Homeschooling gives you a great opportunity to tailor your children's education to their interests and learning styles. However, some subjects can sometimes seem a little bit daunting. Take history, for example. However, history does not need to be boring, especially when you approach it right. You can make it exciting and engaging, and the children will love it. Include fun activities, creative learning methods and multimedia resources. You can turn history lessons into an adventure through time that your children want to do again and again.
Photo by Ksenia Chernaya: https://www.pexels.com/photo/children-in-costumes-standing-beside-a-castle-wall-painting-6800536/
Let's have a look at some of the tips that you need for making history fun when you are homeschooling:
Turn It Into A Storytelling Experience
When you really think about it, history is a collection of stories about real lives and real people. When you present history as loads of different stories rather than just a list of facts, it becomes much more interesting for children. Try to focus on human aspects, such as what people were feeling like during historical moments, why they made certain decisions, and what challenges they faced.
Include Hands-Learning Activities
Hands on activities are brilliant ways to bring history to life. When children can build touch or create something related to a historical event, it helps them understand the lesson and makes it more memorable. For example, if you are talking about castles, you might want to think about building a castle out of paper mache. Or, if you are learning about ancient Civilizations, why not make a model of a pyramid or start drawing some of your cave paintings? When you give the children the opportunity to use their hands and be creative, they get involved in the subject and are made much more enjoyable and engaging.
Use Documentaries And Movies
Visual learning is extremely effective, especially when it comes to children and history. Watching documentaries in movies can help bring historical events to life, which makes them much more real and tangible for students, especially when they are young. Seriously, it is important to choose films that are accurate and appropriate for your children's age; however, there are many wonderful resources out there. For example, if you're teaching older children about World War 2, you could introduce them to the film Oppenheimer and watch Oppenheimer online and use it as part of your home school curriculum.
Build A Historical Timeline
When you piece together, a visual timeline can help your child to understand historical events and how they fit together. Timelines are a great way to enable students to see how one event may have led to another and how different periods of history may overlap or influence each other. You can make this activity extremely fun by turning each time into an art project. Have your children use a variety of different materials to design a timeline on a large piece of paper or poster board and then stick it around your room. As you learn more history, you can add them to the timeline together and put it in the right order. This is an extremely hands-on activity that will help your child grasp the flow of history while allowing them to take ownership of their learning. Something that they can refer back to Time After Time as their history studies grow.
Travel back In Time With Field Trips
If you can, take a field trip to a historical site. This is one of the most engaging ways your children can learn about history. Whether it is a museum, historical landmark, castle, or battlefield, this gives your children the chance to make a connection with a part of the past.
Even if you're not able to travel far, you may be surprised by how much there is history wise in your local area. Research your local area, and if you go on holiday, research those destinations too. You can then include visits to historical sites in your homeschooling and give your children an unforgettable learning experience.
Conclusion
When you use some of the tips above, you can make history fun for homeschooling. It’s all about ebbing creative and adding variety. Using storytelling, hands-on projects, watching documentaries and movies, a heading to historical sites, you can turn history into an enjoyable subject and possible their favorite subject. You will find that including these methods in your homeschooling will help your children retain their facts and develop a love for history. Do you know any other techniques that would be good to share? Let us know in the comments below.
