What do you do for History, Geography, Civics? Ellen McHenry?

[chocolate-chip chooky]

There's often a lot of discussion here about maths and science. Literature gets some attention too.

 

But what do you all do with your ALs for history and geography?

 

Most of our history, geography, civics etc is incidental or current event based.

 

For example, we have a federal election here in Australia tomorrow, so we've learnt about the different levels of government, their different responsibilities and also how our preferential voting system works.

 

We also springboard off random things. For example, we recently watched a Mythbusters episode about the Hindenberg. We then spent about half a day researching that and other air ships.

 

But my daughter is 10 now and I'm starting to wonder if I need some structure of some sort and if our follow-our-nose style for history/geography/civics isn't going to cut it for much longer.

 

One book I have my eye on is Ellen McHenry's Mapping the World With Art.

Any thoughts or experiences regarding this?

 

Any thoughts in general re geography, history, civics etc with ALs?

[Dmmetler]

What we started last year was getting textbooks from different English speaking countries as a spine. Not necessarily doing the assignments, but reading and going from there. Last year, DD did the three Key Stage 3 books of Galore Park British History, largely inspired by Doctor Who. I have the new "History for the Australian Curriculum" books on order for this year, again, several grade levels. (DD saw a clip on one of the Croc Hunter episodes that Animal Planet put up when Bindi was on Dancing with the Stars that mentioned Australia's role in WWII, and DD was downright appalled that she hadn't realized Australia was IN WWII, so she asked for Australian history next) I'm thinking India would be good, too.

 

I wanted something between Story of the World and History of US and doing a true high school level history class. History is actually high on my list of subjects to DE, because I know in my experience college history classes were so much better than high school ones. Having grown up in VA, where between VA history, US history, and Government/Civics, I can remember maybe 1 year that wasn't essentially the same content from 4th-12th grade, I wanted something different until she was ready to do DE history.

 

DD did an online class at Athena's for World Geography, and really enjoyed it. She's moving more into biogeography. I did order the Australian geography books for this year since that was a bundle option, because I think she'll find that really interesting as well.

Edited June 30, 2016 by dmmetler

[deerforest]

I pretty much make up all my own stuff. For 5th and 6th we used the materials from OUP (World in Ancient Times, etc.) as our baseline, and then I just added and supplemented. We use a TON of Great Courses. I'm making up our own stuff for 7th too.

 

All that was entirely interest led (which huge emphasis on Native American and pre-Columbian culture because DD was born in Guatemala) before 5th. Then I started the first run of the 4-year history cycle for 5-8. But, I research and find lots of supplemental materials. 

 

We are very much into social history--the history of the normal people, behind the scenes. We've been really disinterested so far in history of Super Important People. I just want her to love history and will worry about Important Facts and Events in high school.

Edited June 30, 2016 by deerforest

[quark]

We used Excavating English around ages 9-10. It's a good mix of history + linguistics.

Tried her Mapping the World but we kept having to shelve it due to lack of time. I wish we had gone ahead with it.

 

From age 10 onwards -- lots of carschooled history/ geography/ civics and boy did we have fun with it! We also added mass market books where possible. E.g.

• Great Courses -- Vandiver is our favorite but there are others (look for high reviews on their website)
• Mark Kurlansky's books on tape -- Salt and Cod
• Bill Bryson's books on tape
• History of science type audiobooks e.g. by Sam Keen
• US naval history and World War II related audiobooks
• Tom Standage's books
• Repeated readings of Larry Gonick's Cartoon Histories
• All the Fagles retellings -- Illiad, Odyssey, Aeneid
• All the documentaries we can get access to!

[chocolate-chip chooky]

Thanks for the responses.

 

Ellen McHenry's Excavating English is on my wish list. My daughter is interested in etymology, so it should be a good fit. She's just generally not one to want to follow a set sequence of learning activities, so I hesitate to buy it, particularly because of the expense of getting such books to Australia. But I don't know til I try, right?

 

We've read and re-read a fiction series called Word Hunters by an Australian author Nick Earls. He usually writes adult fiction (which is hilarious) and this was his first children's fiction.

It's about 12yr old twins who travel through time following the development of key words over the course of history. It's heaps better than I made that sound. What's also super cool is that it's a local author so we know the roads, shops, cinemas etc that are mentioned throughout. That really makes it extra fun to read.

 

I'm interested in biogeography that you mentioned dmmetler. What is that exactly?

 

And I keep hearing about Great Courses but I've never actually seen them. Are they videos, audio, textbooks?

[Ausmumof3]

I think some Ellen McHenry stuff is available electronically which may save on shipping costs?

[quark]

Thanks for the responses.

 

Ellen McHenry's Excavating English is on my wish list. My daughter is interested in etymology, so it should be a good fit. She's just generally not one to want to follow a set sequence of learning activities, so I hesitate to buy it, particularly because of the expense of getting such books to Australia. But I don't know til I try, right?

 

We've read and re-read a fiction series called Word Hunters by an Australian author Nick Earls. He usually writes adult fiction (which is hilarious) and this was his first children's fiction.

It's about 12yr old twins who travel through time following the development of key words over the course of history. It's heaps better than I made that sound. What's also super cool is that it's a local author so we know the roads, shops, cinemas etc that are mentioned throughout. That really makes it extra fun to read.

 

I'm interested in biogeography that you mentioned dmmetler. What is that exactly?

 

And I keep hearing about Great Courses but I've never actually seen them. Are they videos, audio, textbooks?

 

With the exception of Excavating English which he was motivated to learn sequentially, DS has NEVER used any of Ellen's resources sequentially. He unschooled his way through her chemistry and neurology materials. I think her materials work well for any type of usage (I'm not sure about Mapping though since we didn't get past the first lesson).

 

Can you access audible.com where you are? Although we still haven't subscribed to audible, I know that there are many Great Courses available through audible now. A number of courses are available in both DVD and audio CD formats. SOme are only one or the other. Some now have video and audio streaming/ download versions too.

 

[Arcadia]

We did physical geography by road trips and hiking. My kids used any physical geography textbooks they found in the library as reference.

 

My secondary school schoolmates went on an overseas geography field trip to Australia to hike the rock formations. One of them brought back pieces of amethyst for those of us who didn't take secondary three (9th grade) geography.

 

Link to AU rock formations. Can't remember which ones my schoolmates went to.

http://www.ga.gov.au/scientific-topics/national-location-information/landforms/significant-rock-features

 

Growing up, I loathe country only history and love international history. I enjoyed Commonwealth Day in school. My boys requested world history followed by european history. They are doing US history only to past the subject test if they have to.

 

We haven't seriously delve into civics yet.

Edited July 1, 2016 by Arcadia

[chocolate-chip chooky]

Quark, your son's learning style sounds very similar to my daughter. Your posts always give me hope that our follow-our-noses style of education may just turn out okay in the end.

 

My daughter gets deeply into only one or two things at a time and it is all consuming for a week or two or three. Much of this is science-related and I'm always conscious of the need to try to keep some kind of balance overall.

 

Excavating English has been hovering in my bookdepository wishlist for long enough that maybe it's time to set it free :001_smile:

 

Yes, we do have audible, but we have to use the Australian one. When I first subscribed I didn't realise this and I'd been searching on Amazon and finding all sorts of great things and then *poof* they were gone. A bit disappointing really. But I'll definitely look for Great Courses on there. Thanks for the tip.

 

Humour is a very important part of our lives and her learning, so I think we'll have a look at Crash Course history too and see if that stimulates any real interest. We exhausted Horrible Histories (books and DVDs) years ago, but maybe I should be revisiting some of that too.

[chocolate-chip chooky]

I think some Ellen McHenry stuff is available electronically which may save on shipping costs?

 

Thanks for the tip!

I've shied away from e-books in the past, because I just know that we wouldn't sit at a screen to read, so I'd need to print it out anyway. And there's something about a nice new book arriving in the mail....but I need to seriously re-consider e-books from a money point of view.

[chocolate-chip chooky]

We did physical geography by road trips and hiking. My kids used any physical geography textbooks they found in the library as reference.

 

My secondary school schoolmates went on an overseas geography field trip to Australia to hike the rock formations. One of them brought back pieces of amethyst for those of us who didn't take secondary three (9th grade) geography.

 

Link to AU rock formations. Can't remember which ones my schoolmates went to.

http://www.ga.gov.au/scientific-topics/national-location-information/landforms/significant-rock-features

 

Growing up, I loathe country only history and love international history. I enjoyed Commonwealth Day in school. My boys requested world history followed by european history. They are doing US history only to past the subject test if they have to.

 

We haven't seriously deal into civics yet.

 

It's interesting which things take our fancy and which don't.

My daughter loves to learn about eminent people from history and gets into deep (and nearly obsessive) study of certain people. The latest was Marie Curie. At other times it's been da Vinci, Newton, Darwin, Einstein. See the pattern? But she has been interested in Charles Dickens recently, because we're reading Great Expectations. So there's one slight variation to the theme :o

 

 

And I need to remember that all our bits and pieces over the years add up to a very respectable general knowledge. My daughter has a way better general knowledge than I do because she somehow remembers everything just after seeing or discussing or reading something once. I wish my brain would remember like hers does!