American History Classics

'I cannot tell a lie.'

American History is a pretty easy one to find classics on...or so I thought. Once I began studying American History, I realized that so many sources vary in their coverage of events. For example, I was raised on the story of George Washington and the Cherry Tree...remember that one..."I cannot tell a lie." How disappointing to find out the story is a lie!

It then becomes difficult to find true historical writings. I find that older versions seem to be the most correct and that we need to make sure we are reading unabridged versions of stories and histories. It is my belief that each time we read someone's abridged version, we are getting more opinion than fact unless it is well documented where the information comes from.

NOTE: This list overlaps with American Government. We choose to work on 100 hours for each subject and only allow a work to count towards one subject.

From Thomas Jefferson Education for Teens:

• Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglas
• "Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death"
• "The Present Crisis"
• Also see the list for American Government

We have also added:

We found a fabulous history series by Dan Hunter at Living History Books. These are LDS based and we love them! There is an American History set that we have not started yet, but it is on the list (Vol. 1 and Vol. 2). We have some of the other sets and love the writing style as well as the detailed outlines, time-lines, maps, and references to where he got the information from; making this series of history books one of the few "curriculum" items we feel are classics. It is written from a very TJED point of view (no tests or worksheets) and Oliver DeMille even wrote the forward for them. Dan Hunter suggests that rather than test students, require projects or papers written on people or events (see below for more info).

HISTORY NOTEBOOK
We are embarking on a new idea to make our own history notebooks. I am getting mine started in order to "model" this for my teens. When I mentioned it nobody shouted, "Hooray! I always wanted to make a history notebook." Rather, I got one blank stare that said in silent mocking tones, "Seriously?" and another moderate eye roll that sarcastically mimicked, "Another great idea mom has to add to my full study load." I know, it might only seem appealing to the history fanatic, but I hope to get one started myself first and maybe inspire some others in my home later. ;-)

Check out this free download over at Living History Books on making your own history notebook.

Here are also some free notebook pages I made up to use based on the download listed above.  It didn't like his, not clean enough for me I guess. There are three different line height pages, including emergent writer (primary lined) pages, which Dan Hunter's does not include.