Discovering timeline through homeschool history by working through each week by week is interesting to see the children make connections. Many years’ ago when I was in school it was important to teach what was going on in other places of the world. I only had to know what the book was teaching. Homeschoolers’ get to enjoy the freedom of seeing history happen in more than one place and connect the dots.
More than anything I want my homeschooled boys’ to think and enjoy history. Correct history is important. Learning from past mistakes to keep them from happening again is important. History repeats itself and fashion is a good example. How many times have bell bottoms came back in. About every 20 years the styles are reinvented from the past, but updated for the current style. Join us this week as we work through Jeremiah and the clay pot.
Jeremiah and the Clay Pot
As we study timeline the first part is to present the paper. I find our plan in the timeline, and we proceed forward. My homeschoolers get a choice of three events to choose from. Then, they work on their paper from historical resources like the encyclopedia’s, books, or other relevant sources. Mostly they are encouraged to find the information and not on the information. Part of the project is building good research habits.
Two of the three chose Jeremiah and the clay pot. It was interesting how they each wrote something different but on the same topic. One thing that I do is assign chapters to read in the Bible if it is a Biblical reference. One reason that I do this is to help them prepare for the participation. Our timeline projects, papers and participation are graded and this is so they learn history and my high schooler receives a grade.
Research The Topic and Write the Paper
My homeschoolers are various ages and that is one of the reasons I began teaching this method. It is important to teach for multiple ages. Homeschool history is one subject we can all learn together so using this model helps us to get through our group lessons. Cursive writing is encouraged for the older two, and the youngest can print his paper. He only has to do a page since he is ten. My middle schooler has one and a half pages due, and the high schooler has two pages due.
They wrote their homeschool history papers about Jeremiah and the Clay Pot. Each one wrote about something different and it was interesting to see how they viewed the information. Reading skills were covered, writing skills were covered as they wrote, and grammar skills are covered because they are required to use what they know.
Stay Comfortable While Giving a Presentation
While giving our presentation they are getting comfortable speaking in front of others’. Standing up to give public speaking well is on my goal list for my graduation. If they can comfortably speak to anyone that is a plus in my book.
We all lined up to hear the first person speak about Jeremiah. Homeschool history is one of the favorite subjects so they all request to be first. Each week I try to rotate, and sometimes we pick a number. Each person is encouraged to speak for 3- 5 minutes on their topic.
Participation
Participation is the hard one. Instead of just narrating, I have them tell me what they learned. So I use a fill in the blank method where I will read off a section of what they read. Five questions are given and they receive five points for each. In total, they can earn up to 25 points for this section, or they can not. This is one way how I learn if they read the entire passage or just what they needed too. For the most part they get almost all of them right. my thirteen and ten year old struggle with reading the entire passage. But, this shows as I ask them questions.
Requiring them to do their best is all I ask. If they get some of them wrong that is not the important part, but my goal is to teach them to read the whole passage. Skimming a passage is not a good idea and can affect the outcome of a test, directions or something else. Overall they do read the passage, and my sixteen year old has definitely mastered my goal for reading the passage. The other two will get it, and we homeschool so it isn’t just a box to check off.
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