My youngest son is obsessed with making things. He’s built a working fishing pole, a wobble racer, and even a 3-D paper basketball playset, complete with players who actually shoot the ball into the hoop. We’ve always encouraged our kids to learn about their history, so I thought it would be cool for him toKeep Reading…
How to Teach History with a Timeline
If you’re teaching your kids at home, you’ve probably discovered that there are several ways to learn how to teach history. You could do it by starting with the history of the country in which you live and then proceeding out to the rest of the world. Many curriculum companies use this approach. You could startKeep Reading…
Introduction to Africa Lesson Plan for Kids
We’ve been studying African kingdoms of the past with the kids and we’re thrilled to share what we learned with you! It’s fascinating (and tragic) to me that Africa is the largest of all the inhabited continents and yet it is largely overlooked in history programs for kids. In fact, I use the “What YourKeep Reading…
African Kingdoms! A Printable African History Unit Study for Kids
As we started studying history in our homeschool, I was disheartened to see how little information was available about Africa for elementary-aged children. One of the programs we tried did not mention African kingdoms at all until fourth grade. Which meant that the first mention my children would get of African people at all wouldKeep Reading…
We Got Jazz! – A Jazz Black History Unit Study
As the kids and I have been studying black history, we’ve found so many incredible stories of great jazz musicians. I knew about all of these music pioneers, but learning about their lives and experiences has been so enlightening and it’s been a wonderful lesson for our children. So I thought it would be niceKeep Reading…
Harlem Renaissance Unit Study
We’ve always been passionate about teaching our kids black history. There are so many wonderful stories, people, and events to share. And one of our very favorite periods to discuss is the Harlem Renaissance. So this year, we wanted to develop a Harlem Renaissance unit study we could cover with the kids to help them learnKeep Reading…
Hands-On Ancient History with Project Passport!
Personally, I love history, even ancient history. Trying to make those subjects interesting to an eight-year-old, though, poses its own set of challenges. It can be tough to help kids to “see” the people and events so that they can understand what happened and why it has meaning for our modern world. And that’s whyKeep Reading…
Must-Read Black History Books for Kids
In our family, black history is history. We teach it along with every other topic. We’ve covered African history, civil rights, and even jazz history with our children over the years. But we’ve also enjoyed sharing African-American storybooks that help them “see” themselves in stories. As part of learning about history, we’ve read some wonderful blackKeep Reading…
Studying the Harlem Renaissance with Kendall Hunt Publishing
My sixth grader has been showing more of an interest in black history lately, which is awesome because I love teaching it! We’re creeping up on the ’20s again, so I thought we’d go back and look at the 1920s during this homeschool year. The ’20s were pretty great for black history. There were some horrible thingsKeep Reading…
Homeschool Unit Studies: Ruby Bridges Unit Study
In our family, we don’t celebrate Black History Month. After all, we’re not just black in February. 🙂 Since black history is important, we talk about it year-round. But I wanted to share one of our recent homeschool unit studies with you all now, while more people are thinking about black history. The book The StoryKeep Reading…