It’s official! History is my favorite subject to teach to my kids thanks to our experience of learning American History through picture books. It’s funny – growing up, history was my worst and least favorite subject. I’m so thankful for the opportunity to grow my education alongside my children.

In this post I will be sharing a little bit about our newest American History unit that relies solely on picture books. No textbooks. No worksheets. No extra supply list. This unit relies on beautiful, engaging stories. If you haven’t checked out the first part of this history series, click HERE.

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American History through Picture Books

If you are new to this series, I’d like to give you a brief overview of what this history series is all about. It all started with my desire to add more great literature to our homeschool. The thought of a history textbook bored me and I thought to myself, surely I can learn about these concepts through something a lot more engaging for my young children.

This is PART 2 of a series I plan to continue working on through the timeline of American History. (So, there are more units to come!)

Part 1 starts with explorers and goes through the Treaty of Paris. (1000 – 1783) Part 2 begins with the Constitution and goes through the end of the Civil War (1787-1865). Part 3 (coming soon!) will start from the end of the Civil War and continue on from there.

I complete all of these units first with my children in order to test out these books and make sure to share our experiences with you. I feel that this will provide you with a more meaningful and complete unit. Part 3 will be completed by my family in the fall of 2024 and I will publish it around Christmas so that it is ready for Jan 2025.

An Explanation of How We Got Here

So for a while I was putting together these thematic history units that were so much fun! (See one of our favorites here.) We read great books, made crafts, and tried new recipes. I loved it! However, I started approaching a new season in my homeschool where none of my little-bitty ones were napping. Finding the time to fit in the “extra” activities became very difficult.

I was also putting my energy in other parts of our homeschool. I spent a lot of time researching and learning about reading and math curricula in order to help my kids thrive. We ran into a few bumps that year that caused some struggle with learning, and my focus was all about helping my kids do their best.

I needed to simplify!

So I changed my goals! I was no longer going to just grab a bunch of books on a topic and search Pinterest for hours looking for crafts and activities. I wanted to research, plan better, and choose beautiful, living books to work through our timeline of history. I thought that for just a short season, we will just focus on reading the picture books and we could try the extra things once we found a good rhythm. The thing is, we fell in love with the simple method of just reading books together!

Reading through picture books in history makes the events come to life. Instead of reading a small section in a textbook, you’re thrown into this beautiful world with so many great details that you can’t help but listen with intent. The stories pull you in and make you want to know more! I can’t express to you how much I have learned through this process. I also wish I could describe how this simple task of reading a book has brought so much joy to all of us as we study history.

An Overview to the Unit

In this unit, you will receive a checklist of picture books to read to your children. The picture books follow a timeline and they are listed for you exactly as you need to read them. You don’t have to choose from a variety of books. Everything is picked for you.

With a checklist like this, it will be easy to put these books on hold at the library. That was a goal of mine. I wanted this to be simple for anyone to gather the books. I believe I purchased three books in this unit because my library didn’t have them. One of the books was because I forgot to put it on hold and Amazon was quicker. So, I maybe spent a total of $15 for the entire unit of picture books! That’s a steal.

Reading and Narration

In this history unit, I will guide you on how to practice narration with these picture books. I teach you how to do it and provide the guiding prompts and discussion questions that you may need. I have an entire section devoted to helping you be successful with the narration of these picture books. If you are completely new to the practice of narration, you will be guided every step of the way!

About a year and a half ago I learned about narration. It intrigued me so much because it seemed so simple and effective. We started practicing it, and I spent time learning more about it. This eventually led to written narration in our home which has completely changed my daughter’s attitude about writing. She loves it! It took time to develop, but narration has been the easiest and most effective form of assessment in our home.

I’d love to suggest one of my favorite books about this topic: “Know and Tell” by Karen Glass. In this book she breaks down the process for each age and teaches you how to transition from oral narration to written narration. It is an incredible resource that really gave me the confidence to keep using narration in our homeschool.

If you’re not into reading an entire book about it yet, check out this website that can answer lots of questions you may have about narration.

I only share all of this because the unit is that simple: Reading + Narration. No worksheets, no extra supplies, no crafts. These are wonderful things that you are welcome to add, but I wanted the extras to be an option for you. I wanted families to experience the joy of Simply Learning Together.

Picture This

Your ready to start your school day. So you gather on the couch and grab an incredible book about the Erie Canal. You hand your wiggly ones a coloring sheet (already linked for you) so that they can keep hands busy while listening.

You read through this living book together and at the end you talk about it and share your thoughts and ideas. (Discussion questions provided)

That’s it! History lesson done.

Here’s another scenario…It’s been a busy day. You were out of the house at your extracurricular things or homeschool meet-ups. Your school schedule is lighter that day because it’s tough to fit it all in when you are out of the house. You get to the end of the night and as your kids wind down for bed, you grab a beautiful picture book about the Gold Rush and read it to them.

History lesson done.

I’m serious. It’s that simple. Here’s the kicker – you will learn SO MUCH, and you and your kids will actually REMEMBER what you learn because these books are that good! My kids recall the events in the books that we read all the time. This shows me that they learned from it! And I personally know more about American History than I ever did learning about it in school.

Does this simplicity sound like it might be a good fit for you? OR…if you don’t like it that simple and you enjoy adding the extra (which I did at one point! So, I understand that too!) How does it sound to have a complete list of picture books to guide you through the timeline of American History?

Some of Our Favorite Books

There are so many good books to choose from. I wanted to ask my kids what their favorite books were too, and we are sharing them with you here. The funny thing is we all picked the same one! So, I’ll share that one and a couple more of their favorites.

Our favorite was called “The Duel of the Ironclads”. I think it stood out to me because it surprised me so much. I almost didn’t add it to the list, and then we read it. Wow! It was so engaging and interesting. Then, we watched a short re-enactment of the actual event on YouTube. It was incredible! (I do show a handful of YouTube videos to help make connections – all of these are listed in the unit for you)

My oldest daughter loved reading about Harriet Tubman. We read “Moses: When Harriet Tubman Led Her People to Freedom” and it was wonderful. We followed it with a Torchlighter’s episode and my kids enjoyed it so much.

Another one of my kid’s favorites was “If You Were a Kid in the Civil War…”. It’s a really simple book but there’s something about it that’s so relatable. I remember reading it to them. This child was right there next to me, completely engaged the entire time.

DOWNLOAD AMERICAN HISTORY PART 2

Helpful Links

PICTURE BOOKS LINK: ALL of the History books we read for American History Part 1 AND American History Part 2 are linked in my Amazon storefront.

COLORING PAGES LINK: The coloring pages we used for our written narrations are linked through my Pinterest account.

Video Links

All of the YouTube videos that are listed in this unit are linked below:

• “The Constitution for Kids – Who Makes the Rules?” by Freedom Factor (Video Length – 3:28)
• “Industrial Revolution  | Ed Video for Kids” by Happy Learning English (Video Length – 3:33)
• “James Monroe | 60 Second President | PBS” by PBS Presidents (Video Length – 1:24)
• “The Alamo” by NBC News Learn (Video Length – 3:35)
• “The California Gold Rush Cartoon 1849 (The Wild West)” by Simple History
• “Causes of the Civil War” by Leah Schatzabel (Video Length – 4:19)
• “The Monitor and the Merrimack” by Karl (Video Length – 8:01)

More Info

Want to see the first American History Unit? You can see the entire book list for free on my blog post. You can also see a look through of the curriculum HERE.