I had planned on walking my boys through several major points of American History through unit studies in the next 1-2 years. Since we moved to Canada, I have revisited that idea. While I do want my boys to learn American History, it doesn’t make sense to cover that first when we don’t live in the USA anymore.
My knowledge of Canadian history is very limited, but as of right now I am planning on covering American history and Canadian history side by side. I’ll see if I can pull it off.
We started American History with a unit study on Native Americans. The boys loved all the hands-on activities and we all learned quite a bit. I was about to start them on a unit study about early North American Explorers, but I am putting that on hold in favor of a chronological world history approach.
Ancient history here we come! I am excited about it. In all my years in school we never learned ancient history so it will be new to me as well.
I have just started to research the topic and there is tons available online. I found many lesson plans and activities ready to use. We’ll go through history chronologically and explore different time periods and cultures with lots of hands-on activities. It should be fun.
Do you prefer a chronological approach to history or do you spend more time on American history?
I had every intention of doing chronological world history, and so I started the ancients (which I also didn’t learn much about through public schools). I couldn’t pull it off though, my kids were so resistant to it, that I gave up and started doing American History. (The were 8 and 10 yo). We got as far as some Mesopotamia cultures. I plan to go back after I finish all of American History. however, as I’m doing Am. History, I’m also reading a bit from Story of the World Vol. 3 so they hear what else is going on around the world at the time.