(Last Updated on October 28, 2023)
The next stop on this Tour of Our Homeschool is the history shelf.
Early in this shelf’s career here in my home, it had the misfortune of being partly empty. And, since no empty space remains empty for long around here, it’s now become the “History-and-Geography-and-Health-and-Art-and-Bible-and-Character-and-Whatever-Else-I-Can-Cram-In-There” shelf.
We’ve got a lot of ground to cover today so I’ll get right to it. If you missed the beginning posts in this series, click here to catch up.
Here’s what we’ve got…
… On Our History (& More) Shelves
(There may be affiliate links in this post – click here to learn more. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.)
The history, Bible, health, art and other resources we’re not currently using reside here:
Keep in mind this shelf doesn’t include the non-fiction history books, atlases, biographies, and other books stored elsewhere in our house.
Side Note: It’s a constant battle for me to decide where to put some of these things. When life and learning overlap as much as they do in homeschool, it’s hard to decide. Should an atlas be stored with curricula? Or with reference materials like the dictionary? Or with other maps? Or with non-fiction books? I have no idea. As a person who loves organization, this bothers me to no end. But I’ve tried to let it go and just make sure everything has A place even if it’s not the PERFECT place.
Because most of our history resources are stored in our gray storage bin, I’ll cover the “& More” part of this curricula shelf first (skip down to the 2nd half of this post if you’re looking for history).
Bible, Character & Apologetics Resources
My two oldest kids have plenty of Bible study resources through church and AWANA, but it’s still nice to have some supplemental resources like these on hand.
We’ve especially liked the crafts and activities in the Bible Make & Do books and in the Mrs. Noah’s Rainy Day Book.
For our own Bible study at home, we’ve worked our way through Old Story New and Long Story Short by Marty Machowski.
We’ve also used beginner apologetics resources to start some good discussions with our kids. It’s so important for kids to learn that their questions – especially their difficult faith questions – are welcome and encouraged!
We’ve enjoyed all of the books pictured: How the Bible Came to Us, Mommy Why?, My 1st Book of Questions and Answers, A is for Adam, and the Answers Book for Kids series.
Other books, like Hero Tales, introduce kids to some of the key leaders, heroes, and martyrs of our faith and our country’s past.
I also have a couple of miscellaneous books that I skim through every once in a while. I haven’t used them cover-to-cover but they’ve been helpful brainstorming tools.
Health & Sex Education
Some subjects in our homeschool have been best taught through ongoing conversations. Health and sex education are two of those subjects. But books like the following have helped start the discussions and keep the conversations going (pictured below are: Abeka Book Health Safety & Manners 3, Drugs and Our World (sorry, I can’t find a link for this one), Good Pictures, Bad Pictures and Good Pictures, Bad Pictures Jr., God Made All of Me, The Story of Me, and Before I Was Born.
Art, Music & Gym
When it comes to art, we have an art closet that houses the majority of our supplies. My kids have also taken art classes through co-op, camps, and our park district. So we don’t have much space dedicated to art on our curriculum shelves even though it’s a big part of our homeschool.
We’ve used this Abeka Art Projects book for simple, colorful crafts for my younger kids.
And we’ve been working our way through this I Can Do All Things curriculum over summers (when I have more time and patience for messy painting projects). It’s older, but has a lot of great lessons on art theory and fundamentals of drawing and painting. I like it because it’s very doable, even for those of us who aren’t super crafty, artistic mommas.
These last two resources are just “extras” that needed a home. The blank music staff paper could really be kept on our piano with the rest of our music books. In fact, I think I’ll move it there now…
The Brunswick Homeschool PE bowling lesson plan is something I got for free years ago. I keep telling myself we’ll do a bowling unit, yet here it sits.
History & Geography Books
So far we’ve used Story of the World (SotW) as our main history and geography curriculum. But we’ve used a lot of books, maps, timelines (more about timelines here) and supplemental resources, too. The Big Book of History is a super-long fold-out timeline that my kids love. The Flags Sticker Book (I can’t find the link to the one we’ve used, but this one seems similar) and the Daily Life at the Time of Jesus book have been great resources to have on hand as well.
These books, like How to Draw Maps and Charts and Maps & Globes and others, have been really helpful to introduce my kids to map concepts.
… In Our History (& More) Storage Bin
History & Geography Curricula
The SotW books we aren’t currently using get stored away in the bin.
I’ve also kept the Tapestry of Grace Primer we used when we first started homeschooling.
History & Geography Games & Flashcards
Just like the other subjects we’ve already covered, I have some games, flashcards, and puzzles for history and geography. The difference is we haven’t really used these as much. There are so many supplemental activities in the SotW curriculum I haven’t really needed to spice things up. But now that my kids know more of the trivia included in the games, I do think we’ll start using them more often.
Maps
It’s helped to have an assortment of maps on hand in addition to the ones we have on our walls.
Miscellaneous History Resources
My parents gave me this set of historical documents which includes fancy copies of the Declaration of Independence, Constitution, Gettysburg Address, and more. I know we can find this information online but I’m glad we have these hardcopies to reference as my kids get older.
And these activity books are ones I got from the library a bunch of times before realizing I should just get copies of our own to have on hand. Both Tapestry of Grace and SotW reference books like these for several optional activities.
Thanks for joining me for this Tour of our Homeschool series! I hope it’s given you some ideas.
I know it’s helpful for me to review what I have on our shelves so I don’t forget what’s there. I always think I’ll remember to use a certain resource when we get to a certain topic… but I never do. It’s kind of like when I put taco meat in the freezer and think I’ll remember what it is in a month without labeling it. Not likely.
Use the links below to continue the Tour of Our Homeschool series:
- A Tour of Our Homeschool: Math Shelves
- A Tour of Our Homeschool: Science Shelves
- A Tour of Our Homeschool: Language Arts Shelves
- A Tour of Our Homeschool: Art Closet
Subscribe today to receive new posts via email!
