Interactive History Learning Activities
Let’s face it, we all want to find a way to teach homeschool history so that it is engaging and interesting. We also want our children to remember what they learn, make strong connections between people and events, and maybe even genuinely enjoy learning history.
We want history to be more than memorizing rote facts, dates, and names of people and places. We want hands-on activities to keep their interest and interactive history learning activities to build interest and connection. We want learning history to engage our children's minds, inspire them to learn more and study deeper, and enrich their learning experiences.
Sounds like a pipe dream doesn't it?
What if I told you that accomplishing that is actually much easier than you may think? What if you had an easy way to teach history that your children enjoyed and looked forward to each time?
Imagine a day when your kids reached for your history curriculum on their own or your latest history lesson carried over into a lively discussion at the dinner table or even into your children's imaginative play time. What if the kids who used to groan when you scheduled a historical field trip got excited when you mentioned going to a new exhibit at a local history museum?
This can be your reality!
Here are 5 tips on making this your new homeschool reality:
1 – Teach stories, not facts
Thankfully we live in a world now where we have the choice between many wonderful history curricula. We also live in a world filled with beautifully written and illustrated biographies that are a delight to read. Find stories about brave people who lived lives of virtue and compassion to inspire your children.
2 – Play games to learn history
Gameschooling doesn’t just apply to math or geography, it can ABSOLUTELY apply to history whether you create your own games or find some ready-made games. Once we took a deck of playing cards with US Civil War figures on them and created our own “Go-Fish” style game. It was a great way to learn the names of some of the Civil War figures in a fun way.
3 – Make crafts that go with the era you are studying
Everything from cornhusk dolls to designing a sarcophagus to building the Leaning Tower of Pisa with Jenga blocks can help make learning history fun and exciting.
4 – Listen to historical music
Many times throughout our homeschooling journey we have created playlists to go with the era we are studying. Folk songs from various eras or even countries are perfect candidates for this, but classical music can be delightful to incorporate as well.
To make listening to historical music a more hands-on learning activity, simply add instruments or movement of some type to your listening time. If your children play an instrument, consider having them learn to play a portion or all of the song on their instrument. Kids who don't play an instrument can clap the beat or beat on a small drum in time with the music.
5 – Visit historical museums
Nothing beats a wonderful field trip to get your kids excited about history, but there are a few things that you can do to make what could have been a boring field trip be a great field trip. First, try to find museums that are kid-friendly with a dress-up area or an area where they can interact with artifacts. One of our local museums has a dugout canoe that kids can sit in and Native American home models to explore which is great. We were even able to find a mummy and a sarcophagus in Oklahoma for our kids to see when they were obsessed with Egyptian history.
Knowing how to implement these changes can help you make your homeschool history lessons more engaging and interesting, but what if you need help or maybe you just want something easy that doesn’t require a lot of planning on your part?
I’ve been where you are.
Growing up, I thought history class was pretty boring most of the time. I did not want that same experience for my kids, so I worked on ways to make history more fun and to help them connect with the people and events of our past. So, I understand the struggle of teaching history to your kids in a way that is engaging and interesting.
That’s why our family created Heritage Letter. We wanted to help other homeschool families just like ours share the stories and events of American history with their children in a way that delighted their children and made them look forward to learning history.
We found that our own children made their strongest connections with our history through reading stories about historical figures and events so we crafted an entirely new way to do just that.
With our monthly Heritage Letter subscription, we help the children of today connect with the people of our past through stories and our mission is simply to help your children fall in love with America one letter at a time.
We do that with our monthly letter subscription called Heritage Letter.
If you’ve never heard of a letter subscription before, it’s a bit like a magazine subscription for kids except that it comes in an envelope. Instead of bright colors and busy activities, our letters deliver in-depth information about real people from American history. We also provide a picture of the person, a timeline of his or her life, and an artifact print card featuring a historical item from that person’s life.
It's a little like visiting a living history event where real people act as be historic figures & tell about the person they are portraying EXCEPT you don’t have to go anywhere…the person comes to your home in the form of a highly researched letter delivered right to your mailbox once a month.
From there, you can use the letters as a springboard for lively educational discussion and more in-depth learning if you like or simply use the letters and accompanying materials as they are to learn more about the person and accomplish a quick, fun history lesson.
If this sounds like something you need to add to your homeschool, subscribe today and let us help you and your children connect to American history like never before!
You can learn more right here!
