4 Ways to Make History Fun When Homeschooling Your Kid

Encouraging others to teach homeschool history in a way that is fun, delightful, comprehensive, and filled with curiosity is a key component of the home education encouragement here at Humility and Doxology. So I’m delighted to share this guest post by Rose Jayla with 4 tips for making history fun while you’re homeschooling!

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Homeschooling children is quite common. In fact, the National Center for Education Statistics revealed that 5.4% of children in the US were homeschooled from 2020 to 2021. Although successfully teaching your child at home is fulfilling, educating your child in some subjects can be challenging. History is one of the more difficult subjects to teach, even for most instructors. Because the subject coverage is massive, it can be overwhelming to teach and summarize without leaving out essential details. Additionally, there’s the struggle of keeping the topic interesting and relevant for young learners to keep them engaged with the lesson.

So in this article, we’ll share four ways you can make history fun yet educational when homeschooling your child.

Dress-up and role-play

Simply learning history from reading and studying textbooks can be boring for kids. That’s why a great way to make history enjoyable for children is to dress up and reenact significant historical moments. For instance, if you’re tackling the history of ancient Greece, you can have your kids wear Greek costumes and pretend to have chariot races with chariots made of boxes. Not only does this make the learning experience more immersive through play, but it also allows children to realize that history has exciting moments worth studying. So apart from your usual textbook reading sessions, incorporate role-play and dress-up activities to liven up your history classes at home.

Reconstruct historical architecture

Another hands-on activity you can include in your history classes at home is reconstructing historical architecture from around the world. This is perfect for developing your child’s creativity and resourcefulness since they’ll be challenged to create a building or monument from the items you provided or what’s available in the house. You can ask them to recreate historical buildings like the Colosseum in Italy, the Taj Mahal in India, and the Eiffel Tower in France. After your child presents their work, discuss the significance of the building in history and include other fun facts, such as who built them and how big they are in real life.

Visit virtual museums

Technology is improving the ways children can learn today. As a matter of fact, Maryville University explained that the education sector is seeing an increase in the use of technology to assist instructors in making education fun and immersive for students. Besides providing young learners with numerous online resources like infographics and videos, technology can enable them to explore places and museums that they normally wouldn’t be able to visit. For example, virtual tours from the British Museum and The Louvre allow children to examine various artifacts and historical sites from the comfort of their homes. So by visiting virtual museums, parents of homeschooled children can provide a more enjoyable and immersive experience that will supplement their learning progress at home.

Watch documentaries or films

You can also make learning history more fun for your children by encouraging them to watch historical documentaries and films. This is because if they’re impressed with the show’s visuals, audio, and story, they’re more likely to remember these events and will even become interested in learning more about them.

There are over 101 reasons why homeschooling with documentaries is awesome. Some examples of historical shows you can find online are Liberty’s Kids, an animated series that teaches children about early American history, and Inspiring Animated Heroes, which feature famous people like Harriet Tubman, George Washington, and Abraham Lincoln.

For more tips and resources to help you with your homeschool needs, check out more history posts at Humility and Doxology.

exclusively written for HumilityandDoxology.com

by Rose Jayla