School after breakfast: History

Usually by the time our breakfast is done and our chores are completed, Audra is ready to go down for her nap, and Adelia is ready to get out of her seat. [More accurately, Adelia is beyond ready, and has been persistently saying, "Done, done" for a bit already. But she's a good girl and truly very patient with us while we try to get as much school in at the table as we can.]

Okay, here's what is on our schedule after breakfast:

Monday/Wednesday/Friday
-History
-Copywork

Tuesday/Thursday/Saturday
-English
-Kindergarten for Isaac (on Tuesdays and Thursdays only)

Every day
-Math
-Read-aloud with mommy
-Read-aloud with daddy
-Bible with daddy
-Chores
-Character training (not actually officially on the schedule, but it sure does happen a lot!)

Occasionally (at least once a week, though not officially on the schedule)
-Narrations
-Speech with Isaias

I'll just start at the top and work my way down.

For history, we use Mystery of History and I love it. A couple of years ago we began with Hillyer's A Child's History of the World and I was trying to edit that text as well as incorporate biblical history into it's proper place, and I became frustrated with all the work that required of me. Thankfully, the author of Mystery of History has already done all of that footwork and I am so glad she did.

What we do:

I read the section from the book for the day while the kids listen (and Adelia wanders as I try to keep her as quiet as humanly possible so that Audra can actually sleep!) Sometimes we pull out the globe or an atlas or I look up something on the internet for a visual. Often we do an activity from the book, and then the kids do a card for our timeline based on what we've read. (The timeline card is required for Ella, but optional for the boys. However, Isaac almost always opts to do one, and occasionally Isaias does, too.)

This visual timeline of history happens to be my favorite part. We put up a strip of paper around the top of our living room walls and began with Creation on one end:


...getting a little squishy here above our door!


and finishing with the kids' birth dates:


I love having a very tangible sequence of historical events in a visible place for the kids. The only thing I wish is that we had the space available so that it could be more on the kids' eye-level. But this is the only place in our whole house that it would fit in one long continuous strip, and that's what we wanted~ so we decided to go with it!

A few weeks ago Mark quizzed all of us (yes, I played, too!) on our dates, asking us to stand beneath where we thought a particular event was on the timeline, and to point if necessary. I was impressed at how well the kids remembered these dates, even if it was kind of funny that we kept saying: "I know that one is above the front window", or "That one is above the door!"



Next up: Copywork