Workbook-style history?

[Phyllis in Canada]

Okay, okay, not very classical and not much fun, but it's for my sil who doesn't "do" whole books. She wants simple pages, at each child's reading level (grades 2 & 4), with an illustration to colour and/or questions to answer. Does anything like that exist???

[Alessandra]

edHelper is an excellent (subscription) web site that has a lot of what you are asking for. i have found history-based short reading selections, cloze activities, worksheets, word searches, etc -- a LOT of stuff. I highy recommend this -- more history than Enchanted Learning.

 

You could also look at the Evan Moor site for workbooks or check out a local teacher's store.

 

Have you considered other ways of doing history -- activity books, audiobooks, videos, field trips. At your kids' ages, I would consider persisting with read alouds and letting them color (check out Dover or Bellerophon books) whille you read. Or draw -- Draw Right Now has quite a bit of history in some volume and is about right for your age range.

 

Another suggestion -- not that you asked, lol -- for reluctant young historians is to focus on one topic (if you have time to prepare) such as food/table manners, antique toys, clothing, etc. Or you could try some of the You Wouldn't Want to series or the Horrible History series. Don't worry about giving them the whole spread of history at this point, just tell them things like -- Queen Isabella of Spain only had 3 baths (I think) in her entire life. But, ultimately, I would not force history upon them. JMHHHHO!

 

I don't know if Magic Treehouse count as whole books, but they move fast & are great read alouds.

Edited July 26, 2009 by Alessandra

[Chris in VA]

For American history, Story of the USA is used by Sonlight--we have the first one, and I'd say it's a bit dry if used as the only resource, but it is easy to understand, has questions after each reading, and covers the basics.

[KarenNC]

For American history, Story of the USA is used by Sonlight--we have the first one, and I'd say it's a bit dry if used as the only resource, but it is easy to understand, has questions after each reading, and covers the basics.

 

We use this as an additional spine with SOTW 3 and 4 to add in more American history (along with other books). I really like it, but it is definitely not at a 2nd grade reading level if she is wanting them to be independent. http://www.epsbooks.com/dynamic/catalog/series.asp?seriesonly=1631M I can hand it to my rising 4th grader and have her do it independently before we go on to other material (and do the discussion questions together), but she is a very strong reader with a very large vocabulary. I don't have a good feel for whether a child with an average 4th grade reading level would have difficulty or not.

 

They don't have any samples online at the publisher, so here are a couple of paragraphs from vol. 2 (it says all the books are written on the same level):

 

"As head of the treasury, Hamilton was in charge of money affairs. Our country was very poor because the states had refused to pay taxes to the old government. Hamilton said that the new government was strong enough to collect the money it needed from the states. He also believed that the country should be run by rich bankers and merchants. He thought that since they could build factories and make cities grow, they should have the most power.

Many Americans were shocked at this idea. They did not think it was fair. One of these people was Thomas Jefferson, who had written most of the Declaration of Independence. Jefferson was also a member of President Washington's cabinet. As secretary of state, he was in charge of foreign affairs."

 

There is a pronunciation help on "refused". The page and a half of text on the lesson is preceded by a line drawn illustration that one could choose to color, some vocabulary words (for this lesson they were statesman, population and neutral). It is followed by some review questions about the main ideas to be written out, multiple choice, true/false, fill in the correct vocabulary word, and then discussion questions to help them think further about it, connect it to current times, etc.

[Mandy in TN]

http://www.epsbooks.com/dynamic/catalog/series.asp?subject=64S&subjectdesc=Comprehension&series=1495M

 

They also have a Western Civ series.

HTH-

Mandy

[amtmcm]

Christian Light Education is easy to implement and the children work on their own. Open & go, do the next lesson, take a quiz at the end....

 

CLE has a few Canadian Studies courses:

http://www.clp.org/store/by_grade/18

 

And here's their regular social studies which applies to student from any country:

http://www.clp.org/store/by_subject/6

 

2nd grade:

Families and Neighbors (201)

Communities (202)

Communities at Work (203)

Travel (204)

Children From Different Communities (205)

 

4th grade:

This fourth-grade textbook strongly emphasizes world geography and resources. The student begins his study of the world at home in the Americas and moves around the world, concluding in Antarctica. The textbook focuses on God's wonderful gifts to mankind and the wise use of those gifts.

 

 

What about Story of the World? It doesn't get much easier than reading one chapter a week (or listening to the audio book) and coloring a sheet from the Activity Guide.

[EKS]

How about SOTW with activity guide pages? I know it's not exactly a workbook, but at least they'll be getting good input.