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Ruth
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| Posted: Nov 08 2006 at 8:13am | IP Logged
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I haven't done History with my 8, 10 and 12 year old because they are not strong readers. How can I teach them History with living books? The concept of living books sounds like fun for the kids. I'm lost!!!
God bless. Ruth
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ALmom
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| Posted: Nov 08 2006 at 9:38pm | IP Logged
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Start with some great history picture books or really easy readers. These can make history come alive too - and it helps if there are youngers behind so that you don't feel too bad about it.
AT the same time pick some of the others like those in Bethlehem Books as read alouds.
My ds was slow to get started reading - and it was the easy reader history books that got him going and now he cannot stop reading history. We started with some really simple books that Emmanuel Books sold. We always read aloud at bedtime so I got action packed, suspenseful hisorical fiction that really enticed him and read these aloud.
I ordered the easy readers the summer before we planned to study the time period and he read them all before school started. They were probably written several levels below grade level, but were easy for him to read and, most importantly for him at the time, they were fairly short with lots of pictures, yet still well-written.
I was hesitant to answer as I'm not the most expert on these boards and assumed there would be tons of others with super ideas. But to get the ball rolling, I've shared what worked for us and hope it helps.
Janet
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Ruth
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| Posted: Nov 10 2006 at 7:25am | IP Logged
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Thanks for the advive. Can you tell me some of those Bethlehem titles that might be easy to start with? I have a 12 and 10 year old girl, 8 and 6 year old boy and 4 year old girl.
God bless. Ruth
http://thetuckerbunch.typepad.com/
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kjohnson
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My kids first living history books have been the D'Aulaire picture books. The activity guides for The Story of the World volumes 1-4 have amazing reading lists. Most are meant to be read-aloud and are beautiful picture books. I don't use the SOTW texts, but I really like having the acitivity guides for ideas for living history read-alouds. As far as a living spine for the study of history, I would suggest V.M. Hillyer's A Child's History of the World.
HTH
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Katherine
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MacBeth
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Oh, I'm with Katherine. The D'Aulaires picture books are wonderful, but don't stop at the American ones. Their Children of the Northlights (about the Lapps) and Ola (ditto) are so breathtaking, and of course, their mythology blends right into history, too.
Living history books can take two forms. One is historical fiction, and the other is primary source material. Books like the "Little House" series and Homesick by Jean Fritz are both fiction and "in their own words," and so make great introductions to the genre. Jean Fritz has a whole series of American history books for young readers. Check out And then what Happened, Paul Revere? and others.
Other books, like Thoreau's Cape Cod, give us a geographical perspective on a historical location, and are "real history" since they are written by a person living through the time. Journals of soldiers as used by Ken Burns in his Civil War series are wonderful primary sources made accessible by Burns and others.
The Newbery book list is full of great historical fiction, especially before 1965 or so.
Sometimes we read a book for the setting, so I guess it would be living geography, rather than living history  . One recent read is Framed, which takes place in modern Wales. It's really a comedy about art theft, and does have one very mild slang word for "breast" in a description of a painting (my kids didn't even notice), but in all is a great book for describing small village Welsh life. Definitely living.
I hope this helps. Historical fiction books can help to bring a "setting" to life, and will help to make the connections to real events that wake interest in a topic, even if they are not "true" in the strictest sense.
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MacBeth in NY
Don's wife since '88; "Mom" to the Fab 4
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Ruth
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| Posted: Nov 11 2006 at 8:48am | IP Logged
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Ok. Now that I have an idea of what books to get, do I read aloud to them, or do they read them to me? How is narration done? Do they tell me in their own words what we just read, and I write it down for them, or have them write the summary on their own?
Thanks for all the great advice.
God bless. Ruth
http://thetuckerbunch.typepad.com/
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kjohnson
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I do all of the above. My older kids often read independently and then I have them narrate to me. Most often this is just a simple, oral narration, but I regularly mix it up and have them narrate by drawing a picture, a comic strip, making figures out of sculpey clay, or acting it out using Alice's spoon craft idea..
I try to regularly (once a week?) keyboard in a narration to keep in their notebooks and often they will illustrate these. My younger kids do more illustrating and my older kids do more writing. I've had them write summaries (which are always shorter than what their oral narrations would be) or keep character diaries (we've used this for narrating fiction, but plan on using it for historical figures too).
There's really no limit to the possibilities. I think using different forms of narration helps the kids stay excited about what they're learning.
Oh, and a Book of Centuries. Keeping a wall timeline or a timeline book is a great way to keep all of the history they are learning in perspective. You can purchase the books and timeline figures online or search and print out images on your own.
HTH
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Katherine
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Ruth
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| Posted: Nov 13 2006 at 8:53am | IP Logged
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Wow!!! Thank you all so much. It's Monday, a new start for us. I hope to start fresh with all these ideas.  I listed the History books we'll aloud this week on our new blog.
http://thetuckerbunch.typepad.com/
I hope the kids stay interested long enough to get something out of it.
God bless. Ruth
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kjohnson
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Ruth,
Your blog is beautiful and your history books sound great. I hope you and your dc have a wonderful time reading and learning from them.
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Katherine
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Ruth
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Thanks so much. I had fun making it with my 17dd. I had a hard time reading aloud yesterday. My 8 year old threw a tantrum and the 4 year old kept interrupting. We'll try again today.
God bless. Ruth
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TracyQ
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I love your blog, Ruth! 
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Blessings and Peace,
Tracy Q.
wife of Marty for 20 years, mom of 3 wonderful children (1 homeschool graduate, 1 12th grader, and a 9th grader),
 homeschooling in 15th year in Buffalo, NY
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Ruth
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Thank you. My husband is a web designer, so he's taught me a few things. It's so much fun. I love all the blogs here.
God bless. Ruth
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teachingmom
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I'll share a recent "living book" experience at my house. We are studying Ancient Rome this Fall. So far a lot of our history read alouds have been DK or Usborne - type books on the topic. Some kids would consider those really interesting. My girls tend to put up with them to a point, but their eyes can glaze over when the 3rd or 4th book begins telling about the Roman baths or the legionaries' forts once again. But we are trudging through some of those books for the factual information about the time period.
But we started the book The Bronze Bow by Elizabeth George Speare the other day. It is a living book (historical fiction) set in Roman times. I honestly wasn't sure if they would like it because they were getting a bad attitude about our Roman read alouds. (For some reason my girls don't like ancient history much. They had a similar bad attitude about our ancient Egypt studies last year.  )
They all love The Bronze Bow. It is really a bit above the listening level of my 1st grader, but even she likes it and wouldn't miss a chapter. They are all completely caught up in the story -- so much so that history is coming alive through the story. THAT is a living book.
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Ruth
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That's wonderful. I have that book. My oldest read it when she was doing History with Mother of Divine Grace. I'm not sure how old she was, but I'll try it. Thanks for the advice.
God bless. Ruth
http://thetuckerbunch.typepad.com/
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Ruth
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Topic: What are History living books?
