heartofdakota.com

Obviously I'm thinking down the road, but I'm just curious how those of you who are required to do a state history study fold that in with HOD. For example, in NY, we're required to teach "NY state history and constitutions" "at least once in grades 1-8". I know that locally NYS studies are covered in 5th grade. (My FIL is a 5th grade ps teacher.) I'm not sure how many other states have this type of requirement for homeschoolers. I know NY is a little ridiculous in many ways with it's requirements, so it may not be an issue for many of you. But for those of you who do have to do something like this, how do you handle it? Do you take a year off of HOD and do your own thing? I think the way it will work out for us, we'll have a year of "wiggle" room with the HOD programs, so we could do something like this - but it makes me think "yuk". I think it would be a sad year!

HOD is so simple to use why not just add State history books in. The CJS seminar went on and on about using literature to teach history. So why not sit down with a list of historical people and develop a list of books to be read along side HOD to teach history though biographies, and historical fiction.

Francis Lewis (signed decleration of independance)
Fredric Douglas (freed slave)
Susan b Anothony (ladies right to vote)
George Eastman (industrial revolution)
Millard Fillmore (a president)
Franklin D. Roosevelt (another president)
Molly Jamison (Indian captive) You can go to Letchworth and see her home, altho is doesn't completely take place in NY it does accurately describe the Seneca Indian way of life and that time period.
Robert Rogers (French and Indian war) not for young children. Northwest Passage by Kenneth Roberts very accurate descriptions of adirondack area and what happened during that time.
Erie canal stories... Miny the mule comes to mind but don't quote me. canals are all over the finger lakes area just follow the old railway tracks.
And you can go see the locks still working. Go enjoy canal days in Pittsford or is it in Penfield.

NY is full of rich historical stuff at Most of the parks something Historical happened, or they named it after some historical person. Mom dragged us from park to park telling us what happened where. Made it rather interesting... see all the people I remembered.


Post has been edited for spelling.

my2guys -

Sorry I can't help you because we are just starting out on our hs journey. I'm interested to hear any responses though because we are in the same boat.

What part of upstate are you from? We live in the Rochester area.

I am not required to teach state History but I am planning too. I am thinking I will start when my oldest is in 4th or 5th so I can teach all my boys together. At this point my plan is to visit many of the historical sites in MN and also use books, websites, and state teacher plans. I am thinking my boys will be doing notebook pages on the places we visit. My thinking is you have to teach it once, but if the law doesn't say in one year you can spread it out over a few years and easily add it to HOD.

PA requires that too. I figured on doing some educational field trips during the summer (we are 20 minutes from Gettysburg) and also reading books that might fit in with were we are in the history part with HOD.

slavila,

That's where I am!

I really like Tansy's suggestion.

I'm thinking I could cover this in 1 of 2 ways: cover a little each year, or spend one year with New York History/U.S. History and be done with it. We are actually studying a bit about New York now, because that just happens to be where we picked up in Beyond...this week. So, we will be reading a book we already had on New York State, as well as probably visiting the Susan B. Anthony House in Rochester and studying the canals. We love to walk the paths...down to Schoen place! Any other suggestions from those in New York, or elsewhere?

I would think studying state history on the east coast would be easy since when you study early US history a lot of the topics overlap. When I grew up in NJ we didn't do individual NJ history but got quite a bit of it studying Colonial History.
This may not be as interesting but doesn't Alpha Omega or one of the other big publishers have a state history program? Maybe you could do that along side HOD or stretched out over a couple of yrs. But I would still do plenty of field trips. That is my one regret about living out West. My kids won't get the fast rich field trips that I had growing up.

Sarah

Ladies,

We are going to be recommending that you cover state history in a one-year study doing it on day 5 of each week for a year. We did that with our son as a 5th grader (when he studied Amercian history), however we are going to suggest doing it in our HOD guides when we revisit that period in American history (around grade 6-7 with our upcoming guides).

However, if you had an older student and wanted to do it along with "Bigger..." or "Preparing...", I'll give you the link now:
http://www.statehistory.net/

All 50 states have a separate guide and are studied from a Christian perspective. We did add a couple of books about our state for reference. I would recommend doing it with the "My State Notebook" which was easier than making our own binder. However, if you are a scrapbook/binder lover and have the extra time to do it, your child would end up with a beautiful binder at the end of the year. We didn't have the extra time in our schedule and were still pleased with the My State Notebook route.

We found it took us 30-45 minutes on our 5th day once a week to complete the state study, and we both enjoyed it!

Blessings,
Carrie

Carrie,

Does the notebook cover every state, or would we need one for each state? Are the pages reproducible? Or is it more of a 'textbook, and make copies or find notebooking pages to fill in? Or, does the child create his notebook page completely from scratch?

slavila wrote:my2guys -

What part of upstate are you from? We live in the Rochester area.

We're in the Binghamton area.

These suggestions are great. You guys are awesome. And as always, Carrie has already thought to include it
I do love the idea of doing field trips over the summer and covering some of it that way. I was thinking about the fact that we drive through Albany every year in August on the way to visit my sister - so how much easier could that be? Just take an extra day and learn about our state capital.

HI!!!
Fellow Rochestarian!!
I am also in Rochester, Henrietta, to be exact!
We are just atarting out as well! My son turned 5 in October and my daughter just turned 3!

my2guys wrote:

slavila wrote:my2guys -

What part of upstate are you from? We live in the Rochester area.

We're in the Binghamton area.

So sorry ladies to be unclear. If you are looking to do a study of all of the states in the U.S. then the ideas the ladies gave on this thread are perfect!

If you are looking to fulfill your state requirement to do a study of the specific state you live in, then you may want to check out the link I provided. In South Dakota we are required to specifically study South Dakota history prior to grade 8. That is why we needed a study specific to our state. Most states have a similar requirement. There usually is not a requirement to study all 50 states because that is included in the history texts.

Is that as clear as mud? Sorry if I derailed the thread. I need to read more carefully it seems!

Blessings,
Carrie

Thanks, Carrie. I was just thinking when I read your post that it was a study on all fifty states. So, we would need a notebook for each state. I appreciate that you posted the links.

Carrie wrote: If you are looking to fulfill your state requirement to do a study of the specific state you live in, then you may want to check out the link I provided. In South Dakota we are required to specifically study South Dakota history prior to grade 8. That is why we needed a study specific to our state. Most states have a similar requirement.

Is that as clear as mud? Sorry if I derailed the thread.

That is exactly what I was wondering about when I asked the question - so no derailment!