Creating a custom history curriculum is not hard, it just requires a bit of planning.  I have enjoyed creating history courses for my children for more than 9 years starting in their elementary years and now through high school.    I’d love to share with you a few tips that will help make the process of putting a curriculum together much simpler and enjoyable.  Join me each day this week for a new helpful tip.

Tip #1: Order Doesn’t Really Matter. Most homeschool history curriculums are organized into four main time periods: Ancient, Medieval, Renaissance/Reformation & Modern.  Geography & Culture studies are usually organized as a state/province and/or country study and a separate World Geography study. These time period delineations are helpful for planning, but don’t let them limit or restrict your history study goals. You don’t have to organize your history curriculum chronologically, especially at the elementary level. You can set the beginning and end of your studies anywhere along history’s timeline that you wish! If American history is where your children’s interests currently lie, then by all means, study it now! The other subjects will be there when you’re done.

At the high school level, students generally study US History (or your country’s history), World Geography, World History and US Government. Again, order doesn’t matter, though it does make sense to put Government towards the end of high school when a student is closer to voting age.

TO DO:    *Look over the typical course of study outlines for social studies at World Book’s website. That can give you an overview idea of what history topics are studied at various grade levels. Remember, those are ‘typical’ courses of study – suggestions only.

* Narrow down the general time period that you would like to cover.   It’s okay to overlap into more than one ‘era’  or  choose to cover a smaller than normal time period.

For example, you could decide to cover US History from the Jamestown settlement to the end of the Civil War.

Tomorrow-  Survey or In depth?  What If I Miss Something?