat chronologically. They are mostly biographies (Leif Erikkson, Columbus, Pocahontas, Washington, Jefferson, Lewis & Clark, Johnny Appleseed, Lincoln, etc etc). I'm leaving a LOT out of that list, but you get the idea. Since my children are young, we are mainly going to read the books and discuss. Plus I checked out books from our library that have recipes from different times in American History, so we are going to make some of those. I got a children's American History Encyclopedia so I'd have a timeline to refer to (I'll probably have the children make a timeline) but I don't think we'll read too much from it at this point. I think at this age all those books I got will be plenty (some are written for 4-8 year olds, some are for 8-12).

ETA: I didn't get the books from BF. I bought most of them from cbd.com and amazon, though you could do this totally through the library if you wanted to (I can't because our library is TINY).

[Julianna]

Wow, Peek a Boo, that is an awesome and thorough plan!

My dd is about that age. We read Stories of the Pilgrims and then mostly read biographies and made a timeline. She really enjoys biographies, and seems to enjoy tying things together herself, so we'll probably continue on this way for a while longer.

[Mandy in TN]

So, if you were going to go a bit more hard core, what would you use?

We will be using HOD's Bigger. Although HOD is Christian, Bigger uses to reprinted book by Eggleston- Stories of Great Americans for Little Americans and First Book in American History. It also uses Journeys in Time. The Wright Brothers and Their Sister by CLP is the only Christian book used as a spine. So, although the HOD guide contains Christian commentary, most of the spine texts aren't "hard core." However, Bigger is a biographical approach to US history. HOD Beyond and MFW Adv are both overviews of US History, but their their spines are CLP books.

Portraits of American Girlhood is a Christian unit study that uses the American Girl books. Since it uses the American Girl books, perhaps it is gently Christian.

HTH-
Mandy

[Peek a Boo]

Wow, Peek a Boo, that is an awesome and thorough plan!

thanks --it was one of our more fun years :)
good luck doing what works for y'all!

a couple more posts/ threads about that:

http://www.welltrainedmind.com/forums/showpost.php?p=792431&postcount=21

http://www.welltrainedmind.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1738

some of our fun projects:


Indians:
making igloos
totem poles
teepees
adobe homes
clay pots
wigwams
eating native foods


tracing a large map of the us at the time of the revolutionary and civil war [thank you projectors, lol] and using playing pieces to show where the major battles were.

making butter/ candles for colonial christmas presents.

the gold rush era --mining for gold nuggets and learning Clementine :)

empire state building -building our own sky scraper.

It's REALLY HARD to not spend an entire month on one era or person! :D

i'm going to go dig out my notes and see what else i canpost. there were a couple of AWESOME picture books that i don't recall seeing on many reading lists.....

[Terabith]

Thank you!!!!!!