We study a lot of history. Noah (8) is history mad and I come from a family that's always liked this subject. I love watching history documentaries and reading history books. And when I wrote this piece about Fun Educational History Activities I shared many of the other things we do to keep history interesting. Today however I'd like to tell you how field trips are one great way to make sure History is fun for your kids.
Field trips for me are quite unlike the other tools in the educational arsenal. They have the power to be really memorable experiences that stay with us long after we've stopped studying whichever period of history prompted them. Memorable visits for me included Tintern Abbey, Falaise Castle in Normandy and a local WWI memorial.
However, despite how fun and interesting history field trips can be it's important to follow a few principles if you want them to turn out that way. Here's my take on the best way to make sure your history inspired visits make sure history is fun!
One - Don't do too much
As adults particularly if we've travelled far like for example when we're on holiday, we want to try and cram in as much as possible. But this is the opposite of best practice with kids.
When we ask our kids whether on family or school trips to visit too many museums, memorials or Cathedrals (mum?) in one go these visits can have the opposite effect to the one we're aiming for. Yes, for kids visiting more than one site in a day or all the Normandy beaches in a week is nearly always too much.
Instead take time to really discover and appreciate one place. And make sure you leave time in the day for fun stuff like playing at the beach, swimming in the pool or just running around at the campsite. Kids are way more likely to enjoy themselves if they know their favourite activities haven't been forgotten.
Two - Don't stay too long
Just like golden rule number one, this one is really important. We all know what it's like you feel like you've barely got there and the kids are already asking if it's time to go home, to the beach, for an ice-cream etc etc.
This can be really frustrating for us adults who'd really like to see that fourteenth century tapestry on the top floor with its original stitching details! But remember, go past their enthusiasm point and they'll be left with a bad taste in their mouths.
We're not saying it's okay to leave after five minutes but be realistic about how long is long enough for you children given their age and level of interest in the site. And if you'd really like to stay longer than try some of the following tips to make them want to stay longer too!
Three - Plan the trip ahead
Okay, so this isn't always possible, sometimes you stumble on a hidden treasure, something unexpected. That's okay those can be discoveries. However, on the whole I've found a bit of planning can go a long way.
Mostly this means, talking to the kids enthusiastically about the places we're going to visit. Recently however we planned a Louvre visit by getting a book about the museum from the library and picking out ancient artifacts we wanted to see.
Last year for our trip around the Loire valley, I went as far as making a personalised guide book for all the kids in the party. This included photos and brief descriptions of all the castles we intended to visit. Beforehand I'd spent time researching each monument to make sure I privileged the most interesting ones for kids. Which leads me to my next tip.
Four - Pick sites which cater to kids
Many historical monuments now offer activities for children. These range from workshops to discovery trails and worksheets. I can't emphasize how worthwhile it is to make the most of these resources.
Planning on an abbey? Pick Fontevraud if it still has its amazing toy car racecourse! Visiting a castle? Pick one that has dress-up clothes to put on or sword fighting to watch. Going to a roman monument? Remember to do what I did last week in Saintes and ask if they have anything for kids. They did, a great little workbook about amphitheatres and gladiators. What about a guided tour just for kids? These can be really fun like the one we did in Langeais where an actress dressed up as Queen Anne of Brittany to guide them round her 'home'.
Kids love getting stuck into these kinds of activities and they can really help you get that longer visit you were hoping for! To find out what a specific site has to offer, consult their web page or ring them up. Lots of sites really do offer fantastic activities.
Five - Let them loose with a camera
Okay so maybe not your super expensive dslr! But kids love taking pictures and through the lens they'll often spend a lot more time looking at details than they otherwise would. Here our some of our kids photos!
So to sum it up, plan your visits, pick places that have thought about how to make their visit fun for kids, only do one site in a day and not too many visits in a small space of time and don't stay too long! Oh and if your kids are anything like mine it usually helps if the site has a shop and a small amount of spending money is made available to cover costs 😃 !
I loved History at school. Unlike science, history was always one of my favourite subjects. It's still an area I'm fascinated by. So it ought to be easy for me to plan fun educational history activities for the kids right?
As you know from posts like this one on roman helmets and this one on building roman forts, we like to keep things fun and hands on here. But as Maya gets older our emphasis has also shifted to report writing and written records of the subjects she studies. Sometimes it can actually be a challenge to make history fun for her.
The factual books that fascinate her brother don't always keep her interest. And she pulls that face, you know the one I mean,
when we talk about visiting ruins, castles or any other 'historical'
sites. And yet when she gets there she loves it!
So
you can imagine I've been tearing my hair out a bit trying to keep our
study unit on ancient cultures (Egyptians, Greeks and Romans)
interesting and fun.
My own struggles made me think I might not be the only one wanting a little inspiration. There are a lot of wonderful resources out there and we've been exploiting them. Today I'd like to share with you some of the fun educational history activities I've found to keep kids of different ages passionate about history. Bring on Board Games, TV and a bit of Art. I like to think of them as my three secret weapons!
Board Games
Have you heard of 7 Wonders? The amazing board game that's won every award out there? Well we have and we've been playing it sometimes on a daily basis since October. What can a board game teach us about history? Well for starters it introduced the kids to the 7 wonders of the Ancient World.
Playing the game also introduced the notion of what it takes to build a great civilisation. Is it knowledge, is it military power, great monuments or trade? Or perhaps a combination of all of the above. Now I'm not saying this game will teach your kids all they need to know about building civilisations but what it did for my kids is spark their curiosity and get them thinking. And in my opinion that's gold!
The other great history inspiring board game we play is called Chronicards. It's a French version of TimeLine*. We're planning to invest in some more though.Check out lists here and here for more ideas.
It would be remiss not to mention here too online games. Many museums now have games aimed at children on their websites. Spending a bit of time browsing the internet can throw up some really fun games for your kids to play. National Museums of Scotland is one place we've found with excellent and fun activities. This BBC game was also great fun.
Television
As I've said before great documentaries are one of the cornerstones of our home educating life. I like to think of them as the brain food kind of screen time.
When I look for documentaries I try to identify what aspects of the period or history in general the kids are interested in. For example, on the Romans Noah is fascinated by their military power and strategies so documentaries on the life of a roman soldier were a must.
Sometimes I think more about what kind of historical inquiry might interest them. So this documentary about Tutankhamen kept both older children interested because it was organised like a crime investigation. And of course it featured Dallas Campbell who's fast becoming one of our favourite documentary presenters.
Being British I tend to use BBC documentaries. They're always great visually, feature eminent scientists and other experts and have very high production values. I do my research online and we often use YouTube to watch shows.
Another route to go down is exploring historical themes through film and story. Asking the question how have people interpreted Cleopatra (or other historical figures or peoples) over time is an interesting and valid one. We've looked at texts and films to do this.
Art
This category covers a lot. From model making through dress up and accessory making it also includes producing beautiful visual art to accompany written reports and making things out of Lego.
Yes Lego. Noah (8) is currently what I like to call Lego obsessed. He lives, breathes and sleeps Lego. If I could see into his dreams I'm sure they'd be in Lego. So what's a home educating mum to do but use Lego to learn of course!
Let's take the example of the 7 Wonders and see how Lego got involved. As the kids were already interested in the 7 Wonders and we're studying Antiquity I decided to study them in more detail. I hoped they would help us learn a bit about the great civilisations that built them and inspire the kid's interest. I wasn't disappointed.
First we watched this documentary. Although quite long all the children (including Lotta 5) found it fascinating. I asked the children how they'd like to record what they'd been learning. Noah and Lotta were both stumped (more about Maya further down). They had no desire to write or draw anything. What about Lego? I asked. They were enchanted. Both went on to construct pyramids.
These were quickly followed up by Zeus' Temple at Olympia and the Temple at Ephesus. Not only did these projects get them thinking about the monuments architecture, how do you build a pyramid? How do you get columns to hold up a roof? They also kept the conversation going about the wonders and what building them meant for their civilisations. We discussed questions such as why did they build them? What did they symbolise? What did building them do for their society?
Maya didn't choose Lego to express herself, though she wasn't above helping out or making suggestions. Instead she chose to draw each of the 7 Wonders and write something brief about each one. This provided a great opportunity to discuss perspective and architectural drawing. To explore how to represent buildings and space on paper.
Final Thoughts
Finding fun educational history activities is really about what's at the centre of all our homeschooling. Discovering what our children are interested in and facilitating their learning about it in every way possible.
As I learnt earlier in the week there's no point trying to teach how Rome was founded to an 8 year old who wants to reenact the D-day Landings! It's more productive to harness his current interest and see where it takes us.
Maya who's older is much more able to apply herself to learning about whatever I've decided is on the agenda. It remains essential however to bring things to life and make them fun and rewarding for her to study. That might be as simple as getting her books about mummification for her Egyptian studies and letting that be the central part of her report writing. Or it might be as complicated as sewing her her very own medieval dress (coming soon...).
*We actually prefer the French version as it has more information.
