There are so many fun topics to cover in your history lessons, and there is a multitude of ways to take your history lessons from boring lessons to hands-on history lessons. This is our final part of the ABC’s of Hands on History, so let’s dive into our next letter kicking it all off with U is for the United States.
U is for the United States
This is going to be a catch-all for a bunch of random things I thought were cool to do for US history, in no particular rhyme or order other than it occurred to me:
- All of our American History lessons
- Civil War era paper dolls from Paper Thin Personas
- How the Panama Canal was built with All Things Beautiful
- learn about the Battle of Bull Run
- learn about the Underground Railroad
- write a letter to Abraham Lincoln
- learn about early colonial life with Living Life Intentionally
- learn about Davy Crockett with Enchanted Homeschooling Mom
- learn about the Revolutionary War with Living Life Intentionally
- there are many more ideas to be found in my American History tag and on my US history Pinterest board
V is for Vikings
- Vikings Unit– make a boat
- make a Viking brooch with Angelicsalliwags
- write Viking Runes, and think it looks a lot like chicken scratch Angelicscalliwags (I think I’m going to be misspelling this for a while…… I have to double check each time I type it)
- play a Viking Game with Sustainable Living
- make a Viking helmet
- make Viking runestones with Homeschool Days
- Vikings unit study with Learning Curve
W is for World War 1 and World War 2
- World War 1 unit
- World War 2 unit
- study World War 1 with Buntmond (site is translated from German)
- a map of Europe before World War 1, the kids and I have been using this map a lot this week
- videos about World War 1, each one is about 5-10 minutes, perfect length
- hands on activities for World War 1
- “visit” a concentration camp with So You Call Yourself a Homeschooler
- World War 1 worksheets, not hands on but can be a jumping point for something else
- Act out scenarios from WW1 and WW2 with Junior General (love this site)
- Read about post WW2 Germany in this historical fiction book
- Learn about Molly, the American Girl doll in WW2 from the Unlikely Homeschool
X is for Xerxes
ummm, yes I might have slightly covered this with Darius being a Persian as well, but there’s only so many X words………
- X is for Xerxes over at Catholic Toolbox
- The Battle of Thermopalyae
- Persian Invasion! Oh no!
- Xerxes and the Persian wars are interactive
- watch One Night with the King
, a highly romanticized version of King Xerxes
- learn about it from the Jewish perspective in the book of Esther with Bible Fun for Kids
Y is for Yellow? Or something that starts with Y………
Honestly, I drew a blank. Jeff listed off 5 different things, but many of them felt like repeats of earlier letters in a different variation
Z is for Zoroastrianism
World religions are why half of history happened people acted and moved because that’s what their faith told them to do. The other half is geography……….. So teach your kids about other religions. Here’s what I found, and if you have anything on any religions please include a link in the comments.
- Learn about Raksha Bandhan with The Educator’s Spin On It
- Learn about the Diwali Festival with The Educator’s Spin On It
- Learn about Diwali sweets and how to make Diyas with The Educator’s Spin On It
- Learn about Sanskrati
- Read about Buddha
and learn about Buddhism
- Read about Jewish Holidays: Celebrate: A Book of Jewish Holidays
- Make a Purim noisemaker, then print off some masks for it and then make some Hamantashen (I find Purim interesting and save a lot of ideas about it)
- Watch the Golden Words of Islam (warning I found the little kids vocalizations annoying at the beginning)
- Hee hee, I found a site explaining Zoroastrianism, probably more useful than referring you to “The Restaurant at the End of the Universe,” which has a rather hilarious scene between two religions.
- Information on Jehovah’s Witnesses, honestly I did not find a lot about them that was appropriate for kids
- learn about the Book of Mormon, another one that I wasn’t able to find too much about, which is odd because usually I’m tripping over ideas as I’m looking for ideas on lessons for my Sunday School class
Follow along on this Hands on History lesson series and read more
- A-E Athens…….
- F-J Founding Fathers……..
- K-O Kings……
- P-T Pantheon………
- U-Z US history………… YOU ARE HERE
Now check out some of the other ideas in this hop:
- After School Activities from The Educators Spin On It
- Hands-on History from Adventures in Mommydom
- Home Daycare or Family Child Card from My Buddies and I
- Montessori from Living Montessori Now
- Thrifty Teaching Tools from Kindergarten & Preschool for Parents & Teachers
Thanks for the mention! Loved your post. My 7 year old is very interested in history, so I’ll be back to this post for ideas we can use this year!
Y is for yachts? Or, how about Yugoslavia?
Oh, Yugoslavia would have been perfect! I don’t know why I didn’t think of that. My Freshman high school teacher was obsessed with the Balkans, and I learned so much about that area which I’m remembering as we’re studying World War 1.
LOL, I always leave with a smile on my face!!
Y could be for Yellow River and China… This was a great series!
First, thanks for this great list! I haven’t completely decided whether I’ll homeschool or not; the thought completely overwhelms me, but I would so love to do it, so great resources like this make me happy. Also, I belong to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and another great resource to learn about the Book of Mormon is: https://mormon.org/what-do-mormons-believe. There’s a section specifically on the Book of Mormon. Thanks for doing what you do. I hope you have a lovely day!
Thanks for letting me know about that. When I was doing my Google searches I kept coming up with posts saying “Helping your kids pay attention at convention” (I know it didn’t say convention, but I can’t remember exactly what it was at this point), but nothing really about the religion in general.