history...

[MrsH]

My dd11 hates history. She hasn't really enjoyed it any point, but has been willing to try and to (mostly) do the work. In 4th grade (her first year at home), we did early modern times. We started with History Odyssey and SOTW and the activity guide. She felt "eh" about it. She was willing to do the stuff, but didn't enjoy much of it. The only thing she liked were the field trips to many historical sites here in MA.

 

Fifth grade we did ancients. Her friend had been super into it and we used SOTW and activity guide. She again didn't enjoy it, though had fun with a few of the projects. She isn't curious about it though, how it all fits, etc. It's like it's all just a big "blah blah" for her.

 

This year we agreed to try the Creek's Edge Task Cards, including liberty to say "I don't want to write about this person, I find this one more interesting." She's, again, slogging through without enjoyment or curiosity.

 

We've tried projects (they are abandoned halfway through or completed sloppily). Historical fiction she generally likes, and we use Classical House of Learning for ideas. She's a pretty slow reader though. Movies and field trips are good, but she can't abide by reading about any of it. She hates the timeline, the maps... Anytime I get excited about connections or things we're learning she shrugs it off. Not interested.

 

We've tried to focus more on topics she's interested in, but that still took place during the middle ages. I've tried to direct her towards interesting people (away from battles), ways of life, adventurers, mysteries of history, science... she has basically decided she hates all of it!

 

Suggestions? Either for now or for next year?  I wish she could see how cool it all is...

[LibraryLover]

Rick Riordon novels?  Percy Jackson etc?

 

The 39 Clues books?

[abba12]

I dislike history. I never found it fun or fascinating the way others do

 

What worked for me was focusing on historical social studies, how did people in this time live, what did their worlds look like, food, fashion, family, society etc. And I read a lot of historical fiction which, funnily enough, is one of my favorite book genres despite my dislike of history as a subject. I managed to absorb a lot of basic historical fact through non fiction living books and historical fictions. Oh and diaries/autobiographies and biographies written like stories instead of textbooks.

[EndOfOrdinary]

My son is not into history as much as literature. So when we read a classic (Beowulf, Iliad, Odyssey, Gatsby, Mice and Men) we talk about what was happening then. If it ties into the book, he is more likely to listen and discuss. I definitely cannot call. It history, though. Next year he has asked for world geography. We did a year on mythology that he really liked and there was quite a bit of historical referencing and culture snuck in.

[MomatHWTK]

Try some of these:

http://www.thegreatcourses.com/tgc/courses/courses.aspx?ps=918

https://www.coursera.org/courses?orderby=upcoming&lngs=en&cats=socsci

 

There are some other Coursera history courses that aren't open right now, but if you keep an eye on the list of available courses it updates from time to time.

[MrsH]

I appreciate the suggestions but don't think any of them are fitting. We have watched a few of the great courses lectures this year and they're mostly too dry/long for her. I think the coursera stuff is too much reading...

 

We'll definitely continue with the historical fiction. Part of the problem is that I'm not particularly well-versed in history, and so it's intimidating to me to let her stray from the encyclopedia. After all, what would we miss? And how would I know that we're hitting on the most important events? Of course that gets me right to "does it really matter?" Of course what we're doing now spends all of one week on the Renaissance...

 

Do I just let her stop the outlining and mapwork, and instead maybe have her show me on a map where her fiction takes place? She's doing WWS and gets some outlining practice there, but I don't currently have her do it for anything else. I do think it's a very helpful exercise for her to do outlines and summaries each week, because it forces her to really say "what's important about this?" But she struggles with it, and often her answer is a very frustrated "NOTHING!"

 

Any further thoughts? I feel like I'm going in circles!

 

Edited to Add:

As an example of how insecure I feel about this, I'll say that we somehow went through following these task cards and I completely missed when we were at the Magna Carta. Now I thought this was a HUGE document, not to be missed, pivotal... but somehow we missed it. It's not even listed as something to put on the timeline. What do I make of that? Was it just not a big deal? Did I learn wrong? Or is it an omission to not cover it? I don't have hours to make up for lost study time... how do you handle this type of stuff?

[Jilly]

Edited to Add:

As an example of how insecure I feel about this, I'll say that we somehow went through following these task cards and I completely missed when we were at the Magna Carta. Now I thought this was a HUGE document, not to be missed, pivotal... but somehow we missed it. It's not even listed as something to put on the timeline. What do I make of that? Was it just not a big deal? Did I learn wrong? Or is it an omission to not cover it? I don't have hours to make up for lost study time... how do you handle this type of stuff?

 

I wouldn't worry too much about it at her age and I would definitely let her follow any rabbit trails that she is interested in. If you miss something important, such as the Magna Carta, you could go back and cover it briefly or just move on. She will get another round of history in high school and at that time she will most likely cover everything and at a deeper level.

[AimeeM]

I spent a ton of money, time, and energy trying to *make* my eldest enjoy history - it never worked. It is OKAY for children to not enjoy something they have to do. Not everybody enjoys every thing.

[Saddlemomma]

We're TOG fans because of all the different books and lit used for history, but have you checked into VP self-paced online history for your DD? You could incorporate the memory cards with it.  You could also check out the games and cards at the Classical Historian: http://www.classicalhistorian.com/store/c4/American_History%2C_Columbus_to_1914.html and incorporate those into short history readings corresponding to the games and cards.  Have you tried audiobooks for her?  That could be another option.

 

Another idea is have you tried any of the Yesterday's Classics ebooks?  While TOG uses some as their main spines, I have incorporated the following in our US History study: America First, Stories of Great Americans for Little Americans, and American History Stories Vol. I (There's a Vol II, III, & IV as well).  These books have very interesting, lesser known, short stories about American History.  For example, in America First they have stories of the Charter Oak (where the charter of the CT colony was hidden in the hollow of an oak tree from Andros); the saving of Hadley during King Philips War; and the story of Bloody Marsh in GA.  I interspersed these stories in with her regular history readings and DD loved them.  There are all kinds of Yesterday's Classics for all history rotations as well.  You can check out their selections here: http://www.yesterdaysclassics.com/catalog/displaycatalog.php?catalog=history .  I bought the whole collection of these when they had their ebook sale for $50.  You can also purchase them in Kindle format from Amazon at decent prices.

 

You might just want to try short, broad history readings and then provide more depth through games and visuals such as documentaries.  One of the spines we are using through TOG right now is the History of US series: http://www.amazon.com/History-US-Thirteen-Colonies-1600-1740/dp/0195327160/ref=tmm_pap_title_0?ie=UTF8&qid=1395183023&sr=1-3   Each book covers a specific period in history.  Right now we are using Making Thirteen Colonies, book #2 (there are 11 in the series, 3rd edition).  The chapters are short (2-3 pages at most), colorful, to the point, but packed with information and quite engaging - not dry and boring.  You can get them used individually pretty reasonably. If you're doing US History they may be perfect for her.  If not, maybe someone could suggest something like them for the time period you want to study.

[73349]

What does she like outside of school? Is there any way to tie that to history?

[Mom-ninja.]

I will admit that I dropped requiring written work for history. My ds also does not like history. I've whittled history down to reading SOTW and watching history programs. A more in depth study can come later. Right now writing assignments are more on topics that interest.

[MerryAtHope]

My oldest really enjoys history, while my youngest tolerates it. Some things work better than others, but she really doesn't love it. I'm ok with that. 

 

I didn't do map work--both of my kids hated it. I let them show me on a map where things were.

 

I didn't require written history narrations or notes until junior high. I mainly went for exposure with a spine text in elementary school, and added in historical fiction to add interest. A well-written, story-like biography here and there (we enjoyed some of the Childhood of Famous Americans books, for example). If she likes art, be sure to get picture books showing art, architecture, archaeological finds, etc... My youngest was fascinated with Egyptian art in 1st grade, and when we hit it again in 6th, she again was smitten. Too funny!

 

So...I'd keep the "get 'er done" part as short as possible, and weave in interest in historical fiction, since she enjoys that. Instead of adding on lots of things to history--use some of that time to pursue her interests. That may lead to an "in" for history later.

 

I rarely liked history until I was an adult. I'm still not all that excited about science, and my daughter loves it. (I have her teach me about things she learns, actually!) Now, my dd has enjoyed learning about science in history--that's what I mean about finding some "ins" later. 

 

Merry :-)

 

 

 

 

[happypamama]

I love history, and so do my kids, but I feel that way about science. I would just let history be a get-it-done subject, plus historical fiction, and she may find things she likes about it later, but if not, that's okay too, as long as she does it.

[g1234]

Any chance she'd enjoy this? It's free, but priceless. (Thank you, Stanford!)

 

http://sheg.stanford.edu/rlh

 

We use selected lessons from here to go along with our spine. It's amazing! Real historical documents, all selected and ready to go, that help you go deep into chosen moments in history. You get to ask real, complex questions that don't have simple answers. You as the parent/teacher don't need any prior knowledge to use them. I think that using these without a spine could even be fascinating...just read the documents together and talk about them.

 

Not sure if that helps, but I thought it might be a very different way of studying history that might be worth a try for her. Good luck!

[Another Lynn]

Drop the skill work. Address skills through some other subject or completely separately. Ditch HO, ditch the encyclopedia, ditch the outlining, timeline, mapwork, etc. Require her to listen to SOTW on cd and read historical fiction and biographies. Don't require her to show you places on a map. Don't worry about gaps. Done.

 

As for not knowing what's most important in a WWS selection, that may be a completely different issue. There's been lots of discussion about WWS and its difficulty, whether it works better with older students, adapting the lessons to subjects of interest, or at least better known subjects.

[MrsH]

THANK YOU all so much for your thoughts and encouragement. I feel like I at least have a doable plan for the remainder of the year. It'll be very different, and I'll keep working to keep skill work out of it. No outlines and no summaries, but I do want to include some written work and projects for her to stick in the notebook. Instead of doing this crazy "one topic per week and plow along" we'll do fewer topics more deeply. We have 5 weeks left in our term. She'll read A Proud Taste for Scarlet, and in our book basket we'll have a bunch of biography picture books to read with the youngers, including the ones listed on the task cards. Those are nice and quick. We'll do one unit from the Stanford site (I'd forgotten about that!). Either revisiting Black Death or the Crusades through that, her choice. If we still have time, I'll have her read the Trumpeter of Krakow to get a bit in about Eastern Europe, but if we run short on time I won't worry about that.

 

During our together time (with littles) we'll pull the globe down and discuss. She said she's willing to keep doing maps, but I'll let her off the hook for them. We'll pull out the timeline together a couple of times and mark dates, but I won't require her to do that on her own. She's definitely more willing to do things together, and if it's not weekly that should build a little goodwill.

 

Next quarter we'll do a unit on the conquistadors, that I found through Mr. Donn's history. She said she wouldn't mind just answering questions (in writing), but doesn't want to summarize for now. I also found a 3 week unit on the Reformation that I think she'll be interested in. If she liked the Stanford unit then we'll do their Martin Luther one as well, but if she didn't then we won't. We'll do renaissance stuff next year.

 

She also just ended an art book and was planning to get going with Discovering Great Artists. That starts around 1200 I believe so will be another way to get a bit of history in there. I'll get library books with prints from the artists to include in our morning basket.

 

I have lit suggestions to go along with each of the units, and in the past we've just gotten 2-4 titles from the library and she picks the one she wants to read. That has worked well for her. I'm feeling really good about this new plan, though it may still be too much. If nothing else, I have the SOTW 2 audiobooks on hold so we can always just spend time listening to those and call it a day, if she still hates it.

 

The WWS thing - she's doing well with it. I meant that when she uses those skills for history she really hates it. That's just a lack of interest in the topic and a discomfort with the new skills, I think. She's showing real progress in that area so I'm going to lay off her and just continue WWS, not making her do it for history.

[LibraryLover]

What about not worrying about order?  Would she like to read about the Salem Witch Trials? (If you are near Salem, that is a great field trip.)  Watch Gone With the Wind?  You never know what might spark an interest. I would drop the writing at this point. There is little retention with such resistance. History is stories.  Stories. I haven't met a child who didn't like Percy Jackson. I mean that. (I know they must exist, of course, but Percy has sent many a child on ancient journeys. Just don't tell her it's history.)

 

 

[Ellie]

I wouldn't worry about doing history in order. I'd just do...history. She likes the field trips? Then do field trips. Read "Ben and Me" and "Mr. Revere and I." Read Jean Fritz's books (Colonial American time period). Watch good historical movies, even if they aren't as accurate as they might be. Don't try to make her recognize connections. Just let her enjoy it. It's better that she enjoy it than that she get the big picture. If she enjoys history, at some point she will want to know more. Or not, but at least she won't *hate* it, and she'll remember more.

[Susan in TX]

You can just stop doing history altogether. GASP! I don't do formal history until middle school (7th/8th grade) and all I have done even then is required reading. My kids have gone on to public high school and excelled in AP History classes. My oldest even went to college and got a degree in history. Imagine that!

 

Susan in TX

[Dahliarw]

Since you don't feel well versed in history, I'd suggest you listen to some history audiobooks as you can.  It's an easy way to build your knowledge base so you feel less "lost".  The SOTW audiobooks are fantastic (I could listen to Jim Weiss all day long).  I also like the History of US series and you can get that on audiobook too to get a good background of US History.

 

I didn't really like how history was taught in school at all as a child.  I loved reading books about times in history that I was interested in, mostly historical fiction.  When I got to college and took my first history course I found that I LOVED it.  What was the difference?  In college we didn't just read a textbook and regurgitate like in elementary/jr. high/high school.  We read different sources, we analyzed.  We learned that history is not absolute, and that one has to evaluate sources to try to figure out what actually happened.  It's kind of like being a detective.  I don't know if there is an approach like that for jr. high/high school, but that might be a lot more fun than simply reading and outlining. (I ended up majoring in social history, btw).