Homeschool Discoveries

Welcome to “United States History Year 1” at Homeschool Discoveries!

This is a plan/outline I am putting together for my family to study American History from the earliest years to approximately 1850.  If all goes well I will put together a “Year 2” plan to study US history from 1850 to the present for the following school year (2013-2014).

The primary audience for my US History curriculum is Miss M, who will be in third grade this year (2012-2013).  The secondary audience will be Mr. E, who will be a Kindergartener this year.  He has a definite interest in history, so I expect that he will participate regularly.

We’ll divide our year into five units or time periods:

• Native Americans/Explorers (8 weeks, plus 2 vacation weeks when we may still do some read alouds)
• Early Settlers/Colonies (9 weeks)
• The American Revolution (8 weeks)
• A New Nation/Constitution (4 Weeks)
• War, Westward Expansion and Pioneers (8 Weeks)

For each time period we’ll have one or more key non-fiction texts that I will select to read to Miss M and Mr. E together.  I don’t have one spine text to use throughout our studies, but I plan on the Maestros’ American Story series to be a key text for the earliest years through 1812.   I will read historical fiction to Miss M (and sometimes to all the kids…or at least Mr E…as well when appropriate).  I’ll also be assigning Miss M independent fiction reading related to each time period.  We’ll also have a “book basket” of mainly non-fiction library books related to each topic.  The kids may freely choose books from the basket to read.  Some days I may ask them to select a book to read, while at other times it will be totally optional.  Finally, I will be using lapbooking, papercraft, activity, timeline and notebooking resources to help Miss M (and Mr E if he chooses) have a written or visual record of what we are learning.

I’ll be blogging regularly about the books we read and activities we do as we study American History this year.  Stop by often (or subscribe via email or RSS) if you want regular updates on our study.

Or if you want a preview of our book choices (or are looking to make your own American History reading list), check out this spreadsheet in Google docs (updated file as of 10-16-12).

A few notes about this document:

• It is tentative, especially for any units beyond #3
• We almost certainly won’t read all the books listed, even in the literature categories.  We also won’t do activities from all the books listed — I’m just getting prepared with lots of potential resources.
• Many books are linked to their amazon listings.  As I update the file, more books will be linked.
• Additionally, some books may have affiliate links, but they aren’t my affiliate links if they have them (they would be links from the sites where I found some of the book suggestions).
• I’ll be updating and changes the file as the year progresses
• I have not planned out each week of our studies — only beginning and end dates for each unit, and even those might change.  But in retrospect I’ll be making a record of what I do so that could be sort of a “schedule” once it is done.

Much credit goes to A Book in Time, the Sonlight website, Guest Hollow American History, and All Through the Ages for many of the books suggestions.