How to Homeschool History Without a Curriculum

I have a confession to make. We didn't study history much during the first few years of our homeschooling journey.

Sure we had a few D'Aulaire books I read aloud, but other than that…the kids weren't asking questions and I was busy enough teaching reading, writing, math, and science (because they had a LOT of science questions, so I helped them explore their curiosity in that area) that we didn't get into much history. Maybe a war unit here or there.

One year I decided enough was enough. I demanded that they become curious about history. Which meant one thing. We would study it in earnest the following year.

I think by was around the time my oldest was in 4th or 5th grade. I know some of you may be shocked to learn I neglected a core subject for so long. Others may be secretly rejoicing that you are doing better than me in this area. Either way, it didn't matter then, and it doesn't matter now.

Why?

Because, actually, when you decide to focus on it, you can fit a lot of history into one year of study. We started at the beginning and moved forward with several different resources. I read aloud, and we occasionally did a project to inject some extra fun into the process.

Because my kids know more history than their most adults.

Because my oldest two, now a Junior and Freshman in High School just passed their first history CLEP exam (U.S. History 1) with flying colors.

For the most part, reading aloud was easier than projects and by then my kids had developed a love of listening. (I would say that alone was worth 'missing out' on anything and everything I may have skipped in those early years.)

I also selected documentaries to go along with our reading when I could find them. Documentaries can add a nice visual touch and usually have some different details than what is covered in books.

One thing that cannot be avoided when studying history is bias. History is a story, and every historian and curriculum writer loves to inject their own world view into the story.

This can be annoying.

I compensate by using a lot of different resources. Authors who have different views. I want my kids to be exposed to the idea that some parts of history are facts, these will be things likes dates and names and will be the same with every resource used. Other parts of history are opinion or speculation, these parts and even what material is covered can vary wildly due to the creator's worldview.

I realize as a creator myself that it is not so easy to divorce your own world view and opinions from the materials you create. So I try to be gentle in my criticism of this issue. But I do have my limits. Some resources are just biased beyond some invisible boundary past which I cannot walk.

Some creators do try very hard to present history in an unbiased way and I like to include those resources when they are not overly bland.

You may be just be waiting for me to get to the meat of the matter…what do we use for history?

We used books, documentaries, videos, timelines, and games. Keep reading for detailed lists.

Books

All the books in this list can be used either as read-alouds or just given to the child as part of their assigned reading.

I always organize history books in a timeline fashion across my bookshelves.

Documentaries

Videos

One way we use videos is to look up subjects on timeline cards that we want to place, or cards from history games about topics the kids haven't learned yet or need a refresher on.

I usually just look up the topic on YouTube and add the phrase 'for kids' (if they are still elementary-aged). I make a mental note of good channels and mark them as favorites. Usually, you can tell if a video will be good in the first 10 seconds of watching.

Timelines

You might think jumping from book to book to documentary to game is a mishmash way for kids to study history. It is true that kids may not always realize exactly 'when' in history the current book they are reading happened. That is why I like to also use timelines.

Of course, lots of curriculums for history come with timelines and timeline cards but I tend to just buy the timeline and ignore the rest. I tried to do timelines in notebooks for the first several years of our homeschool journey, but I now prefer to cover my wall with them.

The thing is, in a notebook, kids are only ever going to get a small snap-shot in time, and the whole point of the timeline for me is to help them get a big, sweeping picture of history.

Also, kids will walk up to stuff on a wall and look at it, casually, in non-study time. This doesn't happen with a notebook. My kids never got out a timeline history notebook in their spare time and sat down to look at it.

So I have decided to sacrifice wall-space for learning. I have timeline posters on my wall and I have stickers that came with them and then also more detailed and extensive timeline cards from Moving Beyond the Page. When we study something it goes on the wall.

Or, sometimes, we look something up and study it just so we can add a card or sticker to the timeline wall.

Games

I think my favorite history game is Timeline, a simple and quick to play card game. You child does need a basic amount of history to pull on before they will be ready to play, so I would say it is best to wait until upper elementary for this game.

I also like Constitution Quest, this is for older kids, Middle School – High School. I plan to play it as part of our prep for the U.S. Government CLEP exam.

How I Fit All of World History Ancient Through Modern Into One Year of Study

First, let me say, I tried, really tried, to skip science that year. I had realized at that point that my oldest two knew all the elementary science, and by accident, most of the middle school and even some high school level science. Oops. It was hard to keep them away from their first love though, so I will admit, they did not take a complete break from science that year.

The point of limiting science studies for the year, was, of course, to create the space needed to study history.

The majority of our read-aloud literature for the year was also history-based. Later, when my oldest would claim his hatred of historical novels, all I had to do was list off some of those read-alouds as proof that his claims were false. For some reason, anything read-aloud makes it on the list of loved and cherished.

And I have pushed their tolerance for old language, long descriptive passages, and slow plots with this sneaky tool of reading-aloud. (Of course, you have to start by reading things they love, and then gradually work them up to things like Jules Verne and The Red Badge of Courage. But it can be done more easily than most think.)

Once I carved out the space for history I determined to get through it, start to finish, in one year. All those four year cycles just made me cringe. By the time we got to the end would they remember anything from the beginning? It just seemed to slow. I needed to stoke curiosity and light a fire. To create a love for a new subject. I felt maximum exposure at a good speed would keep my busy boy's attention more effectively than a slow trod.

Another mom joked that I may have skipped a few things, moving at that speed. However, I covered all the basics and more. I got my kids interested in history. Now, they may never admit that. But when they ask to learn more about Ancient Rome, what the world was like when Shakespeare lived, or "Mom, can you find an in-depth documentary about Hannibal?" I know I won.

And no, I can't tell you which curriculum to go buy, because I didn't' use one. For all curriculum does, what it often doesn't do, is ignite interest, and then, what is the point? Without interest, they won't remember a thing they are supposed to be learning.

Now, sometimes peers get annoyed at my kids because they don't know who some famous movie star is…and my kids get mad at their peers because none of them have ever heard of Ghengis Khan or Attila the Hun. I'll take my own teen's deficiencies, thank you very much.