American history for K/1st?

[caedmyn]

What a good American history book or spine for a 5 or 6 YO? Something written at a level lower than MOH or SOTW...I don't think she's ready for books like that yet because she doesn't remember anything after we read them.

[truebluexf]

If I were starting again, I'd TOTALLY use Elemental History! It looks PERFECT!!!!!

[lorisuewho]

I'm thinking of using Beautiful Feet American History Primary next year.

[krwsmum]

I bought the elemental history download and everything to go with it, then enrolled them in a 1X week school that covers history...I guess I could do both! I love the looks of it, and being Canadian, I need all the help I can get! LOL

[Guest]

I bought a Living History of Our World: America's Story for my 1st grader this year. While I really love it, he is not so much. :( He is actually doing better just picking a history book from the library and going through it. I'm trying to follow the general timeline and book recommendations in the Truthquest American History for Young Students. That seems to be working for now.

[Mrs Twain]

I loved reading Edward Eggleson's books written about 1895. They are gems:

My favorite of these for first grade is Stories of Great Americans for Little Americans.

I also liked his books called A First Book in American History.

[She Reads a Lot]

Hi! I started my second grade son in American History this fall, so I'm not too far off of your K/1 range.

 

We were going to do Beautiful Feet Early Am Hist primary, and I even bought the book package. But it went at such a slow pace (one d'Aulaire book spread over several weeks, when we can read one in a day or two) that we're ending up using TruthQuest AHYS I. All of the books in the Beautiful Feet package are listed in TQ plus she has loads more.

 

Also, the commentary in TQ is WONDERFUL! I love how she frames history in a short-and-sweet conversational way, so I can read my son her commentary and it feels like what I would say to him if I had a clue about history.

 

What's great about TruthQuest is that she lists the grade level for every book, so you can go through and pick out books for you to read to the kids that are only maybe 80 or 100 pages of large text (we're doing a bunch of Bulla chapter books that my son *loves*). They really are written for the young ones, and so far, her grade level recommendations are right on for the 15 or so books I've purchased. She also lists lots of picture books. My son is just particularly excited that we are reading big kid books with chapters :D

 

Since you've got kid(s) at K/1, Beautiful Feet might be perfect. But it also might be worth checking out TQ b/c there are so many amazing book choices. I know it can be overwhelming that it doesn't have a grid, but I found a great PDF that another mom posted on the TQ forum and I'm working from it. It only took me a few hours before we started school this fall to make sure I added in all of the "don't miss for boys" books to the grid. It has only been 2 1/2 weeks, but we are really enjoying history!

 

Oh yeah--some of your decision about what program to use might be determined by how long you want to spend on Am Hist. BF covers exploration through the 1860s in one year. TQ does exploration to 1800 in year 1, then 1800 to 1865 in year 2. TQ also has a third year for younger students to do Am Hist from 1865 to 2000. So you might want to think about your future history plans and how in depth you want to go this year versus future years.

 

best of luck!

christina

[MeganW]

We are using Beautiful Feet's Early American. I do edit a little bit - it's "providential". That was explained to me before I bought it, but I didn't really understand what it meant. It's easy to fix though if that isn't you, viewpoint. Many days we do more than one lesson as I eliminate some things. My kids really like it! It's a slow, easy pace and a great intro. The notebooking part is a little beyond by kids' skills (developmentally, they are like average young 5 year olds), so we just skip a lot of that.

[jewel7123]

We did a fun, light year of American History last year for K, and I posted a list of the books we read on my blog: http://www.schoolingthreesisters.com/2011/03/history-book-list-for-20102011.html

 

The books I would consider "spines" are:

 

"History for Little Pilgrims" by Christian Liberty Press

"The Children's Book of America" by William J. Bennett

"I Love America" Golden Book by Shelagh Canning

"My America and My World" Abeka reader

"The American People and Nation" by Christian Liberty Press

Edited September 3, 2011 by jewel7123

[julikins]

My all time favorite for k/1st has been History for Little Pilgrims by Christian Liberty Press. It's not expensive but is such a great overview of history (shows how history is His Story) while concentrating on American History. I loved it with older and am enjoying again with younger. Plus they have a coloring book that goes with each section that both kids have enjoyed.

[sbgrace]

I used a variety of resources (online, book, other) in my planning but we had a great year last year for 1st grade. We worked from Native Americans through Lewis and Clark and now we're going beyond that in 2nd. I posted the plans in the blog linked below in case it might help someone else.

 

I didn't like some of the books mentioned here because they were very providential (God is on our side) and some of the older ones portrayed Native Americans from a negative and biased view in my opinion. Some of them can be previewed or even read in whole online and I would do that before purchasing.

 

The spines I used among other resources were American Pioneers and Patriots, The Complete Book of United States History, and The American Story. We used a lot of other things too though including library books and online resources.

[eternalknot]

What a good American history book or spine for a 5 or 6 YO? Something written at a level lower than MOH or SOTW...I don't think she's ready for books like that yet because she doesn't remember anything after we read them.

 

My K/1 has been tagging along with my older kids in doing a state study. We aim for one state per week, but it's usually one state every week or two, sometimes three :blush:. For each we find a couple of books (with help from the Simply States book, but really a decent search on the library database would suffice) and we read them repetitively throughout the week, which has really helped her with being able to associate historic events/sites/happenings with specific cities and states. It's not necessarily in any great chronological order or anything, but she's not at that level yet anyhow. We're on our second year of states, and will finish this year. Next we'll study the US Presidents, one per week, over approximately two years. It's kind of like the historical highlights :D.

 

For each state she does an index card. On each index card she writes the name of the state (copywork), draws a picture of something associated with it (from our books), and places it in the correct subsection (by region: southwest, mountain states, etc.) Then she colors an 8x11 Crayola poster for each state, in which she learns the state bird, flower, flag, and a little factoid. I got it at the $1 store, but the website has free printables. Then one of the older kids picks a recipe from a USA cookbook, and we feast!

 

We're also doing more of a "social studies" than history focus this year. We're starting small, with our community. Finding historical markers, getting to know our town, learning about maps, etc. We cover some history, too, usually around national and state holidays :) with mini unit studies and FIAR type activities, crafts, and repetitive reading of relevant books.

[serendipitous journey]

oooh ... we are using Stories of Great Americans for Little Americans by Eggleston (make sure to find the red-covered, illustrated edition), which my little guy adores. I read the sections sometimes 1/2 at a time, often over snack or lunch, and repeat the stories 2-3 times over a week; we track the narratives on a US wall map. The language is a bit advanced but the stories are moral, accurate, and very interesting! I do often substitute descriptors of people -- for example, "European" for "white" and "Native American" for "Indian", but the content of the book requires no editing of content as you read, unlike some older history books. We are being CM-ish about this and not focusing on activities but on stories, so our approach may not suit your daughter.

Edited September 4, 2011 by serendipitous journey

[Terabith]

Pioneers and Patriots

Living History of Our World (sold by Queen Homeschool)

 

And I made up my own curriculum of American history for K and 1st through picture books.

 

Can also use a lot of the You Wouldn't Want to Be and If You Were There and Jean Fritz biographies.

[chepyl]

I have Tthe Story of US. I don't know when we will use it. I may do a summer study, or hold off a couple of years. I think the story format will work well for us. We do SOTW and he only retains what we discuss. If I just read and go, he remembers little. When we discuss and make a lap book page he remembers a lot more. I don't expect full recall at his age.