History Resources and Where To Find Them

Recently I had a reader of my blog ask a question. The question was in the comments of the following post: Homeschool Weekly - Week Ending 04-17-09

First, note that in each of my posts I have links. For now, with the colors I am using, the links are in yellow until you click on them then they turn pink and the regular non linking words are in blue. If you put your cursor over them your arrow turns into a hand. You can click any of those links to go directly to a place where you can see and buy that book. I also use bold light orange to emphasize some things so if you put your arrow over it and it does not turn into a hand then it is just colored for emphasis.

For some of them I have linked to my favorite homeschool supplier, for others to Amazon. I suggest looking for used copies of books in Amazon and in Half.com or Ebay before paying full price.

There is only one difference to make note of. If buying books, used from Amazon, make sure you add in the shipping cost before deciding whether to buy used or not. If you bought all the books at one place, new, the shipping would be one price, and if you spend certain amounts might even be free. But, if the book costs less, including shipping, at Amazon than it is probably worth it. I have gotten books in good condition for only $0.50 at Amazon with just a few dollars shipping cost.

If you have further questions about History (or the resources I use for Science), any things in this post or any thing in the Homeschool Weekly posts please leave a comment. I would love to help!

So here is the question and the answer

Carol asked:
What a fun week with history. You seem to use a lot of books I'm not familiar with. Where do you find them?

Answer:
All Over!!! LOL

• The Public Library (I borrow lots and buy some when they have their book sales, they sell lots of old books they think no one wants, but sometimes they are the best books in the Library)
  
• Thrift Shops
• Homeschool Conventions
• Homeschool Companies
• Scholastic Warehouse Sales (click on link to see if there is one coming soon near you)
• Recommendations by local and online friends
• Homeschool support group used book sale
• Local Book Stores
• Teacher Stores
  

Favorite sites that sell History resources

• Bethlehem Books
• Greenleaf Press
• Diana Waring
• Lamplighter Books
• Vision Forum
• Jim Hodeges reads Henty Novels - complete, unabridged
• Mantle Ministries - Online Store
• Geography Matters
• Farm Country General Store

Favorite Sites that sell everything - including History

• Rainbow Resource
• Christianbook.com
  

Favorite books that have lists of Fiction and Historical Fiction books to use in your History studies

• All Through the Ages
• Let the Authors Speak (Revised Edition)
• We use the Mystery of History as our spine and in the back of each book is an additional resources section with a list of coordinating Bible passages to read, videos and other books. They are nicely organized by lesson and so are in chronological order.
• Diana Waring History Guides
  
• The Complete Home Learning Sourcebook by Rebecca Rupp

A Book with a chronological list of people and events through all of History
Timetables of History

Websites with book lists for History

• Paula's Archives - Literature to Supplement History (note: though the books are listed in sections which are in chronological order each section is in alphabetical order and so not in the order in which they should be read. Some of my favorites on this page are the books from Bethlehem books... see link above)
• A Book In Time - History Books, Projects, Crafts, Maps and Timelines (easiest access is by the links in the left sidebar)
• Ambleside Online - scan down for an explanation of thier site and for links to their booklists or put your cursor on Curriculum to see their book suggestions by year. I mostly use their Artist Study and Musician Study lists each year put your cursor on Resources to see those lists and others for Nature Study... etc. The whole curriculum is free and online.
  

Books to read/download from the Internet

• A handy list to print out for your use with Henty Books - so you know when to read each one - listed chronologically with the dates and place for each book
  
• Henty at Archive.org - download pdf's of most if not all the books
• Henty at Gutenberg - download as text files
• Another Henty site - chronological or alphabetical list - download zip file or read online
• LibriVox - free online audio books, in the Listen box click LibriVox Catalog and type in the title and or author to see what they have... they have one Henty completed and one a work in progress
• Do a Google search for free online audio books... lots of sites available

While I am at it some other cool History sites (not necessarily with a Christian Worldview... most are not at all Christian... but interesting non the less)

• The History Place - Mostly having to do with the U.S. but some world History Events
• History Net - Lots of cool stuff
• The Quotations Page - find quotes by famous people
• MacroHistory and World Report
• Owl and Mouse - Free Educational Software - Great Maps
• Learning Through History News - sign up for their newsletter to get the new issues in your e-mail
• Dynamic 2 Moms - If you read this far... good for you... You get a bonus: A new site I found recently, one of the ladies on one of my Yahoo groups is the owner of this site... GREAT (not yelling, just excited) Resources for lapbooking and notebooking for History especially... for older kids especially, and Free

These lists are for all time periods. If you are studying a specific time period and would like some help finding resources just leave me a comment and I will try to do a post on the resources I use for that topic. Or I can e-mail you if you want... just let me know in the comment. If I e-mail you I may also post the information on my blog.

Don't forget...

I love links...

So I put links in almost all my posts...

Look for the links to take you to places where you can get free stuff or access to the books I am using currently... Make sure to check used books at Amazon and Half.com/Ebay before you buy.

Have a Great Week,
Debbie

2009 Goals - Homeschool Memoirs #19 Making a List

Can anyone believe 2009 is ALMOST here? Seems like just last week the summer-sun was shining. With every new year, like many, I try to make a list of goals and tasks I would like to accomplish for that year.

THEME

This week I want to set our minds on setting some goals for next year, whether personal, for the whole family, or for school.

Personal Goals:
Exercise more, more often and consistently
Eat better and loose weight
Be more consistent in my devotions
Work on E-book I am trying to write
Get back to weekly time with each of my kids, just mom and one of the kids having lunch in my bedroom alone and then doing whatever the child wants to do. Usually a combo of eating, talking and playing board games and/or computer games.
Spend some time scrapbooking
Get back to doing my own personal copywork
Homeschool Goals:
Get my son Nathan more organized and help him keep that way
Get the boys back on our daily "schedule" which is not by time but order of things done. We have been on vacation for two weeks but in Dec. we also did two Christmas units and it is time now to get back to "regular" subjects. We will be finishing up Vikings in the next week or two then moving on to Middle Ages for History.For Science we will be continuing with our Human Body/Health study.
Get back to evening read aloud time with the boys - I have not been doing that, so we are still on Little House in the Big Woods.

Be more consistent on recording daily in our school log. I have not been doing it daily and then have to go back and try to remember what we did the past week.
Read the two Henty novels to the boys that we were supposed to finish a long time ago and never did. We are partly done but never finished. One is For the Temple the other is the Young Carthaginian. I may only read For the Temple because ds got Young Carthaginian on audio for Christmas, I will have to make that decision later.
Family Goals:
Healthier Eating
Exercise (at home on both our Bowflex (for muscle strengthening) and our Elliptical Walker and outside at Winterthur Estate and Gardens where my mom bought us a years membership and my dh and I bought the girls their membership. We have to do it that way because the girls do not qualify to be on the family membership, it is for children 18 and under only. So we bought them the dual membership. It was a blessing from the Lord that one day after we had spoken with my mom about Christmas gifts in early December and I checked my e-mail and I found that Winterthur was doing half price on memberships for that day only!!! When my dh came home we ordered the memberships. What a great deal.
The two above will hopefully result in weight loss for all except dd Jessica
More singing as a family
Regular Personal Devotions for each family member and regular Family Devotions in the evening.
Family evening read-aloud time more consistently.
Get back to meal planning and shopping more wisely because things are more planned and then we will not have to eat the same chicken every night! I am sick of the meals we have had lately.



Well there may be more but that is a good list to get started on.
Hope you knew year goes well,
Debbie

Homeschool Weekly #12

I have decided to join this weekly update of what we have done for school. This will serve as a great reminder to us of what we have done for school this year and a for you a look into our homeschool.

To start off I would like to say Christopher is in 6th Grade and Nathan in 9th.

The boys are doing Jesus in the Spotlight: John, Chapters 1-10 (Discover 4 Yourself® Inductive Bible Studies for Kids) for Bible.

They had their last Creation Science for Kids Online Class on Monday. We still have a few experiments to do to finish up but otherwise we are done. The class was great and we can listen to the audios over and over. As with all of Cindy's classes you can still purchase a ticket and get all the great handouts and experiments from Felice. We are studying the Human Body for Science and on Tuesday we started the Nervous System. We did our pages from Considering God's Creation, Read a library book The Nervous System, and read the Nervous system section in Blood and Guts. Each day we have also been reading Prudence and the Millers and the boys are using this book as copywork also. Each days reading is about a health or manners issue and includes Bible verses, some days they also copy a list of rules from the end of the chapter, some days they have to write some other details from the story based on the topic for that day. It is reinforcing our study of the Human Body nicely though it does not necessarily coordinate with the topic we are on at the time.

We are studying the Viking Age right now in History. As you can see from my sidebar I am reading the Dragon and the Raven or the Days of King Alfred by Henty to the boys for Historical Fiction read-aloud. We did not read it as often this week as we should have. It becomes difficult some times to read it since I do not own the book and we have to go to my computer to read the free pdf. (Just excuses... I need to read it to them daily and stop the excuses... I sound like them!!! LOL)

In History we covered King Alfred and some of his descendants, monasteries, and some of the attacks by the Vikings on England from The Story of the Middle Ages. We also read "Life in an English Castle" in Choosing Your Way Through the World's Medieval Past. We covered Iceland in Mystery of History volume 2 and then read Odyssey Magazine May 2000 Warming up to Iceland that I had borrowed from the library. We used that for History and Science that day since it covered volcanoes, hot springs, Vikings, horses, and other facts about Iceland. On Friday we read about New Zealand and Zimbabwe from Mystery of History vol 2 and we read about a monastery founded in 909 in the book The 100 Most Important Events in Christian History.

The boys also do math each day. Nathan is doing Teaching Textbook Geometry and doing quite well with it. Christopher is doing Saxon 76 and doing well also.

The boys are also doing Grammar. Nathan is doing Easy Grammar Plus and I do recommend the student workbook because it prevents having to do a lot of photocopying. Christopher is doing Daily Grams Grade 6, and he does it orally except for writing it once a month so I have something to put in the portfolio. They do grammar every day.

For Music we sing acappella as a family and minister at a nursing home a couple times a year and sing for special music at church. Right now we are prepaing Christmas Carols for our ministry at the nursing home in December and we go caroling as a family to our pastors and to the Sr. Saints of our church. We do not practice every night but at least 3 times a week.

I am planning to get back to Music Study next week by finding the All Glory, Laud and Honor cd we own. And I want to get back to doing Art study too by finding some paintings of the Viking or Middle Ages. (a project for after I post this). If you know of a good source leave me a comment.

Click on the picture at the top to go to the site that this meme came from and see the other entries.

Have a blessed weekend,
Debbie

Henty

I love to read aloud to my sons for History. One of our favorite authors is G.A. Henty. I would love to have a complete set of G.A. Henty novels. I have not been able to afford them. You can find a complete list, in chronological order, here... http://www.robinsonbooks.com/henty-dates.phtml I always check my Henty list to see which titles are coming up soon and then I downloaded them have them ready for read aloud. Because they are available online it has been hard to justify buying them, but I would like to because then they could be read individually as well as for read aloud.


Henty's books are great for History, especially for boys, because they are Historical Fiction, about events in History, told in a story form, with great heroes, that have good morals. It not only teaches about the event in history but gives the boys someone to look up to, to admire, to strive to be like in some way. The heroes are brave, courageous, defend the weak, and sometimes come to the rescue of "damsels in distress".

There are a bunch of pdf, and other downloads, online here... http://www.archive.org/index.php search by specific title it is easier.

I like the above site better because you can download pdf's

but you can also get the books here as a text file... http://www.gutenberg.org/browse/authors/h#a1032
scroll down the H page until you get to Henty.

You can also get audio's of some books, check here: http://librivox.org/
just search for Henty, two are available now, more may come later.

I hope this is a help to you in your homeschool journey.
Debbie Phillips