How to Bring History Alive for Kids

When you’re reading history from a textbook it can become a snooze-fest for your kids. History doesn’t have to be dry and boring. You can make it come alive with great books and add in hands-on activities to accompany them.

Be sure to enter the giveaway below, it ends on Thursday, June 29th 2017.

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How to Bring History Alive for Kids

Create a Timeline

When you’re learning about a specific time period with different events, it can be hard to get a grasp of time. Add new people and important events to your timeline to help your child get a better sense of time to look at the overall picture.

Watch Documentaries

Whether cartoons or reenactments, my boys love documentaries particularly anything related to wars and weapons.

Add History Crafts

Get their hands dirty and have fun creating historical artifacts out of clay or play dough. Create your own Greek masks or pottery, art projects are a wonderful way to create things during various time periods.

Visit Local Historical Places

Depending on your location, you can bet there are some wonderful museums or historical sites that my be local to you. Take advantage of your location and see what kind of history you can pull of of your hometown. Take a trip? Take a look to see any attractions you may be able to visit as you travel to learn more about the history that is around you.

Read Living Books

Go beyond the textbooks and grab living books for your kids. Textbooks can be dry and boring for kids who have not yet developed a love for history. Living books show kids how people lived in a different time and helps them understand better when they can see a character living during different time periods and what problems they had to endure.

If you’re looking for living history books these picture books from Carole P. Roman, the If You Were Me and Lived In… series is a wonderful selection of history books for kids. These 5 books cover a variety of time periods but do a great job showing how life was during those time periods. My son who is more into science and only beginning to find a love for history really enjoyed these books. They are full of color and engaging. The books go over the daily life of a child, where they lived, what time of home, clothes they wore, chores or work they had to do. It also paints of picture of how they child would see the world around them as they discuss the customs and different classes of people at the time.

Carole P. Roman has published over 30 children’s books and has written several series of books. On top of the If You Were Me and Lived in…. history series, there is also a country series that looks at children in other cultures. My son really liked learning about children from around the world.

One grand prize winner will win all of the books in the history series, If You Were Me and Lived in…, a $180 value, while 10 more winners will win one book of their choice. This giveaway is open to readers in the United States or Canada excluding Quebec. This giveaway starts Jun 20th 7am EST to Thursday, June 29th 11:59pm EST.

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Disclosure: I partnered with Carole P Roman and I received Compensation as part of my affiliation with this group. The opinions on this blog are my own.