My DIY Early American History Curriculum

 If you have been following me long, you know we recently went through The Playful Pioneers and loved it! While trying to figure out what direction I wanted to go in for History this year, I really wanted to go back and delve into American history again. Maybe it was the Abeka history book my mom gave me, perhaps it was just the sheer nonsense that's trying to be promoted as true American history right now, I decided to do another year learning the history of our great nation. 

As I said, my mom gave me Abeka's Our America book. I had always shied away from 'textbooks' as I've tried to make things has hands on and learning as rich as possible. It's why I love the Charlotte Mason method! Still, I liked the format of the textbook, and decided to use it almost like I'm using the Nature Anatomy book for science (you can check that out here). I looked through it and divided it up to fit certain holidays and events. For instance:  We are studying Native Americans, then Pilgrims over October and November to get ready for Thanksgiving (which is actually mid-end of the book) and then studying the rest of the time periods after that. 

Here is what that looked like for us:

September: The Flag-Pledge of Allegiance 
October: Native Americans
November: Pilgrims
December:Colonist
January: Revolutionary War 
February: Read books on Founding Fathers (I have several books for this time period, so we will spend some time here)
March:Pioneers
April:Cowboys
May: Finish any projects or parts of the Our America book we didn't cover 

The book has the history of certain holidays and American songs, so I will be adding those to the time period they belong. 

I am also peppering in wonderful read-alouds to go with what we are learning. We have several Jean Fritz books to go with the American Revolution, Squanto and the First Thanksgiving to go with Thanksgiving, I have a vintage book with stories of the pioneers, and so on. I will read these and have Little Man Narrate back to me. 

Once I had the all the 'ingredients' for our history, it was easy to plan out a week. If you missed my Morning Basket Post you can read how I added history to it, since it includes our read-alouds. Here is how the month of October will look (starting September 28, so 5 weeks total. We will go ahead and start learning about Pilgrims, since November is a shorter month for school). Also note that I only do history 2 days a week, and do geography the other 2 days.

Week 1: Read Native Americans chapter in Our History for day 1, day 2 ask the questions from the unit
Week 2: Read Squanto and the first Thanksgiving make a corn dish from this website
Week 3: Find a video and make a craft this week
Week 4: Read Sailing to America (a book we have that talks about both Jamestown and the early Pilgrims)
Week 5: Read Pilgrims in Our America and answer questions (day 2)

As you can see it's a mix of read-alouds, traditional textbook and questions, and hands on learning. As we continue into the Thanksgiving season, I have more books about the Pilgrims and Thanksgiving. 

I am sharing this with you today, to show you that you can create your own curriculum easily with very little money or time. If you are a busy mom like me, creating unit studies can seem daunting, but it thankfully only takes the initial work of knowing what direction you want to go. Once you know the direction, filling in the weeks with learning is the easy part! If you don't have the collection of books that I have, a library will be your best friend! In my Amazon recommendations, I'll add some of my favorites (links are affiliated). 

Are you a unit study-literature enthusiast, or do you prefer the more traditional route? There is no wrong answer! Each has their place for both parent and child! You have to do what fits your family and your season of homeschool.  

How I Created my own Nature Study Curriculum for Free!

 

If you've been in the homeschool circles long enough, you've heard of the Nature Anatomy books. We have used them with the Peaceful Preschool, as well as the Playful Pioneers. These books are beautifully illustrated and informative. As a Christian, I will note that the phrase 'millions of years' shows up a few times, but I can easily skip over or explain things from a Biblical worldview. 

I loved this set of books so much, that I wanted to use Nature Anatomy as a jumping off point to creating my own science Curriculum. When I decided that I wanted to use this book, I started out figuring out how I wanted the year to go. These would by my goals. I wanted the year to be: fun, interactive/hands on, informative, and where my 1st grader would understand. 

Where I began...

I searched Pinterest for others who had used this book as a curriculum and came across this blog post:

A Forgotten Joy, Nature Study with Nature Anatomy

I loved how she planned out her year and chose chapters based on season. Since we wouldn't be learning year 'round and I wanted to put a zoo and health unit in our year, I edited it to fit my schedule. Here is what the year looked like:

September: Chapter 1 Common Ground
October: Zoo Unit and Chapter 4 Take a Hike
November: Finish Chapter 4 Take a Hike
December: Health Unit using My First Body Book (find review here)
January: Chapter 2-Snowflakes and Moon Phases
February: Chapter 5 Creature Feature
March: Chapter 6 A little Bird told me+finish Chapter 2 Rainbows and storms
April: Chapter 3 Come Close (Bugs and flowers)
May: Do a month long unit study using the Ocean Anatomy book

Now to find books, videos and activities

Next I searched Pinterest for unit studies and activities based on each chapter. I wanted child friendly books and videos, hands on crafts and activities to help Little Man remember the things he had learned in the chapter. 

While searching, I came upon this free nature journal that went along with the chapters in Nature Anatomy! I chose just the pages that would be on Little Man's level, but still downloaded the entire thing, since we can use it again and again. 

I also found this Youtube channel with some great science videos for kids.

Check out my Pinterest board for more ideas!

Creating the Curriculum

Finally it was time to put it all together! I tried to have each section of the chapter include reading about it, a corresponding book or video, and an art project or other activity. Here is what the first chapter (month of September) looked like:

Week 1: Layers of the Earth
M:Read Layers of the Earth, and color worksheet from the free nature journal
T: Foam ball activity (see picture below: We colored with a marker and labeled the layers of the Earth)
W: Read Magic School Bus: Inside the Earth
Th: Layers of the earth pudding cup (we wound up not doing this. New mom brain forgot to put pudding on the list. We did some video watching instead, I believe)

Week 2:
M: Read Minerals and do Stalagmite mason jar experiment from Mason Jar Science book
T: Read the rock cycle and Take a nature hunt and search for rocks. Discuss what type of rock they are
W:Read Fossils and do fossil salt dough
Th:Watch rock videos mentioned in this blog post. 

Week 3:
M: Read Landforms
T: Playdoh Landforms
W: Watch video about landforms and look at pictures of the Grand Canyon
Th: Take a break (we went to my moms one day this week and were unable to complete our science. We moved things to the next week to finish up the chapter)

Week 4:
M: Read Landscapes
T: Watercolor Landscapes
W:Review-Look at Geology book 
Th: Nature walk-talk about what we've learned this month

This is what Chapter 1 looks like for us, and I'm hoping to continue the trend of watercolors, nature walks, Magic School Bus books, and kitchen science creations. I am also including the books I'm linking in my Amazon recommendations (links are affiliated) to supplement and use just to help reinforce what we are learning. I don't think my curriculum quite fits into any method, but I like the blend of hands on, and worksheets.  This past month only took me about 30 min or so to put together, once I had started the search and pinned my favorite activities. It was just a matter of blending each of the things I found into the week. 

I hope this inspires you, if you would like to put together your own science curriculum! I think you could easily do this to fit any science or nature book, and just make unit studies to fit what you would like to learn for a certain time frame. 

Next week, I'll be talking about how I created my own unit study history curriculum from a text book. Let me know if you have any questions!

Indestructibles: A Timberdoodle Review

As many of you know, I recently started the adventure of having 2 under 2 in my house, as well as a beginning first grader. The house is always a bit chaotic right now, and Baby Girl's newest hobby is taking every kid book off the shelf and looking through each. I've had to set apart some of the oldest and most fragile books, as she tends to be a bit rough with them at times. 

I am excited to share about a set of books that may actually survive my crazy toddler and new baby! These social study baby/toddler books are called Indestructibles that are made out of material that can be chewed on without tearing, and can be wiped off if there are any spills. These books were given to me in exchange for my review, but I am giving my honest opinion of these wonderful books!

These books are not only indestructible, but come in bright, vibrant colors in 3 fun themes. I can see this fitting perfectly in our Tot School activities, that will help with building Baby Girl's vocabulary. The words are also simple enough that Little Man can read them to his baby sister. Actually, I've seen him pick them up as much as Baby Girl. I think it's the fun, bright colors that cause him to enjoy looking as well as the simplicity of the words. 

I thought it would be fun to give a few activity ideas to correspond with each book, to help inspire even more fun together!

Hello Farm!

Ooblek mud (which can be turned into a wash sensory play afterwards!), A 'fill the silo' sensory play (this post has several ideas)

My Neighborhood (community helpers)

occupations dress up play, fire truck and fire craft

Busy City

Use blocks/Lego's to build 'skyscrapers', I love these 'invitation to create' posts (this one is about a city)! I keep random construction paper shapes around for just such crafts!

If you want more ideas, check out my Tot School Activity post!

Here are some Amazon recommendations for other activities you can do (links are affiliated)

When these books came in the mail, Baby Girl immediately wanted to snuggle up and look through each one of the colorful books. She has also already decided to test the 'indestructible' part, and so far, they've stood up to her little toddler self! Timberdoodle has added these books to their complete tot school curriculum, which I think is a perfect addition. They are great vocabulary building, sturdy books. I highly recommend them! I haven't found a single 'con' to add. The Indestructibles book set would make perfect gifts, or as stated before, an addition to early learning. 

 

My Favorite Fall Themed Learning Printables

Fall-my favorite season! I am excited to share some of my favorite ways to incorporate my favorite season into my kids' learning. I tend to gravitate towards more hands on learning and less 'book-work', so what I'm sharing with you today are my favorite printables that encourage hands on learning. I'll have them organized by subject and learning level. Please note: I have more experience with early learning-1st grade, so this is mostly geared toward that age range.

Bible:

I used Christian Preschool Printables for a couple of years when my Sunday School class needed literature. A good portion of their things are free, and I absolutely love their graphics. Click here to find their fall/Thanksgiving themed worksheets, crafts, and coloring pages!

Math:

This link has tot school/preschool math as well as other learning worksheets, but how cute is this!! Anytime you can add a fun treat to learning is a win! I see being able to come up with several things math related with candy corn now: candy corn addition, candy corn shapes...and now I'm hungry for candy corn! (I know people have a very differing opinions on the candy! haha)

Language Arts:

I talked about this in my previous fall learning post, but I have to mention it again here. This literature unit study for little ones has wonderful printables and activities for The Little Blue Truck. We did this a few years ago and loved it! I plan to do it with Baby Girl in the next year or so. There is also a unit study called Bear Says Thanks that is perfect for Thanksgiving. 

Science/STEAM:

We did these printables and activities last year and both kids loved it! It has so many things to do for hands on fun and observation with pumpkins! I am planning to do it again this year as well! I think Baby Girl will enjoy getting her hands down in pumpkin guts!