Whatcha Teachin'?: Kindergarten & 1st Grade History & Social Studies

Because many "real" history curriculums don't start until second grade, most people opt for teaching social studies (economics/geography/government & civics/timelines) until then.  Thanks to the release of Bede's History of Us, we are doing a combination of both.

Geography
Last year, I put together a unit study for kindergarten geography based on National Geographic Kids Beginner's World Atlas.  The boys loved it.  It was a simple overview of the world by continents.  We touched on the people, the culture, and animals.

This year, we are using Evan Moor's Beginning Geography and it has been wonderful.  It covers map skills, landforms & bodies of water, and continents & oceans.

Timeline
History through the Ages: Creation to Christ.  This is a wonderful introduction to a timeline.  We taped butcher paper to a wall and have been gluing the pictures to it.  I absolutely love the details of this timeline and all the events that are included.  Did you know the Ice Age happened in between Noah's Ark and the Tower of Babel?  I didn't.

This timeline does a wonderful and complete job at syncing periods of time we all learned in traditional history text books with biblical events.  This timeline covers World History.

History
Bede's History of Us.  Oh my wow.  I LOVE this book.  We skipped the predecessor, Bede's History of Me, which is designed more for Kindergarteners but if we finish History of Us in enough time, I may back track and add on History of Me just because I love the books. 

It is a timeline in book form.  You follow Bede, a cute little ball of yarn with googly eyes, through each page to give kids a visual idea of how time is continual.  Each lesson covers a major event in a very simplified way (how they got the Civil War down to two kid appropriate pages is beyond me, but I'm impressed!) and then there's an activity to do.  This timeline covers U.S. History and even has a focus activity of making a lap book of your state early on. 

Although we are teaching two timelines, the periods will not overlap at all and they very much feel like two different subjects. 

I love starting history early in the boys' education to give them a sense of past as well as present.  It helps kids to see the big picture and where they fit in it.