3 Quick Tips For How to Make History Fun In Homeschool
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I think that we can all agree that knowing how to make history fun in homeschool will go a long way toward making your homeschooling experience more enjoyable.
History is known for being a dry and boring subject at times, and yet it doesn’t have to be!
History is captivating and fun if it is presented in the right way.
So, if you’re worried about how to make history an interesting and captivating subject in your homeschool then keep reading for my top tips.
How to Make History Fun in Homeschool
Making history fun boils down to three main things:
- Make it relatable
- Use living books to teach
- Make it come alive through field trips & hands-on projects
So, let’s talk about those points some more and how to practically implement them.
#1 Make It Relatable
As humans, we honestly struggle when we can’t relate to something. It’s an important life skill to be able to put yourself into someone else’s shoes and see life through their eyes.
Doing so helps to grow empathy, patience, and all manner of other important character traits.
Being able to relate to history gives us all a completely different lens through which to view the world. It broadens our world view and helps us to see how differently everyone lives their lives.
It also allows us to understand current world events based on how history now impacts them.
So, it is vital to be able to get your kids to relate to history and the historical characters that you study.
You see, when a child can relate to a character or subject that they’re studying then when they’re learning, it’s impacting them personally.
They can see themselves in that situation and therefore they engage with the information a lot more readily and willingly. Historical figures aren’t just figures. They become real people that your kids can understand and relate to. Or, perhaps they can’t understand them but can draw comparisons between how we live now and how they lived back then.
So, you need to make history relatable. How do you do that? Well, we’ll talk about exactly that right now.
#2 Use Living Books
While there is nothing inherently wrong with history textbooks, I personally haven’t had the fondest experience using them throughout my lifetime.
Books filled with lists of dates and names aren’t likely to leave a lasting impact on your kids…at least not a positive one.
My favourite way to teach history to my children is through the use of living books.
What is a living book, you ask? You can read more about living books in this post. For the sake of this post, what you need to know about living books is that they are written by an author who is passionate about the subject and that they ignite interest and inspire imagination.
It’s a fairly broad definition and ultimately leaves the categorizing of books in the hands of the reader.
I really like this, as it gives autonomy to the homeschooling parent who knows their family best.
With that definition in mind, you can pull books that are fiction or non-fiction to use in order to teach history.
The My Story series is a favorite of mine. They may have fictional characters but the historical events are accurate.
The use of living books to teach history really helps your child to be able to relate to people and events that went on long before they were born.
It allows us to imagine ourselves living in a different time. Living books take an arbitrary name in history and bring that person back to life in our imagination.
I know this works because I’ve seen it in my own learning and I’ve seen it in my children.
A non-fiction book that we really enjoy for teaching history is Story of the World. It allows for a great study of history but it is engaging and captivating just like historical fiction books. There are plenty of non-fiction books that would be a great addition to your home library. You simply want them to be engaging and accurate.
Another wonderful reason to use living books is that you can use them to teach older students and younger students alike all at the same time.
So, look up some great books and read them to your kids. It really is a great way to develop a family interest in history.
#3 Do Hands-On Activities & Field Trips
Books are a wonderful resource. They help us to connect to the world around us and to broaden our views in order to understand how other people live their lives.
Another fantastic way to help make history relatable is to do hands-on activities.
I still have vivid memories as a child of building some kind of water structure to imitate what the ancient Egyptians used to water their crops.
It stuck with me and I still remember it to this day.
You may not be a crafty mom, and that’s totally fine (I’m not either), but fitting in the odd hands-on activity can really help to solidify information in the minds of your children.
I think you’ll also find that most children LOVE crafts and activities, so this definitely checks the box for making history fun.
However, if you’re looking for another active way to make history fun and relatable, plan some field trips. Visiting historical sites is one of the best ways to teach homeschool history lessons.
If you are studying something that has a location you can visit then by all means, go and do it.
Your kids will so enjoy connecting the dots and seeing where certain events took place. Homeschool families have the added benefit of being able to visit these places outside of peak times.
Another option is to do a virtual tour. For instance, not everyone can get on a plane and fly over to study ancient Egypt. Instead, look to see if there are any virtual tours available. This can be a seriously fun way to “visit” a place with your kids.
History Curriculum & Resource Recommendations
This blog post wouldn’t be complete without a few recommendations for resources and curriculum that are really wonderful for teaching the subject of history.
We use Sonlight to cover history in our homeschool. It is a literature-based curriculum which means that all teaching is done through books.
We love it, and my children have learned a ton. I personally love that all the lesson plans are done for me and it is very much an open-and-go history curriculum. I can see a love of history being fostered and grown in our home through using this curriculum.
You can get $10 off your first order by clicking here. This year we have studied US history. One of the books that my children engaged with the most was about a young boy who lived in colonial times. It took us through his daily life and explained what everything was like. It was wonderful for my younger kids to be able to really relate to the history of that time.
We also read a fiction book where the story took place during the Civil War. While it was a fiction book, my kids still learned so much! They are absolutely little history lovers.
I mentioned above the My Story book series. There are so many books to choose from. I highly recommend them! You can find many good books at your local library, so don’t feel as though you have to go out and buy a ton.
YouTube videos are a really wonderful resource to add to any history homeschool curriculum. You can easily pursue a child’s interest in a subject by simply looking for more videos on YouTube. We have done this a lot, often when I don’t have the answer to one of their questions.
Finally, I reviewed the game Trekking Through History a while ago and thought it a really fun way to explore history. You can read that review of the history game here. History games can be especially good if you have a reluctant learner. Plus, they’re a lot of fun for the whole family.
Final Thoughts
Once my least favorite subject, history is now right at the top of my list of favorite things to both study and teach. Dry textbooks don’t have a place in our home.
If you ask my first-born what his favorite subject is, he’ll tell you it’s history.
That proves to me that making the effort to bring history alive for my kids really does have a big and lasting impact.
I hope that my tips help give you the confidence to teach history and help you understand how to make history fun in your homeschool.
