American history help

[angelmama1209]

I have an upcoming dyslexic, dysgraphia 6th grader and an upcoming 5th grader who work together. I also have an upcoming 9th grader with virtually no school history. I need American history that will work for them. My oldest is a reader and a history buff, so for her, I used the story of us as a spine and cobbled together lots of books and texts and other things to go along. None of that will work with this crew. I don’t mind reading, but can’t spend hours a day doing it. We tried story of the world a couple of years ago and while they listened ok, they didn’t get anything out of it and didn’t miss it when I dropped it. Does anyone have any ideas?

[ktgrok]

Notgrass is a lot less reading heavy than Story of Us, maybe take a look? And there are always alternatives to the writing assignments, like making a poster, etc. But it doesn't have  audiobooks I don't think. 

[Emba]

My DD isn’t dyslexic but reading comprehension is not her strong point. We did Notgrass when she was in 5 th and 6th grades, along with some of the Story of US. I really can’t say one was better than the other for her. I had to read the lessons out loud if I really wanted her to get it on the first go with either of them.

Notgrass assigns novels that go along with the history. We used most of them, but I didn’t read most of those out loud. They can easily be dropped, though.

Notgrass did go faster for us, because it doesn’t spend as much time on details as History of US. That’s actually why I started using History of US, though. DD preferred Notgrass, and it did get done.

[Garga]

Maybe some videos instead of books?  Other than Notgrass and the Story of Us, I don’t have book suggestions. 

Have you used Liberty’s Kids for the younger ones yet?  If not, the 40 episode series is free on youtube.  https://m.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLHeaIWvdbER3Ic90BzhPsH2aJ5KI3UtmM

When mine did American history in 10th grade, I used a Great Course: “History of the United States, 2nd edition”.  It looks like that one is on sale right now.  It might be good for your 9th grader.  https://www.thegreatcourses.com/courses/history-of-the-united-states-2nd-edition.html   I don’t know how long the sale will last, so you might want to decide quickly if you want it. It has 84 half-hour lectures, so is 42 hours of content.   

 

 

 

 

Edited April 7, 2019 by Garga

[Garga]

And I almost forgot this one:

https://sheg.stanford.edu/history-lessons

This free website has lesson plans for history.  It’s geared for high school and maybe 8th grade.  Look carefully at everything and you should be able to find the teacher’s guidelines for each lessons and all the student pages. Everything you need should be there.  It takes historical documents about certain events, usually from opposing points of view, and has the student compare them and try to figure out what really happened, the way a historian would.  It would be a great companion course to do along with a Great Course.  

The reason I suggest it is that there’s not a lot of reading.  Sure, you’re reading documents, but it’s not like slogging through a bunch of books.  You read a few excerpts from something and then use their worksheets to interact with the excerpts and think through whether the person writing it was biased or whatnot.  

 I did this for World History when my oldest was in 9th grade, and I don’t think it’s at a 5th and 6th grader level.  I, personally, wouldn’t be comfortable combining 5th and 6th with a high schooler.  So, I’d lump the 5th/6th grade together and have the 9th grader doing a different history program.  

Or, if you did the above with the 5th and 6th grader, you’d help them along a lot more than you would the 9th grader. 

ADDED THIS MORNING:  @angelmama1209  :  for the website above, they provide the entire historical document if you want to read it, but they also provide edited documents, insofar as they cut out some of the wordier bits.  On the website, you’ll see the long (and sometimes boring and difficult to read) original documents separately as their own dowload, but as part of the download of Lesson Plans, you’ll scroll down and see the shortened version of the same documents.  So, if you have a strong reader, they may read the entire original, but if you have a weaker reader (as I did), then the shortened one can be used.

 

Edited April 7, 2019 by Garga

[Garga]

@angelmama1209

I just got an email from the Great Courses saying that their sale of all history courses ends tonight at midnight.  So, if you’re considering getting a history course, you’ll have to decide by tonight, or the prices will go up into the many hundreds of dollars.  They’re 80% off right now.

[angelmama1209]

12 hours ago, Garga said:

And I almost forgot this one:

https://sheg.stanford.edu/history-lessons

This free website has lesson plans for history.  It’s geared for high school and maybe 8th grade.  Look carefully at everything and you should be able to find the teacher’s guidelines for each lessons and all the student pages. Everything you need should be there.  It takes historical documents about certain events, usually from opposing points of view, and has the student compare them and try to figure out what really happened, the way a historian would.  It would be a great companion course to do along with a Great Course.  

The reason I suggest it is that there’s not a lot of reading.  Sure, you’re reading documents, but it’s not like slogging through a bunch of books.  You read a few excerpts from something and then use their worksheets to interact with the excerpts and think through whether the person writing it was biased or whatnot.  

 I did this for World History when my oldest was in 9th grade, and I don’t think it’s at a 5th and 6th grader level.  I, personally, wouldn’t be comfortable combining 5th and 6th with a high schooler.  So, I’d lump the 5th/6th grade together and have the 9th grader doing a different history program.  

Or, if you did the above with the 5th and 6th grader, you’d help them along a lot more than you would the 9th grader. 

ADDED THIS MORNING:  @angelmama1209  :  for the website above, they provide the entire historical document if you want to read it, but they also provide edited documents, insofar as they cut out some of the wordier bits.  On the website, you’ll see the long (and sometimes boring and difficult to read) original documents separately as their own dowload, but as part of the download of Lesson Plans, you’ll scroll down and see the shortened version of the same documents.  So, if you have a strong reader, they may read the entire original, but if you have a weaker reader (as I did), then the shortened one can be used.

 

She was pulled from school in 1st grade and not taught at home. She is definitely more on their level if not even below. We’re still feeling things out and haven’t even attempted anything outside of the basics yet. 

[Garga]

5 hours ago, angelmama1209 said:

She was pulled from school in 1st grade and not taught at home. She is definitely more on their level if not even below. We’re still feeling things out and haven’t even attempted anything outside of the basics yet. 

OooOoh!  I see.  When you said no school history, you meant she hasn’t been taught anything school-wise.  I thought you meant that somehow or other she’d never done history as a class in school.  

Well, that’s all very different then.  You would be able to teach them all at the same time, then.  

[goldenecho]

Someone else suggested videos.   Crash Course American history, what I've watched of it is excellent for brief overview (but with these always screen first...most of their videos are perfectly fine, but now and then they add a joke I wish they hadn't).    Extra Credits history, my favorite history YouTube Channel (all of these are on YouTube), unfortunately doesn't have a lot on US History, but it does have a few good things (a series on Hiawatha, and they just added one on the Boston Massacre).    TedEd is another one I suggest on Youtube.

For your younger kids, Adventure Tales American history (free resource), might work well.   It tells the history comic book style, which I think would be helpful for your dyslexic child especially (visuals help a lot), and they actually have audio available for it too, so your children could listen along. 

I think you can do all of these with all ages, but I agree that your high schooler will need more.  I would really try to combine your high schoolers literature reading with the history.   Just so much good American writing that speaks to American history you can use (there's lots of lists). 

[Mrs. Tharp]

I'd consider using the Drama of American History series as a spine and cobbling together your own discussion questions and writing assignments. The series is outstanding, won't require too much reading, and is perfect for the age range you mention. Look up Build Your Library's 5th and 6th grade curricula for some wonderful suggestions for supplemental literature and videos. 

[Miss Tick]

There is a workbook series called The Story of the U.S.A. That we have used as a spine in the past. It is a little below your students, but they could use it faster and add in other things as appropriate. There are 4 books, but we only used 1-3. 4 was a lot more choppy and we covered modern history with library books.

[serendipitous journey]

As a resource I wanted to mention Timberdoodle's American History graphic novel set.  I've gotten great value from all the graphic novels/non-fiction I've purchased from Timberdoodle: the children are happy to read and to re-read, and it really helps retention; not sure whether or not graphic novels are a good aid for your dyslexic/dysgraphic student. 

I don't know if you'd like Memoria Press' United States geography program for memorizing states & capitals (if you haven't done that) and getting a little general background on the states.  They include flashcards, and I like that you can follow it with the quick-and-easy review program the next year for better retention 🙂 , though the best thing I've done is incorporate the states & capitals into their Anki work -- I found a free Geography Anki card set that included US states.  We also have liked the "How the States Got Their Shapes" video series. 

Finally, the Schlessinger "... for Children" video series are expensive and a bit hokey in terms of production, but have excellent content.  I'm linking this page that lists the "American History for Children" series: if you can get them from your library and the kids will watch them, they are great.  Sometimes I've been able to get them cheaply from Amazon Prime Video but not so much lately.   There is also a "Famous Americans for Children" series and a " ... for Students" set of videos that targets older kids (ie, "American Revolution for Students" -- but I couldn't find a quick list of the entire American History line-up in the "for Students series). 

Edited April 13, 2019 by serendipitous journey