I am not a fan of modern, normal history learning. These textbooks teach what they deem most important, and they totally disregard any sense of timeline. I hated history growing up because everything just hung on nails in random spots in my brain, disconnected from everything else. It wasn't until I got into researching my genealogy that I finally saw history as one continuous story, with a beginning (Creation), middle (absolutely everything else), and end (as of yet to be determined, or "the present", whichever you'd prefer). When I saw that, I could hang all that useless info where it belonged. I determined to teach my kid history in order. It really makes sense that way! Unfortunately, not everyone else feels this way. Specifically the state and their tests. Columbus didn't discover America until 1492. That is five millenia after Creation. I set up a plan, on how to get 6,000 years of information learned in 6 years (5th to 12th grade). One millenium a year isn't the best, because as you go through the years, more and more info gets crammed in there. But I figured it out! Then I realized that if we follow that plan, it will be 12th grade until his SATs reflect that he's learned anything in history. And I know Alabama is very homeschool friendly, but since I'm not following a particular curriculum, I don't want to chance anything. So I have this normal, confusing history curriculum that teaches a sketchy overview of random people, you know how it is. I thought we could do something fun to hopefully make these people's info stick more. First we drew a rough draft. This paper was what I had lying around. "World Explorers" in the middle, with lines drawn out to the various people and what they explored. Then I gave EJ some decorative card stock where he wrote everything down. I cut it out and we placed it on the poster. We chose washi tape to connect everything. Then we made a timeline on the other side. First EJ wrote out all the people and their dates, then we put the dates in order. It was at this point that I realized Henry Hudson, although he was English, actually explored for the Dutch East India Company. So here's our washi tape band-aid on the front. When you look up "crayon hot glue art" on pinterest, be ware that all those pictures are photoshopped. They have to be! I tried it in real life, and the result I got is worthy of those "pinterest-fail" websites. For comparison, here are the last three lines I did. A little better, but still not what you see on pinterest. I got to thinking about it after, and I realized that my hot glue gun is a mini, taking smaller glue sticks. I think if I had a regular sized one, the crayons wouldn't get stuck and break and the plunger wouldn't stick so much. My advice is that if you decide to make a career out of crayon hot gluing, be sure to invest in a regular sized glue gun! When I hot glued the crayons, I forgot that two people explored something in the same year. All in all, a super fun project that we can look at for years to come.
1 Comment
Mom
1/11/2016 09:17:31 pm
This is great! I'm so glad that you are helping him learn history the fun way. I learned it like you did--lots of nails of information hanging in random spots on the walls of my brain. (Sadly, even Bible characters were like this for me until COLLEGE when I finally started learning a timeline of events/people!) I disliked history in school (well, until 11th grade when my teacher let us do extra reports to help our grades--I did a LOT of extra reports because I needed lots of help! lol)
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In 2006 I had a stroke, and every day my husband encourages me to use my remaining brain cells to the best of my ability. I love to organize, make crafts, and go on adventures (safe ones). I hope that through my blog posts, you will be encouraged to accept and make the best of challenges God throws at your life. Categories
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