History for Autistic boy

[happymainemom]

Hi Friends,

I'm looking for recommendations for a history curriculum for my 6 yr old twins, one of whom has HFA.  I have been homeschooling for a long time, but the things we used before just may not work well with him.  He is highly visual and very concrete.  Doesn't understand abstract concepts well at all and has very limited pencil/coloring skills because of his low muscle tone.

 

Is there anything out there that you might recommend?

 

Thanks!

[bluedanube]

Ace School of Tomorrow Social Studies worked well for us at that stage.   http://www.christianbook.com/page/homeschool/ace

[PeterPan]

My ds enjoys reading through Usborne books for history (or anything, lol).  I say reading, but I mean I read them.  So we'll go through the book and the first time look at all the pictures for food.  Next time we'll look for all the pictures of transportation.  Then again but looking for all the pictures of war/weapons.  And so on.  

 

He will also listen to biographies on his kindle and he enjoys History Channel and military channel shows.  I have a bunch of activity books I've collected, and as soon as some other things settle we'll probably do activities to work our way through history.

 

It may not be your reality, but for us there are a lot of things more important than history right now.  It's more like and a promise with us, good enough.  We've put most of our energy into language issues and communication this year.

[Laurie]

I had already used The Story of the World series with audio cds and activity guides for my son (with AS).    For my dd with HFA and dysgraphia I used the same materials but she didn't have to do all the maps and coloring pages.  We just studied the maps and globe.    I also liked having the literature list for each chapter that is included in the activity guides...my dd enjoyed the picture books that went along with the history lessons. 

[PeterPan]

I think that's a really good point on the picture books!

[Innisfree]

Some books my dds loved at that age, which are particularly appealing for highly visual kids:

 

A Street Through Time (also A Farm Through Time and a couple of others which are out of print if you can find them)

 

Usborne's Big Book of Picture Puzzles has a section or two on history. Older dd loved, loved, loved this one.

 

Stephen Biesty's Cross-Sections Castle (I think there's a series of these Incredible Cross-Sections, too)

 

For slightly older kids, Macauley's Castle, Cathedral, Mill, Pyramid and City books are great.

 

ETA These aren't curriculum, of course, but the mention of picture books reminded me of them. Dd did absorb an amazing amount from them.

Edited March 21, 2016 by Innisfree

[happymainemom]

Thank you everyone for your input!  I so appreciate the time you took to answer.  I would really like to try the idea of looking through the Usborne books for pictures of different things each time.  I'm going to check into the other things mentioned. Thank you!