A one-room-schoolhoused-beyond-schooled-child will most likely be given all the opportunities to learn all they need from history and science.
I’m hoping, as these days have gone by, that your eyes have begun to open to what homeschool could actually be. History was LIVED. So let’s LIVE it. Science is CREATED, so let’s CREATE some.
Until our kids have to learn certain types of science/history for college prep, we can go without using a strict history or science curriculum. Let me clarify though, if curriculum guides you and enhances your homeschooling day, then USE it. If it is constricting and confining, then DON’T use it. Just like that.
I am asked all the time what curriculum I use for history and science. Technically…my answer is NONE.
I also follow a homeschool Facebook page and a mom asked what science curriculum she should get for her kindergartner. I’m sure she was given some amazing recommendations, because I know that some curriculums out there are just awesome. But my advice for kindergarteners is to play more outside, in the mud, with bugs and trees and nature walks and laughter and fun. Actually that’s my advice for 10 year olds too 🙂
With my children, my goal is to teach history and science through living books. Charlotte Mason says these are either “whole books,” firsthand sources, classics, books that display “imagination, originality, and the ‘human touch.'” I also want to teach it through hands on learning, museums, crafts, visiting the actual places where the history was made.
The library and thrift stores are FULL of amazing history and science books (not textbooks!!). I would encourage you to choose a topic that you want to learn with your children, go to the library and get some fun books, put on a play about what you just read about, make some food that was from the time period, visit a local museum that houses some artifacts from that era. Instead of using a textbook that jumps over the subjects quickly, with the goal of finishing the book in a year, choose the subjects that you want your kids to learn and put emphasis on those ideas.
You’re the boss of how homeschooling becomes fun for YOU. So how do you teach history and science? How is it fun for you? Figure that out…and do it that way 🙂
(Instagram photos of this year’s Gold Rush Days in our hometown)