American History, Part 2 (from 1850 to present)

[Sahamamama]

What do you use, do, read, recommend for American History, Part 2 (1850 to present)? My approach so far has been to line up a great selection of books and read them. I buy the books, put them in roughly chronological order, and we read them aloud at a reasonable pace. We've also done some History Pockets, made two model villages (Delaware & Lakota), sung History Songs, listened to SOTW CDs, visited some historic sites, and studied States & Capitals. :)

 

This will be for three girls, all avid and strong readers, one in 3rd Grade and two in 1st Grade. We have been enjoying our journey through American History so far this school year, and look forward to more. :)

 

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[Sue G in PA]

:lurk5: I am also looking for a "spine" for this age group. Our co-op is doing a year survey of American History from Exploration to present day. Obviously we are not going in depth. My challenge is finding material that is not heavily biased or slanted one way or another. We are likely going to use A Child's Story of America, but there are so many parts that make me want to scream it is so heavily slanted in the uber-conservative direction and contains so many historical inaccuracies I had to put it down. And I'm fairly conservative, lol! Anyway, we also looked at The American Story (a bit less slanted but still some major inaccuracies. There is DK's Children's American History book but it is a bit too slanted in the liberal direction for my taste. Sigh. Why can't there be a book out there that just lists the facts and doesn't have so much of the author's opinion? I'm realizing more and more why most packaged curriculums use a variety of texts for studying American History instead of just 1! Anyway, I'm sorry I'm not much help, but I, too, am in a desperate search for an adequate text to use as our spine.

[Sue G in PA]

:lurk5: I am also looking for a "spine" for this age group. Our co-op is doing a year survey of American History from Exploration to present day. Obviously we are not going in depth. My challenge is finding material that is not heavily biased or slanted one way or another. We are likely going to use A Child's Story of America, but there are so many parts that make me want to scream it is so heavily slanted in the uber-conservative direction and contains so many historical inaccuracies I had to put it down. And I'm fairly conservative, lol! Anyway, we also looked at The American Story (a bit less slanted but still some major inaccuracies. There is DK's Children's American History book but it is a bit too slanted in the liberal direction for my taste. Sigh. Why can't there be a book out there that just lists the facts and doesn't have so much of the author's opinion? I'm realizing more and more why most packaged curriculums use a variety of texts for studying American History instead of just 1! Anyway, I'm sorry I'm not much help, but I, too, am in a desperate search for an adequate text to use as our spine.

 

*Sorry for the double post...computer froze! Ack.

[CatholicMom]

Have you looked at Sonlight's Core E? It's geared toward kids who are 9 yrs+ but you could go through their book list and see what might also be appropriate for your younger kids.

[Dahliarw]

Have you looked at A History of US? It's a "textbook" sort of (well, a few books actually), but I find the text to be very engaging. It's aimed at older kids, but I tested it a bit with my youngers and they like it as a read aloud. It's a lot, so not doing the whole thing (we're actually doing the first half of US History next year).

 

Guesthollow always has some good stuff you can pick and choose from: http://www.guesthollow.com/homeschool/history/americanhistory2/american_history_2_index.html

 

You can also find topical lapbooks and such on currclick. Really great if your kids get really into a topic and you want to explore it further beyond just reading books.

 

And don't forget local field trip opportunities. There is usually something local that relatest o the more moder time period.

[Sahamamama]

Thanks! Off to look!

 

 

:lurk5:

[cjgrubbs]

For this age I would second Guesthallow!

[elizabeth rose]

we're using winterpromise American Story 2 next year.

[ktgrok]

we are going to use Biblioplan.