How we organise History - March 2006

A friend asked me for some advice on how
to use all the resources she had for History. I admit, this may be
easier for me as I used to teach History but if you follow a flexible
plan, it works really well regardless of your background. Anyway,
here's my thoughts…

I think regardless of whether you use a curriculum or not, you have to think about a few things.

Firstly, what do I want my children to know about history – about the way God works in the world?

You will then have to narrow it down to what you want to look at in a year
or a term or whatever time frame you put on yourself. For example, we
are looking at the Byzantine Empire this year.

Then you will have to look at what resources you have/can glean for that topic.
I am using Synge's Story of the World, Mystery of History and other general ones (Kingfisher) as spines.

Then you have to think about which people or events you want to cover within that topic.
I have decided that we will focus on Constantine and how “Christian” he
really was, what benefits came to Christians because of his reign etc.
I will read some living books on him to the boys. I also want to look
at Justinian and Theodora and will do the same there. We are also going
to look at the Crusades and the Fall of Constantinople but I won't go
into too much detail on that right here and now. Things like Famous Men
of Rome/Middle Ages, What Really Happened During the Middle Ages and
Landmark books (Crusades & the Fall of Constantinople will be our
basis here).

Then you have to think about what sort of things
you will do to help make that knowledge go deeper (as opposed to
time-consuming activities). Narration, copywork, some good, focused map
work, making shields, doing mosaics etc will all help with this for us.

I think that if you can put a sort of outline/plan/framework around what
you want to do then all of your books/resources/curriculum can then be
slotted into their appropriate place. They are then there to help you
get where you want to go instead of being what drives you in one
direction or another.

It may take you a night or two to sit down
and map this out on paper or on the computer (whatever works best for
you) but then once it's done, you have a freedom and flexibility to go
about it your way(adding or subtracting here and there) because you
have the big picture in your mind.

So as an outline it may look like this:

Topic                  
Constantine  

General Reading/Spine
Mystery of History

          Other read-aloudsWhat Really Happened in Ancient Times
Trial and Triumph

Activities
Narration for books
Map work
Timeline figure for wall
Making shields

You may choose to do all of this or find that you can't fit in many
read-alouds for this topic. If you can only manage the MoH reading and
a narration, your children have still learned something. You need to
make your study of history fit in with your household demands and the
ages of your children. Some weeks, you may have time to do more than
other weeks. If you have an outline in front of you, you know what
resources you have on that topic and when you get to it, you can then
choose how much to use.

Hope this helps

Posted on on March 25th, 2006