As many of you know, our little home office is in New York City. We have been very fortunate in that our part of the city was one of the few areas to be largely unaffected by the storm. We've been warned to watch out for weakened trees, but that is about it. Still, the interruptions and limited services in the rest of the city mean that the best thing we can do right now is stay home, and let the authorities do their jobs. In this respect, we are very grateful to all of the government agencies, at the local, state, and federal levels, who have been working tirelessly to help fix this mess.
In the meantime, we encourage those who are interested in helping to do so. Please visit the Red Cross to find out ways that you can assist with relief efforts. Our thoughts are with everyone who is suffering through this disaster right now.
Wednesday, October 31, 2012
Tuesday, October 16, 2012
The Basic Facts on Teaching History to Homeschoolers
Teaching history to homeschool students can be a daunting task for many parents. What do I teach? What dates, periods, and people are important? What will my child be expected to know in college? The fact that so many parents had negative experiences studying history in high school exacerbates the problem.
Most educational programs teach a subject referred to as “Social Studies” in grades K-6, and often through eighth grade. Social Studies is difficult to define, but generally is a combination of history, geography, political science, sociology, psychology, anthropology, philosophy, and other associated liberal arts. In some ways, particularly when dealing with natural phenomena in the study of geography, Social Studies overlaps natural science.
Typically, in the primary grades, the focus of Social Studies begins by focusing on the child and familiarizing him or her with the surrounding environment. An easy way to understand this might be by listening to the Sesame Street song “People in Your Neighborhood.” Children are introduced to the various people with whom they may come into contact—police officers, teachers, bus drivers, store clerks, and the like. As children develop, they are introduced to geographical concepts, such as map reading. However, in the typical U.S. classroom, this involves looking at hypothetical neighborhood maps, rather than “real” maps. Using such maps, students learn basic concepts like the cardinal directions (north, south, east, west) and scale (e.g., one inch on a map correlates to one foot in reality).
While many K-6 educational programs incorporate history into the curriculum incidentally (for example, by reading a story on the life of Harriet Tubman, students learn a bit about the period of slavery in the United States), studying history as we commonly understand “History” does not begin until middle school/junior high (grades 6-8 or 7-8). It is at this point that a student is commonly handed a textbook with a title such as “World History” that includes text describing major historical events in chronological order. The various branches of Social Studies are still taught (e.g., geography is learned by studying the way a map of an area changes over time), but the focus is on learning about important historical events in the order in which they occurred.
The problem that might not really be a problem? Many parents of schoolchildren complain that their fifth- or sixth-grader doesn’t know who wrote the Declaration of Independence (Thomas Jefferson), the date it was signed (July 4, 1776), etc. It is easy to see this as a failing of the educational system. However, the reality is that this information simply hasn’t been covered yet. From an educator’s perspective, it’s a bit like complaining that a cooking novice, who has only just been taught to boil an egg correctly, doesn’t know how to prepare Eggs Benedict.
The problem that might actually be a problem? With each passing year, more and more events are added to the study of history. For example, in the United States of 1900, World War I, the Roaring Twenties, the Great Depression, World War II, the Cold War, etc., simply hadn’t happened yet. Teachers and students had much less content to cover. Additionally, in courses covering the history of the world, many cultures and areas simply weren’t studied. In today’s world, however, there is simply more historical content to cover, and more parts of the globe that we, as a society, have learned it is worthwhile to pay attention to.
Why can’t we fix this problem by teaching “History” to younger kids? To some extent, we can. Younger children can be mature enough to deal with many historical topics, including the Declaration of Independence example given above. And it is probably wise for parent-educators (and classroom teachers) to introduce more historical people and events into Social Studies and other lessons in order to broaden students’ background knowledge. Regardless of how many names, dates, and events are taught to younger children, however, the fact remains that many historical events are a bit advanced for young kids. To put it simply, it is completely inappropriate to teach a second-grader details about mass exterminations during the Holocaust, the Rape of Nanking during World War II, the genocide in Rwanda, etc. Some historical topics simply need to wait until a child is emotionally mature enough to handle them.
And so, when the typical child enters a junior or senior high school classroom, the child might find that he or she is expected to learn “World History”—theoretically, the entire history of the world—in a one-year course that lasts 180 or so days. This is a daunting challenge to classroom teachers who possess degrees in the field, and therefore can be a much more formidable task for parents who might not be particularly familiar with the material.
This situation leads many homeschool parents to use a standard textbook approach when teaching History to their children. The idea seems to be, “If I use the book, I won’t have to worry about missing any important events.” All too often, the parent then inadvertently does precisely what his/her own high school teacher did that made high school History so boring for the parent—he or she tells the kids to “read the section and answer the questions.”
To solve this problem, many teachers and parents, including ourselves, advocate a more eclectic approach to teaching History to homeschoolers. Parents are still free to use textbooks (in order to maintain proper historical sequence), but are encouraged to branch out of the textbook to broaden their children’s knowledge base and allow for more engaging, student-directed learning experiences (that is, to broaden their scope). For example, students might visit a museum, read a biography, read a fictional book set or written during a certain time period, construct historical clothing (period costumes), or conduct research on a related topic of the student’s choice. In this way, students not only learn more, but they enjoy the learning experience.
Our free History teaching materials (covering both World History and American History courses) are designed with an eclectic approach in mind. For example, World History is divided into 52 total units—27 units for prehistory through the 1700s, and 25 units for the history of the modern world. The content of these units is based on the standard two-year World History course taught in most U.S. states. Units are essentially in chronological order, and cover what high school courses are expected to cover (and what universities expect incoming students to have learned).
One unit is dedicated to the Industrial Revolution. Included in this unit are worksheets, puzzles, readings, video recommendations (with corresponding worksheets), and the like. Are you obligated to use each and every item? Are you forbidden from using outside items? Of course not. As the educator, you (and your child) are free to pick and choose from among the offerings. And we readily admit that some units are weaker (in terms of materials available from us) than other units. We have added what we have, and work diligently to create new materials consistently. All the same, even if we were to have a thousand educational items within every unit, as professional educators, we would never be so brazen as to declare that you need look nowhere else. And after all, most of us know, based on common sense, that any person or organization claiming to have all of the answers is probably full of it.
What we have strived to create is an outline for classroom and home education. The parent can see that he or she left off the first year of World History with a look at the rise of parliamentary democracy in England, and that the second year begins by studying the Scientific Revolution. There is a Scientific Revolution PowerPoint, as well as various worksheets on the Scientific Revolution. There is even a Galileo Galilei image gallery. Our idea is not that a parent must use each and every item, and that doing so will instill every important idea into a student's head. More logically, a student (or parent) would read the overview provided by a textbook, then work on those educational items which the parent (and student) feel will be most useful for reinforcing or expanding upon the material.
Our advice for teaching History to homeschoolers, in short...
Most importantly...have fun! History is a thrilling topic.
Most educational programs teach a subject referred to as “Social Studies” in grades K-6, and often through eighth grade. Social Studies is difficult to define, but generally is a combination of history, geography, political science, sociology, psychology, anthropology, philosophy, and other associated liberal arts. In some ways, particularly when dealing with natural phenomena in the study of geography, Social Studies overlaps natural science.
Typically, in the primary grades, the focus of Social Studies begins by focusing on the child and familiarizing him or her with the surrounding environment. An easy way to understand this might be by listening to the Sesame Street song “People in Your Neighborhood.” Children are introduced to the various people with whom they may come into contact—police officers, teachers, bus drivers, store clerks, and the like. As children develop, they are introduced to geographical concepts, such as map reading. However, in the typical U.S. classroom, this involves looking at hypothetical neighborhood maps, rather than “real” maps. Using such maps, students learn basic concepts like the cardinal directions (north, south, east, west) and scale (e.g., one inch on a map correlates to one foot in reality).
While many K-6 educational programs incorporate history into the curriculum incidentally (for example, by reading a story on the life of Harriet Tubman, students learn a bit about the period of slavery in the United States), studying history as we commonly understand “History” does not begin until middle school/junior high (grades 6-8 or 7-8). It is at this point that a student is commonly handed a textbook with a title such as “World History” that includes text describing major historical events in chronological order. The various branches of Social Studies are still taught (e.g., geography is learned by studying the way a map of an area changes over time), but the focus is on learning about important historical events in the order in which they occurred.
The problem that might not really be a problem? Many parents of schoolchildren complain that their fifth- or sixth-grader doesn’t know who wrote the Declaration of Independence (Thomas Jefferson), the date it was signed (July 4, 1776), etc. It is easy to see this as a failing of the educational system. However, the reality is that this information simply hasn’t been covered yet. From an educator’s perspective, it’s a bit like complaining that a cooking novice, who has only just been taught to boil an egg correctly, doesn’t know how to prepare Eggs Benedict.
The problem that might actually be a problem? With each passing year, more and more events are added to the study of history. For example, in the United States of 1900, World War I, the Roaring Twenties, the Great Depression, World War II, the Cold War, etc., simply hadn’t happened yet. Teachers and students had much less content to cover. Additionally, in courses covering the history of the world, many cultures and areas simply weren’t studied. In today’s world, however, there is simply more historical content to cover, and more parts of the globe that we, as a society, have learned it is worthwhile to pay attention to.
Why can’t we fix this problem by teaching “History” to younger kids? To some extent, we can. Younger children can be mature enough to deal with many historical topics, including the Declaration of Independence example given above. And it is probably wise for parent-educators (and classroom teachers) to introduce more historical people and events into Social Studies and other lessons in order to broaden students’ background knowledge. Regardless of how many names, dates, and events are taught to younger children, however, the fact remains that many historical events are a bit advanced for young kids. To put it simply, it is completely inappropriate to teach a second-grader details about mass exterminations during the Holocaust, the Rape of Nanking during World War II, the genocide in Rwanda, etc. Some historical topics simply need to wait until a child is emotionally mature enough to handle them.
And so, when the typical child enters a junior or senior high school classroom, the child might find that he or she is expected to learn “World History”—theoretically, the entire history of the world—in a one-year course that lasts 180 or so days. This is a daunting challenge to classroom teachers who possess degrees in the field, and therefore can be a much more formidable task for parents who might not be particularly familiar with the material.
This situation leads many homeschool parents to use a standard textbook approach when teaching History to their children. The idea seems to be, “If I use the book, I won’t have to worry about missing any important events.” All too often, the parent then inadvertently does precisely what his/her own high school teacher did that made high school History so boring for the parent—he or she tells the kids to “read the section and answer the questions.”
To solve this problem, many teachers and parents, including ourselves, advocate a more eclectic approach to teaching History to homeschoolers. Parents are still free to use textbooks (in order to maintain proper historical sequence), but are encouraged to branch out of the textbook to broaden their children’s knowledge base and allow for more engaging, student-directed learning experiences (that is, to broaden their scope). For example, students might visit a museum, read a biography, read a fictional book set or written during a certain time period, construct historical clothing (period costumes), or conduct research on a related topic of the student’s choice. In this way, students not only learn more, but they enjoy the learning experience.
Our free History teaching materials (covering both World History and American History courses) are designed with an eclectic approach in mind. For example, World History is divided into 52 total units—27 units for prehistory through the 1700s, and 25 units for the history of the modern world. The content of these units is based on the standard two-year World History course taught in most U.S. states. Units are essentially in chronological order, and cover what high school courses are expected to cover (and what universities expect incoming students to have learned).
One unit is dedicated to the Industrial Revolution. Included in this unit are worksheets, puzzles, readings, video recommendations (with corresponding worksheets), and the like. Are you obligated to use each and every item? Are you forbidden from using outside items? Of course not. As the educator, you (and your child) are free to pick and choose from among the offerings. And we readily admit that some units are weaker (in terms of materials available from us) than other units. We have added what we have, and work diligently to create new materials consistently. All the same, even if we were to have a thousand educational items within every unit, as professional educators, we would never be so brazen as to declare that you need look nowhere else. And after all, most of us know, based on common sense, that any person or organization claiming to have all of the answers is probably full of it.
What we have strived to create is an outline for classroom and home education. The parent can see that he or she left off the first year of World History with a look at the rise of parliamentary democracy in England, and that the second year begins by studying the Scientific Revolution. There is a Scientific Revolution PowerPoint, as well as various worksheets on the Scientific Revolution. There is even a Galileo Galilei image gallery. Our idea is not that a parent must use each and every item, and that doing so will instill every important idea into a student's head. More logically, a student (or parent) would read the overview provided by a textbook, then work on those educational items which the parent (and student) feel will be most useful for reinforcing or expanding upon the material.
Our advice for teaching History to homeschoolers, in short...
- Teaching History to a high school student can be a formidable task, but with a bit of effort, it can be rewarding for both the educator and student.
- Try to incorporate historical facts, people, and events as much as possible into K-6 learning so that students have a lot of background knowledge when it comes time (in junior and senior high school) to truly delve into these things.
- Once students begin formal History study, use a textbook section outline (or our outline) to make certain that you cover all of the major topics and events that you are expected to cover.
- We strongly recommend using an eclectic approach, drawing upon a wide variety of educational tools, learning strategies, experiences, etc., to fully engage and interest your young learner with the subject matter.
Most importantly...have fun! History is a thrilling topic.
Monday, October 15, 2012
"The Exodus and Wanderings" Workbook Answer Key
This workbook and its answer key are now available here: https://studenthandouts.com/world-history/ancient-israel/miscellaneous/exodus-and-wanderings-hebrew-history-workbook.html.
Friday, October 12, 2012
Creation and the Patriarchal Period - Answer Key
This workbook and its answer key can now be found here: https://studenthandouts.com/world-history/ancient-israel/miscellaneous/creation-and-patriarchal-period-workbook.html.
Thursday, October 11, 2012
Organized Homeschooling for a Parent with Three Kids
Are you juggling homeschooling with three kids at home? Here's a handy form for quickly organizing your day.
The daily schedule for three homeschool kids planner includes (gasp!) a column for the parent to jot down what he/she will be doing at any particular time. Isn't this much more realistic? Times are given in half-hour intervals.
Obviously, this chart does not give enough room to write down detailed lesson plans. But it will really help to plot out the activities and learning experiences for each day.
Start by printing out a sheet for each day of the week (Monday, Tuesday, etc.) and write the day of the week at the top of the sheet. Then put children's names next to a number (Child 1: Sally, Child 2: Jimmy, etc.).
Let's assume that Child 1 has piano lessons at 4:00 P.M. on Tuesdays. Write this in Child 1's column. Does mom or dad have to drive Child 1 to these lessons? Then mark "piano lessons" in the parent's column (probably 3:30, 4:00, and 4:30, because you need to include time for the commute to and from the lessons). What have you achieved? You've made it clear--on paper, in black and white--that Child 2 and Child 3 need something to do during this 1 1/2 hours. It may seem overly simple, but it can be a lot of help in terms of daily planning. For example, if one of these other children is mature enough, you could schedule for him/her to start getting dinner ready while you're at the piano lesson (simple tasks such as "peel and cut six potatoes").
The idea is that, at a glance, you can see what everyone (including yourself) is supposed to be doing at any given moment. You can schedule breaks at appropriate times. When you know that you'll need to work closely with one child from, say, 11:00 A.M.-11:30 A.M. unraveling the mystery of fractions, you can schedule your other children to work on tasks that don't require close supervision (such as an ongoing reading assignment, or an "independent study" half hour where the child is free to read, write, or draw what he/she chooses). Why? The last thing you want is to have Child 2 ask for detailed instructions on something while you're trying to explain fractions to Child 1.
Perhaps most importantly, your use of a schedule will teach your children the valuable skills of time management and independent learning. Your kids will also learn to respect your time. After all, without mom/dad on the schedule, kids often fall into the habit of assuming that mom/dad will always be available to answer questions. With mom/dad on the schedule, Child 3 can see that mom/dad is working with Child 2 from 12:30-1:00 P.M., for example, and so Child 3 must either solve the problem him-/herself, or work on something else until mom/dad is free.
The daily schedule for three homeschool kids planner includes (gasp!) a column for the parent to jot down what he/she will be doing at any particular time. Isn't this much more realistic? Times are given in half-hour intervals.
Obviously, this chart does not give enough room to write down detailed lesson plans. But it will really help to plot out the activities and learning experiences for each day.
Start by printing out a sheet for each day of the week (Monday, Tuesday, etc.) and write the day of the week at the top of the sheet. Then put children's names next to a number (Child 1: Sally, Child 2: Jimmy, etc.).
Let's assume that Child 1 has piano lessons at 4:00 P.M. on Tuesdays. Write this in Child 1's column. Does mom or dad have to drive Child 1 to these lessons? Then mark "piano lessons" in the parent's column (probably 3:30, 4:00, and 4:30, because you need to include time for the commute to and from the lessons). What have you achieved? You've made it clear--on paper, in black and white--that Child 2 and Child 3 need something to do during this 1 1/2 hours. It may seem overly simple, but it can be a lot of help in terms of daily planning. For example, if one of these other children is mature enough, you could schedule for him/her to start getting dinner ready while you're at the piano lesson (simple tasks such as "peel and cut six potatoes").
The idea is that, at a glance, you can see what everyone (including yourself) is supposed to be doing at any given moment. You can schedule breaks at appropriate times. When you know that you'll need to work closely with one child from, say, 11:00 A.M.-11:30 A.M. unraveling the mystery of fractions, you can schedule your other children to work on tasks that don't require close supervision (such as an ongoing reading assignment, or an "independent study" half hour where the child is free to read, write, or draw what he/she chooses). Why? The last thing you want is to have Child 2 ask for detailed instructions on something while you're trying to explain fractions to Child 1.
Perhaps most importantly, your use of a schedule will teach your children the valuable skills of time management and independent learning. Your kids will also learn to respect your time. After all, without mom/dad on the schedule, kids often fall into the habit of assuming that mom/dad will always be available to answer questions. With mom/dad on the schedule, Child 3 can see that mom/dad is working with Child 2 from 12:30-1:00 P.M., for example, and so Child 3 must either solve the problem him-/herself, or work on something else until mom/dad is free.
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