Great Non-Textbook History Sources for Older Kids

When I was a student about the age my son is now, I frequently had homework that involved reading a chapter in a social studies textbook and answering the comprehension questions at the end. All the significant names and concepts were in bold. I literally had to scan the chapter for the key words and find the answers in almost the exact wording as the question. I agonized over it, because  I was just so bored by it, until my mother sat with me and did it with me. There was not much thinking involved in the work. Even by answering those questions, I didn't comprehend the big ideas and I certainly didn't hold onto the specific names and dates and places. I knew history was important, but I often did not find it very engaging as a student. 

Thankfully I feel differently now. And I have a son who is naturally quite interested in history, so that alone helps make social studies a part of the day we both look forward to. In our homeschool, we've managed to "do" history in a way that makes the people and events of the past feel real and important; history topics seem to make their way to the dinner table more than any other subject. For this I also credit some great sources we've found to use in our studies. Last year when I was faced with teaching an upper elementary aged child of my own and figuring out what materials to use, I didn't want to trust any single source to shed light on the complexities of history. So I didn't consider buying a textbook or packaged curriculum. Instead I depend on a variety of (almost entirely free) articles, books, photos, and web sites. We've started to identify favorites that are particularly rich and reliable. In social studies (even more than in other areas), and especially with my 5th grader, I feel that I am not teaching, but learning and relearning right along with him. 

Some of our Favorite Non-Textbook History Sources for Older Kids: 

• At the top of my list are Perspectives Flip Books (above). Half of the book tells about an important event/issue in history from one perspective; flip the book over and the other half tells about the same topic from a different perspective. Last year we read The Split History of the American Revolution, told from the points of view of both British and Patriots. This year I was excited to get The Split History of Westward Expansion from the library, told from both settlers' and American Indian perspectives. It's all too easy for kids to take sides and see things as black and white. So I like to purposely seek out multiple angles and this series is one way to do some of that easily.  

• W absolutely loves history books by Steve Sheinkin. This author "confesses" in the foreword that he used to help write textbooks for a living, and that now he writes his own books, packed with "all the true stories and real quotes that textbooks never tell you." The books are really funny, and humor is a big sell for my son. Last year we discovered these by reading aloud together King George: What was his Problem?: The Whole Hilarious Story of the American Revolution. W has since read Which Way to the Wild West?: Everything Your Schoolbooks didn't tell you about America's Westward Expansion and Two Miserable Presidents: The Amazing, Terrible, and Totally True Story of the Civil War. As a reader and learner in general, W holds onto details first and later hangs the main ideas on those, rather than the other way around. These books include the key facts but are big on the amusing details; they seem to be written with a kid like him in mind. I wouldn't want these books to be the only source we used to learn about a topic, but as part of the mix, they are a super fun way to help you visualize history as real people and situations.  
• Whoever thought up the Who Is...?/What Was...? enterprise was really smart. Written by many different authors, the Who Was...? series consists of hundreds of biographies about influential people of all kinds, aimed at kids ages 8 - 12, while the What Was...? line tells about important historical events or time periods. W has read a bunch of these just for fun, and I always borrow relevant ones to go with whatever we are studying (right now we have What was the Lewis and Clark Expedition? and What was the Alamo?). W says one thing he really likes about these books is the great pictures. Some have photos, and all seem to have evocative drawings on almost every page.
• Our library has magazines to check out and we've found that kids' magazines with a history focus, like Cobblestone and Kids Discover offer bite-size articles and text features on many aspects of a historical event or time period, often in greater depth than many "all about" books for kids tend to include. We've found battle maps, timelines, games, poems, how-to sections, recipes, lots of great illustrations and photos, even fun historical comic strips.  
• Primary sources are powerful. Last year we examined the Declaration of Independence through the Library of Congress web site. This year while studying westward expansion, we've viewed some relevant works of art through museum web sites, read some of Lewis and Clark's journal entries (W found some of the content, as well as the spelling, very entertaining) and read and listened to some contemporary song lyrics that give a sense of that time in history.
• We've found some solid web sites that we go to first before random internet searches. Ducksters is one such site. It has concise fact sheets on many history topics and subtopics. What you get is fairly basic overview material, but sometimes that's what you need. There's an option to have the information on the page read aloud to you. Each page also contains a brief quiz at the end; W actually likes these and always sits up a little straighter and reads a little more closely because he knows it is at the end. National Park Service web sites are always worth looking for as well. I was impressed with the slew of information available on some of the NPS sites we visited this fall, including Trail of Tears and Pony Express-- maps, videos, timelines, photos, artwork, and interactive activities.
• When we've done enough reading, sometimes we want a quick video to snappily summarize a topic as well as provide some good visuals. We search for the topic in question and generally find it worth clicking on videos from a few specific YouTube sources: History Channel, Smithsonian Channel, Encyclopaedia Brittanica, and Biography. (These all have good web sites with good articles as well.)  
• National Geographic kids books are always good. Their Everything series (Everything World War I, Everything Battles, etc) has been a hit for W, but we are also currently really enjoying the Little Kids First Big Book of the World with M. No matter what age they are aimed at, National Geographic books seem to have just the right balance of right-size text and amazing photographs, along with neat text features (graphs, glossaries, fun facts, etc.).  

 

• Don't forget picture books! I believe in picture books for big kids as well as little ones. Even though W is a voracious and capable independent reader, he is delighted when I say I have a picture book I want to read with him. If I leave them lying around, he'll read them himself but I tend to save them to share aloud because we all enjoy them. I love to find relevant picture books to go along with any of our studies in history. Above are a handful I currently have that all have to do with our current big topic of westward expansion. Stories and pictures help round out understanding of any topic and bring it to life.

I think by layering and weaving sources on any given topic, rather than having history handed to him between two covers as it was to me, my oldest gets more of a chance to form impressions and construct meaning for himself. Some facts we read over and over in every source-- those facts really sink in. But he finds some unique facts in every new source he reads as well. It's a skill in itself to notice where there are inconsistencies among sources and to question why that might be. In using many sources we also get some practice evaluating credibility.  

Here are a couple of other notes about the way we do history:

Seek Context

With everything we read, even fiction, it helps to pause to provide context, or prompt for him to do that for himself so that it becomes a habit. If the book takes place in a particular year, I ask what was happening around that time in our country or in the world? If the book contains hints or references to key events, I try to make sure he is making the connection to when and where it is. (Our house was built in 1841; as we've read lots of things this fall, we've paused to think about it in terms of whether our house was here yet or not.) All these connections help make meaning. Maps of all sorts help with some of this context. I hung up a world map we have (it came from one of our KiwiCo. crates) near our school area at the beginning of the year and I can't tell you how many times a day that somebody refers to it as they tell a story or that little fingers trace a route across it. When you mention or read about something happening in a particular place, kids can't necessarily visualize it, so going to the map often, or grabbing the globe, helps a lot. 

Depth over Breadth

As far as what we study and for how long, I prioritize depth over breadth. Rather than "covering" history chapter by chapter, if we stay with one significant time in history for a while-- through varied reading and writing and activities and projects-- that knowledge becomes more permanent. Thorough understanding of a time period makes it more likely we'll be able to make authentic connections with other time periods, and/or with current events. Knowing a time period deeply gives us the opportunity to analyze and work with big ideas, not just concrete facts. It allows us to fully appreciate cultural, social, literary references that might otherwise have gone over our heads. Last year we overviewed U.S. history up to about the year 1800, but with a central focus on the causes and effects and events surrounding the American Revolution. Late this summer, W and my husband and I watched Hamilton. W loved it not just for the swear words and the catchy songs, but because he really understood it. He kept hitting pause to explain references to us-- there are so many and they are presented so quickly. I am excited that we are well on our way with the same sort of deep dive this year on new topics as we move forward through history. I love seeing the self esteem boost as he comes to feel like a bit of an expert on a period in history once again. 

Immersion

Inspired by the units of study in reading and writing that I used last year, I am again, for a period of time, using our reading and writing time to work with the same big topics that we are studying in history. 

For several weeks, I set aside independent reading time for W to read nonfiction under a big umbrella topic like westward expansion, after we've gotten a sense of the topic during social studies time. This is when he makes use of many of those favorite sources described above. (I check out a bunch of books and magazines from the library on the topic and he chooses which he wants to read. He still has plenty of other time to read his favorite fiction series of the moment or other choice reading.) By reading lots of nonfiction, on different subtopics by different authors, as well as historical fiction and graphic novels about the time period, he is immersed in it. He really is doing research, whether he realized it or not, and we work on research skills and how to take decent notes without getting bogged down by notetaking. The research and reading become easier as new knowledge fits into his growing schema. After a while he chooses a subtopic he wants to focus on, that he already knows a bit about, and researches and reads more, zooming in on that. 

While learning about a big history topic and reading about it independently, we also focus our writing time on it for a portion of time. You have to really know a topic well to write about it, and at the same time writing about a topic helps you really know it well. W is still so proud of a couple of "books" he wrote last year about two specific battles of the Revolutionary War, each book consisting of several short chapters. He wrote essays into those books, he wrote historical narrative, he wrote opinion sections and all-about sections, not to mention maps and diagrams. He had to organize and construct meaning in a big way in order to create his own coherent writing pieces. 

Surrounding ourselves with the topics and ideas of a history study, beyond social studies time, at least for a portion of time, works well for us. Of course, immersion includes going places that are historically relevant. The bit we did of that last year was wonderful-- seeing paintings and dioramas and artifacts of things we'd learned about in museums. But I have lots more field trips in mind-- battlefields, reenactments, national parks, monuments-- that have been temporarily slowed by the current pandemic. As I continue to add new excursion ideas to my "After Covid" to-do list, I console myself with the knowledge that when kids become immersed in a time period and come to know it well, the knowledge takes on a life of its own... One hobby of W's is to watch and make his own stop-motion Lego videos. He made several in the past year reenacting (with his own creative license in some details) battles of the Revolutionary War. Lately, a Pony Express rider and some Native American battles have started to feature in his creations, which is neat to see. I am pretty certain that I myself never brought my social studies lessons into my free time as a kid!