History

I have a confession to make.

 I love history. I love reading history books.  I love writing history curriculum. I love teaching history at a Christian homeschooling co-op. I most especially love studying history with my own kids.

But for the last two years... I have not done history at home with the boys.

I MISS IT.

Last year Ben started taking classes at our local Community College. He took two wonderful semesters of U.S. History. He had outgrown me. Elijah took my class at our Co-op that same year, so we didn't do it at home. This year Elijah is doing history on his own. Next year he probably will be taking classes at the community college. He has outgrown me too.

Aaron is not ready for me to start history yet, although he does play on the floor while I teach my middle school history class.

I MISS DOING HISTORY WITH THE BOYS.

It was the highlight of our early homeschooling years.

We spent time reading history together every single day.  We had great discussions.  After we read our history together, they read literature books that matched what we were studying.  We did it as a family.  For two of those years, I had several other children that I was "homeschooling" along with my own, and even though each of them was in a different grade, it didn't matter. We all still did history together. 

Studying it in order, from  beginning to end.

I didn't start out doing history that way.

When I first started homeschooling, Ben had been attending a Christian school, and I just continued the history curriculum that his school had been following. I hated it. It was primarily U.S. history, and its focuses were memorizing and testing. We went through the motions for the remainder of that year while I scoured the internet for better options.

I found one. Right in my own backyard.

BiblioPlan.

Originally written by some ladies at our Christian homeschooling co-op, BiblioPlan was designed around two ideas: (1) integrating the study of history and literature (studying both at the same time), and (2) studying the events of history chronologically (as much as possible).  BiblioPlan students followed a four-year plan: They studied the Ancient era, the Medieval era, the Early Modern era and then the Modern era. When they reached the Early Modern era, they studied U.S. and World history at the same time. When they were finished, they started over with the Ancient era again-- only this time, they read more advanced literature and studied each topic in greater depth. In a perfect system, each student would cycle through the four years of study three times, getting more and more advanced as he or she grew. The repetition would cement their history lessons in their minds forever.

When we first started using it, BiblioPlan was just a reading guide that told you two things: (1) Which history lessons to read each week, and (2) What literature readings matched your history lessons for the week.

There were no maps.  No homework assignments.  No tests.  No books full of timeline figures.  No craft ideas.

Just a reading guide.

And we loved it.

My boys came to the table eagerly every single morning for our history readings.  Since the Guide didn't have bells and whistles, I scoured the internet to find maps.  I had to create my own questions to quiz the boys, and we had to find pictures to fill our timeline books.  I even found art projects to accompany what we were doing.  I spent hours pulling it all together.... Plus more hours at the library and on Amazon tracking down the good quality books that BiblioPlan suggested.

We were happy.

I miss it.

Rob and I are part-owners in BiblioPlan now.  We create all of the bells and whistles so that parents don't have to do all of the extra labor that we had to do when we first used BiblioPlan.  We now offer maps, question pages, timeline books, craft ideas and our own history texts that add in the Christian element.  All that parents have to do on their own now is find the suggested literature books in their libraries or on e-readers.

It is a good history program.

But I am not doing it with my own boys, and I miss it.

Teaching at the Co-op is not the same as sitting at a table with my own kids and reading stories of the past to them.

It makes me sad.

I'm looking forward to starting Aaron in BiblioPlan next year.

We'll start in Ancients... I definitely think he will like it!!

  

If you are a homeschooling family... And if you want to bring all of your children to the table together... And if you want to watch history unfold... And if you want to read good quality literature... And if you want to learn Geography as you learn history... and if you want to watch God's story woven into the human story... and if you want your children to LOVE your time together... then you ought to consider using BiblioPlan.  I'm not putting my heart and soul into a curriculum that I don't believe in 100%!!

We have Teacher's Guides to sell to Christian and Classical schools too!!