Making History Fun

Hi there, and welcome. Today I wanted to talk about my least favorite subject, History. It’s important, we have to learn about it, but for me in school it was just words in a page I had to memorize. Boooooring! Plus, there’s a whole lot of gruesome bits in there I really didn’t want to read about. So how do we make it fun for our kids? We’re still working on it, but here’s a few things you can do.

First, I like to keep it simple and let them know the basics of specific events. Don’t go into all the details, make sure they have a basic knowledge base of the event.

Second, make it come alive! Find a book that deals with the subject you’re learning about at the library geared towards kids with a fun story with it if possible. One of my FAVORITE series to use is Margret Peterson Haddix’s “The Missing Series.” Through it you get to know Jonah, who is 13 and throughout the series, he travels through time. You visit England during King Edward V and Prince Richard’s time, then Virginia Dare back in Roanoke, next Henry Hudson on the Discovery, then Albert Einstein’s time, 1918 with the children of Czar Nicholas II and last, but not least, Charles Lindbergh. It really makes those time periods come to life in your imagination. We listen to it on audible, and my oldest daughter loves listening to them. It even got her interested in reading other novels! Win, win.

Or another way to make it come alive, is if there’s a movie about the subject your working on, this can help them learn visually.

Lastly, field trip! The only grade I actually liked History a little bit, was 9th grade. The reason, our history teacher would make field trips to historical sites near where we live. To see that it’s a real place, or a real object from History, definitely makes an impact. So if something significant happened around where you live, go check out a museum, or a historic area of a city, a monument, anything like these. Get creative and have fun and they will too!

Do you have anything you do to make history more fun for your little ones? Let’s share in the comment section. See y’all next time!