Homeschooling: Social Studies

History was probably the area where I was the most lax this school year. I used a hodge podge of different texts and methods, most of which just simply fell into my lap it seemed as we went. 

Early in the year we did a little mini unit on community helpers. Our homeschool group HEARTH even did a field trip where the kids got to meet and learn from real rescue workers. Sadly, my kids were having a

meltdown or something that day, but we did complete the quiz they sent on fire safety and the kids learned a lot about what to do from our discussion.

Caleb even had to put some of what he learned to use

 

November books
In January I wrote a post about Thanksgiving
History -
January

February

In April, I began going through A Beka first grade history textbook. Most of you have probably heard of A Beka since it is one of the most used curriculums by both homeschoolers and private Christian schools. Actually, it is what got me started when I was in preschool and kindergarten before I switched to public schools. To be honest though,  from what I saw Caleb bring home from preschool, I wasn't a huge fan of some of their materials. That said, I didn't really plan to go that route as I began searching out materials for homeschooling, but I found out a friend was selling a used textbook very reasonably so I decided to try it out. I figured having some type of guide was better than nothing. 

Since I didn't have the teachers guide, I didn't have a lot of instructional guidance, but I just read through the book to him. By itself, there wasn't a whole lot to the textbook. It gave an overview of a few American symbols and historical events that anyone beginning to study about our country should dip into, and then it began to take the reader on a trip around the world with quick little snippets about each country it introduced. Compared to how in-depth Apologia went this was definitely in a different ballpark, but it was just enough to give us an outline and introduce Caleb to a few things that perked his interests. Many of the lessons we extended with some type of activity or by going to the library to check out more books on the topic to dig a little deeper into the history or geography we'd been studying. We even were able to tie in some of what we were learning to our trip to Disney's Epcot as we traveled around the World Showcase. It was neat to see how many connections Caleb could make between what he was seeing and what we'd read previously.