Guest Hollow

This school year we are taking a break from out normal history curriculum, and using a free curriculum that I found online called Guest Hollow.  Guest Hollow has sections for math, language arts, science and two different American history curriculums.  We are using Year One which was targeted for 8-9 year olds in 3rd grade but is easily adapted for other grades mainly 2nd-6th grade.  We are using it for my 5th and 7th graders and it's working out very well.  Here's a list of all topics covered this year

Topic 1 Native Americans: Seminoles



Topic 2 Native Americans: Northeast Indians



Topic 3 Native Americans: Great Plains Indians



Topic 4 Native Americans: Southwest Indians



Topic 5 Native Americans: Nez Perce



Topic 6 Native Americans: Northwest Coast Indians



Topic 7 Native Americans: Inuit



Topic 8 Discovery and Leif Erickson



Topic 9 Discovery and Columbus



Topic 10 Incas, Mayans and Aztecs; Cortes and Pizzarro



Topic 11 Discovery and Exploration



Topic 12 English in America: Pocahontas, Jamestown



Topic 13 Pilgrims



Topic 14 Colonies and Benjamin Franklin



Topic 15 French and Indian War



Topic 16 George Washington and More About the Colonies



Topic 17 The Revolutionary War



Topic 18 The Constitution and a New Government



Topic 19 A First President, a New Country and Johnny Appleseed



Topic 20 Lewis and Clark



Topic 21 Monroe Doctrine and the War of 1812



Topic 22 Andrew Jackson; The Trail of Tears



Topic 23 Inventions and Changes



Topic 24 The Alamo



Topic 25 The Gold Rush and Pioneers



Topic 26 Pioneers and Moving West



Topic 27 Abraham Lincoln, Slavery, The Civil War (but not in depth yet)



Topic 28 The Transcontinental Railroad, George Washington Carver



End of Year One!

We've really been enjoying the Native American unit studies, and have done a bunch of fun projects including a tour of the Aztec Ruins National Monument in New Mexico.  The kids participated in the Junior Rangers program and received some cool badges.

We built model size tepees.

and we've made History Pockets from a book that Evan-Moore publishes.  The kids and I have enjoyed reading all types of stories about Native Americans and even listened to an audio CD of The Birchbark House.  I can't wait to learn some more about American History with this hands on approach that's not only been fun but very informative.  What are you learning about in history this year?

Thanks for reading,