 Hey everybody, welcome to the Waldoch Way. I'm Jessica, and today's video is going to be a homeschool show and tell. The homeschool show and tell is an open collaboration hosted by myself and Abby from Rooted and Rest. Our goal when we started the homeschool show and tell was really just to show that there's not like one right way to homeschool, that you can homeschool in many different ways and they can all still be the right way for your family. So we do that by bringing homeschoolers together from around the globe each and every month to discuss a different topic. This month's topic is how to make history fun. Now over the years we have talked about how to make math fun and how to make writing fun. So I will link those playlist up here in case you're curious about how to make some other subjects fun. But this month we're gonna talk about history. Now this topic is actually kind of hilarious because history is the one subject that when we started homeschooling I immediately like from day one was like, Kevin I'm not teaching that you're gonna have to teach it. Because I loathed history in school. Like it was the one thing that I remember and nothing from, like nothing, not one thing. Because it was miserable, it was boring, it was just memorizing dates and facts and I'd put them into sleep. Like it was just not interesting to me at all and therefore I remember none of it and I thought I was not gonna be able to teach it at all. Funny enough it's actually now one of my favorite subjects to teach. And it's because I realized I didn't hate history itself. I just didn't like how I was taught history and so I was determined that that is not how I would teach history to Emily. And so I'm going to share a few things today. One of the things that is like my top number one tip for history is to include a living book of some kind. I promise whatever the topic is, whatever the person of history, the event of history, the topic of history, there is going to be some sort of living book on it and it is going to make it so much more fun. So two of our favorite series are the who was books and the what was books. Emily calls them the big headed books. They are our absolute favorite. In fact, we love them so much that we started creating many unit studies for them because they just brought so much life to history in our home school. Those are hands down two of our favorite resources. In addition to living books, I really think anytime you can touch history it really brings it to life for kids. So whether that is like some sort of project in your home school and making your own papyrus, mummifying a chicken, that's not one I would do personally, but you know, hey, it will make a lasting impression. We just recently did a building kit of the Alamo which was a really cool and this particular company has tons of other historical buildings and forts and so I think that's a really awesome way. If you can visit a historical site, visit where the famous person stood or where they lived or a museum, like go and experience it in a museum. Some sort of like I said, putting your hands on history really, really brings it to life for kids. And if you can't do that, if you can't put your hands on history, then I think that is when documentaries and videos and YouTube come in super handy because I promise there is some sort of like tour of Davy Crockett's home. There is probably one of those. Let's say you wanted to tour the Alamo because you can't make it out there. Tour the Alamo. There's probably a YouTube video for that. Reenactment of battles or wars, biographies of famous people. If you're studying a specific person, there is some sort of video somewhere that will at least bring it partially to life for your kids. Like if you can't see it and touch it, it's gonna be the next best thing. And then I think the last really, really cool way to bring history to life and make it more fun is by utilizing games. Now I will say there are not a ton of history games on the market. It is the one subject I feel like is lacking in games. But I do have a couple of favorites. One is timeline. There are actually multiples. So this is just the classic timeline. And then there's like an inventions one and inventors and then events. What is so cool about this? Because it's small, it takes up hardly any space. And you don't have to really know a lot of history going into it because you have these little cards and your goal is to just lay your card without seeing the year because it doesn't have the year on the back of them. So your goal is to just lay them in order chronologically. So if for example, the invention of chess, which is 570 and the discovery of King Tut's tomb, which was in 1922, we're on the table. And then I grabbed the invention of the tea bag, which was in 1908, I would have to place it in between these to be correct. So it's one of those games where you don't have to know a ton. I mean, it's helpful, but you don't have to know a ton going in. And so that's always really nice. And it, like I said, it doesn't take up a lot of room. It's small. It's one you can throw on your purse or your bag and take with you, especially if you're going on that historic field trip. So that's perfect. And then the other one that we really, really love is trekking through history. This is a newer game from underdog games. It is super amazing because it goes through like the whole timeline, everything from ancient to modern. It is a really, really fun game. I will say it's a little bit longer. It takes up a lot more space and where you could probably play timeline in as little as 10 to 15 minutes. Trekking through history is definitely a 30 to 60 minute game. And it is considered 10, age is 10 plus. And I would say, I mean, even probably six and seven year olds could play timeline. So that is my suggestion for games. Now, I would absolutely love it if you would tell me in the comments your tips for making history fun because I'm always looking for ways to make a subject even more fun in our homeschool. And if you want to see even more videos in this playlist about how other people are making homeschool history fun, make sure you check out the playlist link in the description.