Building a High School American History Course

I mentioned in January I was worried we were not getting enough American history in. Sure, we had been reading the living books that went with the American History curriculum from Sonlight, but that was it. I wanted more for my daughter. So after I wrote the blog post I sat down to figure out what I could do without having to order a new curriculum or back track through Sonlight. Here's what I came up with:

1 - For 12 weeks she watched one episode a week of America, The Story of Us, a history Channel production.

2 - I found papers online HERE that corresponded to each week's episode. She filled those out.

3 - She also had to write a 2 page report on what she learned in the video. Nothing dry, but interesting stuff she'd want to share with a friend. The library had a detailed America, The Story of Us book that corresponded with each episode as well. I ordered that and she used it while writing.

4 - Dear America books correspond nicely with an America study and we had maybe 25 books that have been sitting around. I put them in order chronologically and she read one each week based on what the episodes were about.

5 - I also typed up vocabulary lists based on the videos and episode paperwork, that she practiced on Quizlet. You can find my lists here.

6 - Additonally when she had time, she watched the Dear America videos on Netflix. It doesn't have all of them but it has maybe 10.

 

7 - And finally, to throw in a bit of US geography, she watched How The States Got Their Shapes each week. This show is great!

She learned so much with this approach. I don't know if it would be a full 1 year of credit for a high schooler on it's own but you could add more books on famous Americans, research on American inventions, explorers and maybe additional reports or field trips. We had read a lot of the Sonlight books in the fall so this rounded out to a full high school, credit and an enjoyable one at that!

 

Posted with Love from Contessa