If you follow a four year History cycle as we do, then year 3 is "Early Modern". This covers from about 1600 to 1849.
Just as a reminder, because we're living a real life and not a perfect one, it hasn't worked out that each child starts with Ancients in Year 1, Medieval in Year 2, and so on. We add in children at whatever year the older students are studying. Because there's no way I want to be covering more than one era at a time.
(And of course, my children read books throughout the year that don't "fit" with whatever time we happen to be studying. As long as they're spending free time reading, I'm certainly not going to complain about that.)
History Spines for Teaching Early Modern History
Grammar stage:
Logic Stage:
Rhetoric Stage:
How we study Early Modern History:
A rhetoric stage student reads one or two chapters in The History of the Renaissance World per week. She copies maps to keep in her notebook and does a quick summary or outline of what she's read.
Supplemental Reading for Early Modern History
There are so many great books that correspond to this era. I hope to put together a more extensive list later in the year to share with you. But in the meantime...
We've focused on these:
One of my favorite resources is our set of Childcraft Books from 1964. I went through the three volumes with true stories (vol 11, 12, 13) and matched stories to our Story of the World chapters. I read one or two of these a week aloud.
Since this is the period of history covering the American Revolution and early westward expansion, there are more books for kids than we could possibly get to in one school year but these have been some of our favorites:
- American Girl books, especially Kaya, Felicity, and Josefina. Excellent for young or reluctant female readers
- Johnny Tremain by Esther Forbes
- Justin Morgan Had a Horse by Marguerite Henry
- Carry On, Mr. Bowditch by Jean Lee Latham
- The "Meet..." books from Step Up Books. I've found these vintage titles at library sales and thrift stores.
- Childhood of Famous Americans books. I'm partial to the vintage copies, of course, but also thankful for the newer editions that are easy to find now.
- Jean Fritz picture books
- Colonial Kids by Laurie Carlson
- Holling C. Holling books like Paddle to the Sea and Minn of the Mississippi
Really, there are so many great books written or set in this era. Heidi at Mt. Hope has a great list of American History reading (some of this list will overlap with the 4th year of history cycle).
I've also used Sonlight Reading Lists that correspond to The Story of the World. (We do not use Sonlight curriculum per se, but their book lists are incredible.)
Two websites that helped me compile my personal list:
Other resources for studying Early Modern History:
More Felicity items: paper dolls, crafts, cooking studio, and cookbook.
Living Unabridged is an affiliate for Notebooking Pages for one simple reason: we use these all the time! Here are a few sets that might be useful when studying this period:
