Homestead Acres » history

St. Patrick’s Day Freebies

Kim — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 00:25:14 +0000

St. Patrick Day is approaching, what fun activities do you have planned? CurrClick has some great freebies up right now.

Notebooking is a big part of our lessons. It really brings facts alive for children. Little ones just love putting together a journal of what they’ve learned. Check out these free notebooking pages! St. Patrick’s Day Notebooking Pages

Shamrocks and Shillelaghs is a free ebook by Teachers Book Bag. It gives the history of many Irish and St. Patrick’s day symbols. Also included are some poems, calendar cards and activities.

St. Patrick: The World’s Greatest Missionary is a great little book. It’s full of stories about St. Patrick, picture studies, map and copywork. And a recipe for Irish Soda bread to!

If these aren’t quite what your looking for CurrClick also has these books on sale at a great price.

St. Patrick’s Day Lapbook with Study Guide

Celebrating St Patrick & St Patrick’s Day [BUNDLE]

Connect The Thoughts – Saint Patrick’s Day Creative Writing/History Unit

Recorded Class! – St. Patrick’s Day

March Book Bag, 2009

Book Review ~ The Changing History Theories And How To Teach Them

Kim — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 04:24:26 +0000

I’ve recently read The Changing History Theories And How To Teach Them by Ruth Beechick. This is one of the many wonderful books in the WeeBook series from The Old School House.

I absolutely loved this ebook! I come from a secular family background and as a prodigy of the public school system, teaching history and science can be challenging. I have about 19 years worth of knowledge to relearn from a Christian view. I have always loved learning about history and I love teaching it to my children. However the majority of books are heavy in evolution. Not only are there endless mentions of human evolution but historical time lines that have been “tweaked” to suit their needs.

This eBook briefly discuses Evolutionary prehistory and how historians come up with there ideas of human evolution. Then moves into history from the Bible’s stand point.

I especially liked the way Dr. Beechick explains how Bronze and Iron ages are calculated. I had been taught specific time frames for these. But she explains that each geographical area would have come into this period at different times. After the flood when all civilization was destroyed, Noah’s families first priority would have been survival in the “new” world. While they would have had all the knowledge of working with metals, they would have first worked with what was quick and easily available to them.

Dr. Beechick also suggests a different path of study then most text books. One that flows with the Bible and focuses more on Israel and the countries influenced by it.

Emphasis is put on learning the story of history and the love of learning, over memorizing endless lists of dates.

Some of the topics discussed in this book are:

The meaning of changing history theories.
Pre and Post flood history.
The Difference between evolutionary history books and the Bible.
Worrying about gaps.
How to make a simple time line.

I highly recommend this ebook to anyone teaching history to their children. It has been a great guide and starting point for me in planning our history path.

New Curriculum

Kim — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 18:39:45 +0000

I love that time of year when new school books start coming in. Our children are just as excited to look through new books to. They all gather around when a box is delivered anxiously waiting to look. Last Friday our first package arrived! I’ve decided to make world geography our focus for next year. After a lot of research I decided to use Galloping the Globe as our spine. It is a multi level book geared to grades K to 4 but could easily be adapted to older students. Since I had planned to use this next year my oldest 3 children will be grades 2, K and K4 this sounds perfect for us. It introduces you to each continent and major countries by unit study. For each country their are maps to color/label, and some fun worksheets. But what I like the best is the book suggestion lists. For each country there are lists of reference books as well as fiction. Science topics include animals natural to the country, trees, volcanoes etc.

I’ve also picked out some of the suggested books to go along with with this book and I’m impressed with them also. Considering God’s Creation is a grade 1 to 8 science program. This would make a great supplement to any science program! I like the hands on materials and experiments.

Children Just Like Me is a beautiful book. It fetchers a child from each country around the world as they tell about their life and county. My children love this book already!

Geography from A to Z is a picture book of geography terms. It clearly and easily explains the different features of the land.

Around the World in A Hundred Years, tells the history of explorers in story format.

I had planned to start using this program in the late summer. But we just might have to start sooner! It looks like so much fun!