History

This page offers out-of-the-box, creative options for inspiring right-brained children to learn about history. Click on the image for a link to the product. Longer reviews will have its own tab. I would love to hear yourrecommendations by using the comments section at the bottom of the page!

Charlotte Mason Approach with Penny Gardner
“A Charlotte Mason Approach to History”

There’s a nice list of “living” history books at Penny Gardner’s site. ~Liz

 

Engineering an Empire
By The History Channel

The TV Series, Engineering an Empire, was a great way to get my builder son to warm up to history. I found after he watched this, he would make his own replicas using various building supplies. ~Michele

 

Civilization
By 2K Games
For Windows

Sid Meir’s Civilization video game helped expand my electronics/gaming son’s interest in history. ~Michele

My son plays Civilization (IV, which is supposedly the BEST version!), and
really enjoys it. ~Lynne

 

 

Age of Mythology
by Microsoft
For Windows

 

Age of Empires
By Microsoft
For Windows

The history games my boys have played is Age of Mythology and Age of Empires. ~Dana

 

Mistakes That Worked
by Charlotte Jones

My daughter loves learning about how things were invented and there are a number of books about the history of inventions. We find that picking a these such as this provides a nice alternative to the war-to-war approach to history. There are so many aspects of the human story besides the parade of monarchs. ~Sarah

 

The New York Times Upfront
By Scholastic

My electronics/gaming son also enjoys Scholastic’s Upfront magazine. ~Michele

 

 

Horrible Histories
(23 in the original series)

by Terry Deary

For history, my 11 year old loves Horrible Hisotries … you’d have to vet them, as they’re fairly gruesome (I don’t have a problem with them), but they’re funny and he’s learned a ton of information from them. ~Marian

 

 

Darkest of Days
by Phantom EFX
XBox 360 and Windows

 

 

History Channel Civil War
by Activision, Inc.
XBox 360, PS2, Windows

 

 

Teacher Created Materials
Thematic Unit Studies
various authors

The majority of the  historical fiction books used in these unit studies were great fodder for a couple of my children in the 11-13 and 14-16 year learning stages. I would recommend they choose 2-3 activities per featured book in order to enhance their learning experience about the period or topic. (I didn’t follow the curriculum as it was set out in the unit study in order not to bog my children down from the learning aspect gained from the historical fiction books themselves.) ~Cindy