Cambridgeshire Academy™️: social studies

Showing posts with label social studies. Show all posts

Sunday, October 25, 2020

2nd Grade History, Geography, Social Studies & Civics

We were supposed to do Story of the World for history but Z just can't pay attention long enough to remember or learn anything because he said it's boring - and believe me, I've tried a lot of different ways since 1st grade! So I decided to try something else and create my own blend of social studies/civics/geography and so far, so good!

**UPDATE - We finished everything below in Social Studies/Civics and decided to add in Abeka's Our America and Z loves it!

Here are the topics we have learned about so far with books we own, library books and videos from YouTube:

Social Studies/Civics:

American symbols, landmarks, holidays, White House, 3 branches of government, Washington D.C., the Constitution, Bill of Rights, Declaration of Independence, laws, rights, local government departments, citizenship, voting, mailman, police, paramedics, firefighters, emergency vehicles, military branches, construction workers, doctors, libraries, producers/consumers, resources, society, community, urban/suburban/rural, towns and cities

*Some great YouTube channels we used were Homeschool Pop, Kids Academy, A Kid Explains History

Geography/Culture:

50 states & capitals, continents, countries, maps, physical geography, more to come...

*We are blending in our geography study with Earth Science that we are currently doing in science. We also have several geography games that we play frequently and they are the easiest way to learn states and countries!

History:

Biographies - Christopher Columbus, Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, Inventors, history and patriotic songs, more to come...

Wednesday, September 23, 2009

History, Geography & Social Studies

History was my best subject in school. I still love it and can't wait to teach it!! : ) The traditional approach in public education is to teach facts from here and there and everywhere and there is generally no chronological order to the whole mess! With Classical Education, there is order (after all, isn't God a God of order? hehe). History is taught in chronological order from Ancient times to Modern times in just 4 years and then it is repeated twice afterward allowing the child to receive the entire history of the world 3 times by the time they graduate High School! I fell in love with this approach right away and it was just what I was looking for! You can read an article about the classical approach to History here.

Here is the 4-year layout of History:

Ancients, BC 5000-400 AD
Medieval/Early Renaissance, 400-1600
Late Renaissance/Early Modern, 1600-1850
Modern Times, 1850-Present

We are using "The Story of the World: History for the Classical Child: Volume I Ancient Times; From the Earliest Nomads to the Last Roman Emperor". We are also using the activity book and audio.

You may be saying what about Geography and Social Studies? So glad you asked! Not only is she getting a wonderful order of History, she will be learning Geography and Social Studies throughout the learning of History! From studying ancient maps and finding out just where what we studied in History is, she will also be learning their culture (Social Studies) of each time period throughout History. What better way to teach these subjects but all together?

I love the hands on application of the maps and we are using Knowledge Qwest's Blackline Maps of Ancient Times that go right along with "The Story of the World 1". My daughter has a great interest in maps and has had for a few years now. She learned what maps where from Dora lol. Since then she loves pretending she has a map and when we went to the Zoo and they gave us a map - she was thrilled with excitement to have a MAP!! She enjoys the maps in the Bible as well and loves looking at the routes that Abraham and different men of the Bible traveled. We are also using a Globe that includes astronomy/constellations at the flick of a switch.

As we go along in History, we will also be reading books from the library on the topics which we are studying that week. We also will be using our Usborne Encyclopedia of World History for further study. Narration will involve her telling me what we read in History in her own words, of which I will write down in a notebook. She will be memorizing various facts as well - such as the Pharaohs, Kings of Rome, Egyptian dynasties, etc.

Image credits: Amazon, Christian Book

Quotes

"If you take your children to Caesar for their education, you need to stop being surprised when they come home as Romans" - Voddie Bauchman

"Too many parents who would never send their children to a church on Sunday that taught doctrines they believed to be wrong, have had no problem placing them in state schools five days a week where they are taught conflicting doctrines and ideas." - Cal Thomas

“I believe it would be much better for everyone if children were given their start in education at home. No one understands a child as well as his mother, and children are so different that they need individual training and study. A teacher with a room full of pupils cannot do this. At home, too, they are in their mother’s care. She can keep them from learning immoral things from other children.” ~Laura Ingalls Wilder

“Schools have not necessarily much to do with education... they are mainly institutions of control, where basic habits must be inculcated in the young. Education is quite different and has little place in school.” ~Winston Churchill

"Let it be remembered, that I do not speak to the wild, giddy, thoughtless world, but to those that fear God. I ask, then, for what end do you send you children to school? “Why, that they may be fit to live in the world.” In which world do you mean, — this or the next? Perhaps you thought of this world only; and had forgot that there is a world to come; yea, and one that will last for ever! Pray take this into your account, and send them to such masters as will keep it always before their eyes. Otherwise, to send them to school (permit me to speak plainly) is little better than sending them to the devil. At all events, then, send your boys, if you have any concern for their souls, not to any of the large public schools, (for they are nurseries of all manner of wickedness,) but private school, kept by some pious man, who endeavors to instruct a small number of children in religion and learning together." - John Wesley

"I am commanded to bring my children up in the nurture and instruction of the Lord (Eph. 6:4), and to do so by teaching them God’s statutes when I sit in my house, when I lie down, when I rise up, and when I walk along the way (Deut. 6:7). I am also admonished not to place myself, or by extension my children, under false teaching (Col. 2:8), or to expose them to teaching that undermines God’s Law (Matt. 5:17-20)." - Voddie Bauchman

"God has designed your family—not the youth group, not the children’s ministry, not the Christian school, but your family—as the principle discipling agent in your children’s lives." - Voddie Bauchman

“I am sure as I am of the fact of Christ’s reign that a comprehensive and centralized system of national education, separated from religion, as is now commonly proposed, will prove the most appalling engine for the propagation of anti-Christian and atheistic unbelief, and anti-social nihilistic ethics, individual, social and political, which this sin-rent world has ever seen”. – Dr. Archibald Alexander Hodge (1823-1886), Chair of Systematic Theology, Old Princeton Seminary

“Education ought everywhere to be religious education… parents arte bound to employ no instructors who will not instruct their children religiously. To commit our children to the care of irreligious people is to commit lambs to the superintendent of wolves”. ~Timothy Dwight; President of Yale University from 1795-1817

SECULARISM is a philosophy that claims that there is no God-or that if there is a God, He is irrelevant. HUMANISM essentially says that in the absence of God, humans can and should act as gods by judging, choosing, and defining what is right for themselves. The philosophy pervading the public education system combines these two philosophies into one.-Ken Ham

Remember, you are not managing an inconvenience; You are raising a human being. -Kittie Franz