American History Curriculum

*Skip all of this and take me to the free American history curriculum!*

[American History Home] [AH Books and Materials] [AH Book Notes]
[AH Daily Schedule] [AH in PDF] [AH in Word] [AH Online]
[AH Printable Timeline] [AH Topics] [AH Worksheets]

Welcome to our American history curriculum! This history curriculum was originally written for the target age of eight to nine (3rd grade) but can easily be used and adapted for other grades and ages. The easiest grades to adapt for and use our curriculum in are 2nd-6th grades. It is also an excellent supplement to any other history curriculum (for a variety of ages) with plenty of "gravy" like worksheets, printables, links, extra reading, crafts, activities and more.

Our American history curriculum uses a literature and "semi" unit study approach; whenever possible tying in other disciplines such as science, language arts and more. Our main focus though is on history.

This history curriculum is FREE to anyone who needs or wants it. Please consider it our gift to you from OurLosBanos.com in honor of the many blessings God has bestowed upon our family. If you use and like our materials, we ask that you will consider making a donation or an Amazon.com order via our sponsor's page and/or book links. Please also tell your friends or link to us!

Hours and hours of research and love are going into this project. We look forward to hear what you think of it! Please visit our forums to leave your comments, questions or ideas! Or you can send us an email ! Feedback is really encouraging, so please don't be shy!

Although the curriculum is mean to be used over the course of a year or so, you can also easily independently use each individual topic as a unit study or to supplement any other curriculum that focuses on American History.

Enjoy!

Some Thoughts to Share and an Introduction:

I have been homeschooling for over fifteen years and have used, tried out and seen LOTS of curriculums. Hardly any of them have fit us perfectly and so I have tweaked some, added to others and sometimes had to just "walk away" and not use a few! When 2006-2007 rolled around, I wanted something totally tailored to my youngest child for his study of American history. I decided to write my "own" curriculum.

My writing this history schedule / curriculum was an attempt at providing my son with a terrific foundation and whetting his appetite for more. I wanted him to not just love what he is studying, but to retain some of it too! That makes his job easier when he gets into the higher grades to understand things even further and not have to waste time trying to piece the big parts together, because we will have already built the "frame" early on. In writing this, it is also my hope to share it with you and others, so that your children too can learn what my son learnedand hopefully learn to love history as much as we do!

I designed this schedule to ensure my youngest son really grasps the "flow" of American history and also retains major events and persons for a stronger foundation to work off of later. I also wanted to provide him with a study that "works" for us in various ways other curriculums haven't.

The other American history curriculum(s) I am aware of have some terrific books, but they either have books scheduled together that don't mesh "time-wise", or are in my opinion too "advanced", making it harder to retain the material. Also, some of the curriculums (again in my opinion), don't have "enough" books and / or information to flesh things out. Some are also lacking in the hands-on and crafts department.

These issues are important to me and so I have kept them in mind while writing my American history curriculum.

Also, you should know we are a Christian family and this curriculum will reflect our beliefs and values in some of the discussion questions, etc.

I will "warn" you if I think an item scheduled has potentially objectionable material (from a Christian standpoint) and I will many times provide discussion questions or Bible verses that I (and I am certainly not infallible) think pertain to certain issues we come across in the materials. Also (for those of you who care about this sort of thing), please note, I have NOT gone through each and every one of the materials!!

If you would like to help me develop questions or if a certain verse comes to mind when you are going over a book or video, PLEASE share it with me! I would like to consider adding it to the book notes.

Having said this, if you do not share my faith, you can just skip over my notes and comments. History pertains to us all, of course. :-) This schedule contains nearly 100% secular books with just a couple exceptions so it's not a problem for those of you who would like to avoid a "Christian flavor". For those of you who would like more of a Christian emphasis, I suggest you add in your own personal Bible studies for the year and take a peek at the notes I've written about specific titles. :-)

I hope you enjoy sharing this journey with us!

We have three different versions of this curriculum .You can download a PDF, download an editable Word document (we have linked to some free software for those of you who don't have Microsoft Word) and you can also view it online.

Our online version contains more pictures, links and so on, but the other two versions allow you to print it all out and put it into a notebook for the ease of daily reference. You may want to take a look at the online version before downloading a printable version.

We hope you enjoy our efforts and pass this page along to others!

**********************************************

If you'd like to read what we think of other curriculums, please read our opinions at our reviews page!