Canadian History

[MelanieM]

I'm looking for some great books that cover Canadian history. Right now I'm looking at The Story of Canada and The Kids Book of Canadian History. Can anyone provide feedback on either of these? Or offer other recommendations?

 

I would also love to hear about any great fiction -- read-aloud, early readers, picture books -- that you would recommend.

 

Thanks in advance!

[KathyBC]

I have Janet Lunn's The Story of Canada. I like the colorful pictures, and plan to use it as a history spine next year. Another title with short, detailed stories is Donalda Dickie's My First History of Canada.

 

Some other titles we've used:

A Child's Story of Canada (Karin Moorhouse)

Picture books listed in Come Sit By Me, volumes 1 and 2

Stories from Footprints in the Snow

 

To plan for next year, with kids in grades 3, 5 and 9, I've been using the chronology and book lists in Heather Penner's Modern History through Canadian Eyes. I would love more picture books and early readers. Most resources tend to list history books and novels. I'll throw those resources at you anyway. :-)

 

Two favourite book lists:

http://www.ontariogifted.org/meghan/history.htm

http://www.freewebs.com/canadianhomeschool/nicolas%20%20list%20draft%20sept%2023%202006.htm

 

Other sites bookmarked over the years:

http://www.elementaryhistoryofcanada.blogspot.com/

http://www.securenet.net/members/chastie/Hisintro.html

http://sites.google.com/site/mummymail/canadianhistory

http://stfrancisbooks.com/prod_History.htm (from a Catholic perspective)

 

 

Hope you can find some great fiction for the younger years. Sonlight now has a Canadian sub forum, which might be a good place to look.

[MelanieM]

Wow -- thanks Kathy! Those sites look great! I'm going to spend some more time poking around during quiet time this afternoon, then cross-reference with my library. Yay! :D

[Colleen in NS]

The Kids Book of Canadian History. Can anyone provide feedback on either of these?

 

I like The Story of Canada, too. And The Kids Book of....series has a bunch of other books about Canada in it. I like these, too, because of the variety of topics and people.

[JeneralMom]

There was a whole thread on this topic back in December. Good suggestions.

[MelanieM]

Thanks for the suggestions, Colleen!

 

Jennifer, I just looked at that thread and saw that I replied with a link to another thread, and a fabulous outside resource. Er... I guess my memory isn't working so well at the moment! :lol: Thanks for bringing that back to my attention!

[Cleopatra]

Ah yes .......... Canadian history ........... Excuse me a minute while I tear my hair out. ;)

 

I have tried to cover it every year but every year I just can't bring myself to do it. I could not find anything I liked. Donna Ward's books covered the PLOs (B.C. standards) but were only mildly interesting, the Story of Canada made us yawn and many of the books I reviewed were appalling. I couldn't find anything engaging or exciting. Finally when my dd told my dh that Canada has 40 provinces (she's used to looking at U.S. maps), I decided I needed to do something. So we are reading through Canada: A New Land and Canada: A New Nation by Edith Deyell. They are old textbooks but the tone is more chatty and interesting than many books on Canada that I've seen. I bought mine here http://www.schoolroomclassics.com/products/canadian%20history.htm but it looks like she's sold out at the moment.

 

Otherwise Ambelside Online has Canadian content and I always find their selections to be excellent. http://www.amblesideonline.org/Canada.shtml

 

I've given up my dream of finding a 'Canadian' SOTW and am accepting that I can only do the best I can with what I have. I also plan to do some reading myself, hoping I can find an excellent adult book on Can. history which will help me make it exciting for my dd.

[Caralee]

I had the hardest time finding good books for my grammar stage children on Canadian history. All I could find was"The Kids Book of Canada" by Kids Can Press. www.kidscanpress.com There are many books in this series about Canada (around 10): one on Canada's history, great Canadians, Canadian Aboriginal people's information/history book, Canadian firsts, Canadian geography and so on. They are good and very easy to read with lots of pictures

 

I also found information from Scholar's Choice website/Store. They have many books on different topics of Canadian history (like The First Explorers, Canadian constitution, Canadian Prime Ministers, Canadian Government, Canadian Geography, etc). These are more grade 4-8 level reading texts/workbooks.

 

But our favourite resource is Canada: A People's History Dvd's. There are four volumes and they cost me about 100$ total through chapters.ca and amazon.ca. My husband knows history like you wouldn't believe and he said that these dvd's are the best compilation of Canadian history in an accurate form he has ever seen. Our family loves watching them and we have learned so much from them. If small children are viewing it, you may need to screen parts of it and have discussions to explain things.

 

Charmayne

Edited June 8, 2010 by Charmayne

[Guest]

I was only planning on using some readers/ RA's for this coming year but after meeting Donna Ward this weekend at a convention we decided to try Canada, My Country. There are additional books to supplement and I am now trying to decide which ones we will add. Both hubby and I liked the Social Studies kit so we will most likely be going with that. We are starting TOG this year and I also have to plan out all the LA materials I wish to use so when it came to Canadian studies I really wanted to keep it simple, at least for this year. Depending on how things go we will decide what we will do the following year.

[canadianmum]

We've attempted Canadian history in our summer studies, and did a combination of the Dickie book, with Donna Ward's book (can't go find the title right now, but it's used as a spine with several other read-alouds). The Dickie book is for earlier grades, and we liked what Donna Ward had put together, but my challenge is to put history together with world history. Maybe this is a separate thread, but if you use the type of book that's a spine for other readers, how do you go about doing Canadian and world history? It seems that there is so much U.S. history material that fits in with other studies...am I lame? It seems like we're inventing the wheel every year.

[cschnee]

We have used and will continue for the next 3 years to use Canadian History through Modern Eyes by Heather Penner a book someone already mentioned.

 

It gives a variety of books to use as a spine and we chose The Story of Canada and The Spirit of Canada. We also watch Canada: A People's History as she suggests. The Spirit of Canada is an amazing books with songs, legends and snippets of Canadian History.

 

We've added in picture books, songs and novels from our library. We love it! And as I already mentioned, it will take us 4 years total to cover. We will be intertwining it with sotw 4 over the next 3 years.

 

I've really tried to find maps a la sotw to go with the program, but no dice! If I ever put together something, I'll let y'all know.

[Colleen in NS]

I've really tried to find maps a la sotw to go with the program, but no dice!

 

The SOTW maps are based on Knowledge Quest maps, and KQ has put out a new product called MapTrek. It's pretty much the same maps, but with activities for older kids, too. AND, one of the owners told me they've had many requests for a Canadian history map set, so they may make one! Maybe e-mail KQ and let them know you are interested....

[OnTheBrink]

H.E. Marshall did a book on British colonies, Canada being one of them (along with Australia, NZ, and others). Not sure if it's what you're wanting, but I thought I'd toss it out there. Here's a link to it online:

http://www.mainlesson.com/display.php?author=marshall&book=empire&story=_contents

[Caralee]

For ourselves, we are only completing the first 4 years (grammar stage) of world history. We covered the 3rd and 4th year of world history in the the 3rd year. Then in our 4th year,we covered everything about Canada: history, prime ministers, government, geography, etc.

 

In doing this, we have gotten behind in reading literature related to world history. And since I couldn't find many books on Canada in literature, we continued reading the literature that we got behind with.

 

I am not sure how we will do it in the logic stage or in the rhetoric stage. We may do Canadian history in the summer or on Saturdays over the next four years... I am not sure yet. It is something that will need take a lot of preparation and planning.

 

One could replace American history with Canadian history when doing the four years of world history.

 

I do know that if you view the dvd's "Canada: A People's History," you will get an excellent understanding and overview (and extensive details) about our Canadian history. A family could view this one night each week for the year or however you wish. The are about 4 Cd's per volume and that equals to about 16-20 hours per volume I think. They pack in alot of information and they don't hide anything like some history textbooks do.

 

I would be interested in how families in the different stages of classical education have included Canadian history while studying world history.

 

Charmayne

[Roxy Roller]

I had written a long post, complete with excerpts from this book - 'Famous Canadian Stories' - http://www.amazon.ca/Famous-Canadian-Stories-Retold-Children/dp/1436673895, but it disappeared. I have the original edition from 1923(that I picked up at an antique store for $10) and a follow up edition called 'More Famous Canadian Stories', that is copyrighted 1926. It is written in story form and would be great for grammar aged children to read and narrate from. Although the original versions I have are not always 'politically correct' in the words they use for the natives, etc. They are like most of the books I have read that are written in that timeframe. I believe the new printings have been further edited to take care of that.

 

I am not sure, but it may be public domain. Does anyone know how to check that out?

 

I will re-type out an excerpt from the book if anyone wants it, just let me know. I had typed out a portion from the story of Laura Secord.

 

I also have the whole DVD series mentioned above, and I will be using it for the middle grades and possibly high school, too.

Edited June 8, 2010 by Roxy Roller
Fixed Link

[Colleen in NS]

I had written a long post, complete with excerpts from this book - 'Famous Canadian Stories' - http://www.amazon.ca/Famous-Canadian-Stories-Retold-Children/dp/1436673895, but it disappeared. I have the original edition from 1923(that I picked up at an antique store for $10) and a follow up edition called 'More Famous Canadian Stories', that is copyrighted 1926. It is written in story form and would be great for grammar aged children to read and narrate from.

 

Ooooooo, I have one called Famous Canadian Stories, published in 1945. There is a note in it that says it's a revised edition comprising a selection of material from the two original volumes that you mentioned. I do like it. I found it at a library book sale. It starts with stories of the early explorers (including Norsemen). Then there are sections on:

 

Stories of New France

Stories of Early Days in Ontario

Stories of the Canadian Northwest

Stories of the Pacific Coast

Stories of the Maritime Provinces

Stories of Our Flag, Our Provinces, Canadian Names, etc.

Stories of Canadian Missionaries

Builders of Canada

Miscellaneous (like public holidays, special days, Canadian authors)

[Strawberry Queen]

I have the same standard books as other-Story of Canada, Spirit of Canada, My First History of Can.

 

My plan for Can studies has evolved over the years. I tried doing it with sotw but it made it a bit complicated. I'm starting to adjust my plans to be less perfect. I did moderns this year and spent a bit of time reading through some sections of Story of Canada. I also did a memory challenge and had them memorize the list of Prime ministers. They also read many Dear Canada books and Canadian Flyer books.

 

My plan for next year is to have them memorize provinces/territories and capital cities. I'll also have them read a biography of a famous Canadian each month. I get these from the library I think it's called The Canadians, but I could be wrong. One dd read about Emily Carr and the other read about Ernie Coombs. THis info seems to have stuck with them, so I think it is better for a snapshot of the time period than just and overview. I'm also going to have my older dd read through an old text about geographical regions and what each produces.

 

I'm not trying to do a complete program for a while. It comes down to laziness on my part. I don't want to pull together a full program more than once. :D So I'll wait until they will remember it. I've also come to the conclusion that while we might like a nice pretty package of a program, that's not necessarily what they like or need. I'll just keep it on the back burner and slip in Canadian bits here and there.

 

Oh, we also play the professor Noggins games History of Canada and Geography of Canada. They're great for review and finding out about parts of the country that you never studied in school.

 

Hope you can figure out how things should work for your family.

[MelanieM]

Thanks for all the great suggestions and links!

 

Canadianmum, is Courage and Conquest the Donna Ward book you refered to? I just read something that described it as similar to the SOTW AGs, which would certainly be well received here!

[fivetails]

We found The Story of Canada to be sooooooo dry & boring. Blaaaaaaah.

 

I'd love to get my paws on that dvd set though ~ I've seen bits on youtube and it looks fantastic. :D