Help beefing up US History co op class

[mama25angels]

I honestly don't know what else to do for this class, most of what I've come up with on my own would be redundant. The kids are doing American literature at home, current events at home and their own writing programs. Would it be ok to add a history paper or summary of the chapter instead of having them answer questions? Should I have them read some historical speeches?

[Garga]

What are you doing for the class?  Is there a book you're using?

 

I would certainly add source materials if you haven't already.  There's a free resource designed for classrooms (but easy to use for individual homeschool use as well) at http://sheg.stanford.edu/us .

 

This website takes a source material and creates a lesson plan around it.  It takes about an hour to work through each lesson.  They provide printable worksheets and printable copies of source excerpts, plus full copies of the source material if you don't want only the excerpt.  There is a guide for teachers telling you what to point out to the kids and answers to the questions.

 

I used all of the world history lessons for my son last year and the format starts to get repetitive if you use them all, but using a few of them in your co-op would keep things interesting and would help the kids to interact with each other and the material.

 

ETA:  I really liked this website and thought it was valuable when we used it.  It would be well-worth using some of these lessons in a co-op, IMHO.

 

 

Edited September 8, 2017 by Garga

[Hilltopmom]

Not sure what you're including now, but stuff we've done that I'd probably include something like: oral & poster presentations, a group project, make a video of some topic in their own way (Lego, playmobil stop action, or graphic novel pages, or something different), read primary sources, give historical speeches not just read them, write & illustrate historical newspaper reports.

 

Have local historical societies or re enacting groups or people involved in a dig or living history sites come & bring their gear and talk about their time period, and schedule some field trips to those places too (forts, museums, historical sites, etc). "History" people love to share about their stuff!

 

Maybe watch some clips from decent historical movies?

Edited September 8, 2017 by Hilltopmom

[Lori D.]

What about material from Teach With Movies website?

 

And in this past thread ("Anyone ever taught a History vs Hollywood class?") see what cool History-related stuff 5 Little Monkeys did for a class that used that site as a springboard -- see esp. her journey and updates on her co-op class in posts: #6, 13, 18 and 21.

[Lori D.]

Perhaps some units or ideas from Critical Thinking in United States History, from Critical Thinking Press? (student book is on CD; teacher book is print; also available at Rainbow Resource)

Edited September 8, 2017 by Lori D.

[mom2att]

Look up Thinking Like a Historian by Stanford U. Lots of great activities centered around original source documents.

 

In my class at co-op students are assigned two projects: An American Hero research paper/presentation in the fall, and a Decades Presentation in the spring. PM me if you'd like more info, I can send you the assignment documents.

[mama25angels]

Thank you so much ladies! I will spend this weekend looking over all of these resources and getting my plans ready for the next class. We're using the Abeka Heritage of Freedom text, I'm hoping to add a few of the Critical thinking in US History books and maybe a movie or two with more discussion. We're trying to get through this book in 18 weeks so, I can't add too much.

Edited September 9, 2017 by mama25angels