American History Resources

Today I wanted to highlight a number of American History Resources we have used in our homeschool.

In the spring, we tend to do quite a bit of review. One really good overview of all of American History is a video called America, The Story of Us.

The episodes are dramatized and really keep the attention of my kids. This is not an in-depth series, just a broad overview, but if you want to give your kids the big picture, this is a really great resource!

Each episode is 43 minutes. The episodes include:

• Rebels
• Revolution
• Westward
• Division
• Civil War
• Heartland (RRs, Native Americans)
• Cities
• Boom
• Bust
• WWII
• Superpower
• Millenium

You can see, this touches only on the major trends, but since we go in-depth with unit studies, this has been really great overview for the kids.

If your kids are younger, they might really enjoy Liberty’s Kids.

This is a cartoon series all about the time period around the American Revolution.  My kids really enjoyed this series.   This series covers various topics from the Boston Tea Party, Intolerable Acts, Bunker Hill… to Yorktown and beyond. It has been on Amazon Prime and/or Netflix from time to time too. It’s really wonderful especially for kids 7-12 or so.

Here’s an American History resource that we have used from time to time Mission US . I know some other homeschooling families whose kids enjoyed this online activity/game too. 🙂

If you do Mission 1 about the American Revolution, you might be interested in our packet, American Revolution Unit.

If you do mission 2 about the Civil War, you might be interested in our Packet, Slavery and the Civil War

Here are more Books and Resources we watched about Slavery and the Civil War.

If you do Mission 3 about the Cheyenne, you might be interested in the FREE notebook pages we have about the history of the Sioux and Cheyenne.  You’ll find these here:

Oregon Trail Game: You might also want to see if your kids can survive along the Oregon Trail!! They make choices about who to be (a banker, carpenter, or farmer), when to leave, what supplies to purchase and more!   You can play it FREE online here: Oregon Trail Online Game or you can purchase it at Amazon with this version: Online Trail Game (affiliate link)

We have a unit on the Oregon Trail and the Donner Party that might be of interest. This unit includes notebook pages and lapbook pages:

This year we studied World War I and have a huge unit study in WWI:

You might also think about watching some historically based movies with your kids.  For example a ll three of my kids  loved the  Ruby Bridges (affiliate link ) and learned a lot from it when they were ages 5, 8 and 10. It was about Ruby Bridges, the first black child to attend the all-white elementary school, William Frantz Elementary, in New Orleans.   We definitely had a lot of great discussions about why people were so cruel, how brave Ruby was and how lonely she must have been being the only child in her classroom throughout her first grade year.  See more about the Civil Rights books and movies we watched when we did that unit here.

Plus, we have free Civil Rights Packets and materials here.

Don’t forget we have a number of free resources about various American Presidents. This U.S. President Quick Study was our latest (free) resource about some of our presidents. You can grab this free U.S. Presidents Activity, highlighting 14 Presidencies here.

At the beginning of this post, I was talking about the review we do.  I also have the Civics & Government materials out for the kids to review. My youngest has been going through the flashcard questions just making sure she knows the symbols and basic civics material. (How many years can a president serve? How many members serve in the Senate? What are the first 10 amendments called? You can find out more about the Civics and Government Unit here:

That’s about it!

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Happy Homeschooling!

~Liesl