Help your child learn history
Labels: Social Studies
Help your child learn history with some simple tips. You can do these at home to help a child learn history dates, people and events in a fun manner.
Children can learn to love history. Much of their abhorrence of history comes from memorizing lists of dates and people that have no meaning to them. As parents we can help give those dates and names meaning.
Make up a set of memory cards. If you use three cards for each person, one with the name, another with birth and death dates and a third with the event(s) that thrust them in to the history books your child will rapidly learn to associate names, dates and events while having fun.
A version of bingo, with you calling out a name and the cards having a date on them can be challenging, as well as fun. You could vary the cards by using names, or dates or events. This is a great game for a study session, enjoyable as well as quickly helping to associate the right names and dates.
Charades using the characters from history can make a child really think about what the character did, when and how they did it. If you vary the game by eliminating certain words that are too distinctive, then the game will be more fun.
Younger children frequently enjoy putting on a play for their parents. Help them write a script that will accurately describe the time, and event. This will help to bring an event to life for them.
Have a discussion about the reasons behind a certain event. What did the people think when something happened? Why did it happen when it did. You might even encourage your child to write a fictionalized account of their life if they were there to witness the events.
Adding historical references into everyday life is not that difficult. Try finding a recipe for dinner that originated near an event. Have a dress up night, and everyone dresses for dinner as if they were in that particular time period. Have the children make a newspaper detailing the events that happened on a certain day. Have them do a report using a chalkboard instead of paper. Get some ink and quill-pens and see how much fun it can be to write about a certain character using tools similar to what they would have used. Anything that brings history to life will make it easier for a child to memorize the dates and people they need to know.
Children can learn to love history. Much of their abhorrence of history comes from memorizing lists of dates and people that have no meaning to them. As parents we can help give those dates and names meaning.
Make up a set of memory cards. If you use three cards for each person, one with the name, another with birth and death dates and a third with the event(s) that thrust them in to the history books your child will rapidly learn to associate names, dates and events while having fun.
A version of bingo, with you calling out a name and the cards having a date on them can be challenging, as well as fun. You could vary the cards by using names, or dates or events. This is a great game for a study session, enjoyable as well as quickly helping to associate the right names and dates.
Charades using the characters from history can make a child really think about what the character did, when and how they did it. If you vary the game by eliminating certain words that are too distinctive, then the game will be more fun.
Younger children frequently enjoy putting on a play for their parents. Help them write a script that will accurately describe the time, and event. This will help to bring an event to life for them.
Have a discussion about the reasons behind a certain event. What did the people think when something happened? Why did it happen when it did. You might even encourage your child to write a fictionalized account of their life if they were there to witness the events.
Adding historical references into everyday life is not that difficult. Try finding a recipe for dinner that originated near an event. Have a dress up night, and everyone dresses for dinner as if they were in that particular time period. Have the children make a newspaper detailing the events that happened on a certain day. Have them do a report using a chalkboard instead of paper. Get some ink and quill-pens and see how much fun it can be to write about a certain character using tools similar to what they would have used. Anything that brings history to life will make it easier for a child to memorize the dates and people they need to know.