Spring Term–Focus on History

If you are a friend of mine over coffee, or a long time reader – you might be scratching your head wondering if I’ve lost it! I rarely talk about History – as a starting point. Sure – we study Geography, Geology, Arts, Science, Leaders, Bible – and learn about history, have kept a timeline – and collect Way Too Many history living books – but we’ve not had a time when we had a History as the Starting Point class. Until Now.

The last few weeks, we’ve been focused on the Middle Ages (500-1400AD). It started when the Crew asked for reviewers of TruthQuest History. Our family was sitting in the living room, and I asked them to give me a random fact from several parts of history. I was surprised when each member of the family had a very detailed idea of the different time periods – all except for the Middle Ages. What happened between Rome and the Renaissance? How did we get from Rome Conquered the World to so several small countries? All four of us had blanks stares. I asked for the Middle Ages to review!

I wasn’t farther than the first paragraph of the notes to the Parents before I had to hop up and get a highlighter, pen and post it note pack. I felt like Michelle Miller was talking directly to me. She explained what I had been thinking of History and gave a plan to walk through it.

How did she know that I was a bibliophile with little direction?
How did she know that most “History Books” drove me crazy because they wanted to elevate men into gods and leave God out of History?
How did she know that if I looked at large living history book, that I didn’t know how to slice it into bite size pieces for the boys?
How did she know I had 5th and 8th Grade boys that both needed to know about the Middle Ages?
How have I gone so long without knowing about TruthQuest?

There are two big areas of TruthQuest that really struck a cord – one, is the amazing introduction to their product. As you can see from above, it really struck a chord with me. At the bottom of this post – I have linked several areas of their site – and you too can see for yourself if they speak to you. The Notes for Moms and Dads may be well worth the cost of the entire curriculum, especially if you are new to teaching History, or like me Frustrated to teach History to your kiddos.

Secondly, is the fact that after their direction, and learning about how they approach history, and learning the goals of the learning sessions – you have total control of HOW you do it. Now, that might be a bit open ended to some of you. But to me, an eclectic relaxed learning, hands on, notebooking, type of person – it was freedom. She gives an overly comprehensive list of books for each lesson that you may use to dive into the period, a few ideas for writing and maps, and many jumping off questions of items to explore. I found that I could use the books already on my Kindle and in my Learning Library to start. I already have mapping programs that let me print out maps from the Middle Ages and we incorporated those as well.

(Printed from a resource I already owned – not included in TruthQuest, just given as an example of using our tools with their tools)

Even if you haven’t been culling every history book you’ve come across at yard sales and used book stores, you still have another huge resource – Your Local Library. I jumped on my library online site and went through the list and found several titles and had them pulled for my use. I also found many movies on Netflix for the time period, some more graphic than others, but the period – The Middle Ages – is pretty graphic.

I now, for the first time, feel that we can dedicate a day of our week, or more, to direct History Study. We’ll still learn about history through our other topics, but it will be a joy this term to go through the Middle Ages as a family. Looking to see how God moved in this time period, what they thought of their gods, what they thought of man – and see the pieces shift to what we know today.

Many of our Crew Members from The Old Schoolhouse Magazine reviewed this product – from several time periods – for free so that we may share with you! I urge you go visit our Crew’s Blog and look at the linkies to see how other families used the materials in their home so far!

Disclaimer: I received this product for free in exchange of my promise to use it in my home, and then share our true experience with my readers.