Bringing history to life and making it memorable can have a profound effect on your homeschool. It’s so important to cement in your children’s mind the times, places, people, and events that their history lessons include, and there are many fun ways to do this!
I’m looking back on 26 years of homeschooling now, and I think everyone’s favorite part was when we all gathered together to do history lessons. We moved through a few curriculum programs over the years, and finally settled on Mystery of History, but whatever we used, the addition of creative activities was the best part. (In my Mystery of History lesson plans ideas, I share in detail how we did this.)
Let me show you some easy ways to do this with drawing, coloring, and other easy-to-implement activities.
Drawing
When my kids were all young, they began with the easy little Usborne drawing books, learning to draw simple animals and people, and then moving through the ones with princesses, ballerinas, castles, pirates, and such.
And then we found these:
Draw and Write Through History is a set of six books with drawing lessons from Creation through the 21st century. They include cursive copywork, too. We wore these books out!
I love these because they include biblical history alongside ancient history! You can buy them individually or as a set on Amazon.
We also enjoyed the “Design Your Own Coat of Arms” book during our medieval history studies. This book has lots of historic information about heraldry, and plenty of suggestions and creative ideas.
Along with coats of arms, we have created entire an entire armory of medieval weaponry for fun. I also taught homeschool co-op classes devoted to this, and finally created a downloadable guide called History Meets Duct Tape. And since this post is all about making history more fun, you’ll want to check out my list of great medieval books for kids of all ages!
Coloring
Now, this is not just a section on preschool coloring books. Think “adult coloring books” with historical details. That’s what I love and what I’m sharing here. Each page has a detailed historic drawing and a few lines of historic facts.
Most of these are Dover Coloring Books. I’m sharing the ones we have loved, but there are lots more!
When studying medieval history, don’t forget the illuminated manuscripts!
Anyway, you get the idea. Search “Dover Coloring Books” and you find something for everyone!
Models to build
We’ve also enjoyed making models of castles. In fact, everytime I see one of these model sets for sale, I grab it up!
Usborne Books used to carry them. Since they changed the company to Paper Pie, I’m not sure what they carry, but you can search eBay or ask a sales rep.
Paper Dolls
These can be fun for any age and for both boys and girls! It’s fun to set up a historically accurate family or village!
You get several full-color cardstock people with numerous costumes to dress them in:
This one blends coloring with paper dolls + history information!
Art
Famous artworks are fun to color when you are learning about an artist or an art period!
We also enjoyed doing some famous art advanced paint-by-number kits:
These are fun for everyone — you don’t have to have any artistic ability to complete a beautiful painting!
These are projects that kids of all ages look forward to each day, and allow them to do something quiet with their hands while you read aloud or while everyone listens to an audio book.
Enjoy!
Leave a Reply