Dear friend Jen and I have been hashing out her boys’ high school (homeschool) history options.  The available syllabi have been universally expensive or cumbersome.  While reviewing some of the options I stopped and googled "world history outline" thinking it best to give palatable hooks to hang knowledge upon rather than inundate with details. Look what I found! Student’s Friend  It is very similar to the geography core book recommended in an earlier post

This course focuses on core knowledge the student can be expected to retain.  We assume that the student will read widely from primary and secondary sources and historical fiction to round out the course, but this would provide a free, thorough core. Since the information is reduced to core facts there is less editorializing than is typically found in such a course. Big plus. 

Included are blank outline maps, a basic list of questions, quizzes, and a short course in teaching philosophy for mom. This last part is a short summary of the ideas found in many homeschool manuals and websites. Good overview explaining the value of narration, timelines, and other home education standby’s with the added perk of translating them into edu-ese for you should you ever need to explain them that way.

To flesh out such a course consider these sites:

Timeline Helps from Homeschool in the Woods  gives lots of practical help and examples for creating timelines and notebooks. Historical Movies in Chronological Order  has a list and short descriptions of movies to enhance your studies. Mr. Donn’s has a collection of unit studies for each era, should you desire more hands on activities for some time periods. Chronological Art lessons is just what it sounds like.  One, not 5,000<g>, art projects for each major era. A History Reading List like this one is readily available in homeschool catalogs that specialize in teaching with real books. Keep it handy for library trips. The linked list has the advantage of including several free ebooks of original source material.  Kidipede History for Kids is a site suggested by Theresa which I had forgotten about.  It is perfect for incorporating younger students in your studies. This site Picture History is a great aid for narrations once you get to modern times. Otherwise we do google image searches to illustrate timeline and narration pages like this Download Esther.doc narration from our newly 12 yr old daughter’s Old Testament notebook.

Just remember it is NOT by any means necessary to all of these things, every week.  If you try your head may spin.  If you do incorporate art or geography or literature into the history course be sure to document that work for credits in those areas on your transcript. If you already have a history course you are satisfied with you might want to download this pdf file to use as a quick review of the essentials.

Happy history rabbit trails to all! (Speaking of which remember the 4Real board has a wonderful history forum )