Thursday, April 29, 2010

Canadian History Plan

Please see the new version
This version has been kept for those that would prefer to use it.


It has taken quite a while, but I have a basic plan for Canadian History for the first few years of homeschool

Year 1 - A Pioneer Story by Barbara Greenwood. (also called A Pioneer Sampler???)

Although not in a chronological order, this is a nice gentle book to ease the student into thinking about the past, without worrying about any real historical details.




Also

A Child's History of the Life of Christopher Columbus by Josephine Pollard


Year 2

- Great Canadian Lives: Portraits in Heroism to 1867
Available online here - not sure how with copyright

Basically covering from before 1600 to 1713 (A New Found Land, Settling the Land, and about 1/2 of The Great Days of New France)
(stop at "The Colony at Peace" - this gives about 60 portraits to do over the 36 weeks of school)

- My First History of Canada - by Donalda Dickie & Rudiger Krause First 9 Chapters. (Same time period as above)



Year 3 - continuing in Great Canadian Lives and My First History of Canada

Basically covering from 1713 to 1830 (1/2 of The Great Days of New France, After the Conquest, 1/2 of Danger on All Sides)
(start at "The Colony at Peace" and stop at "Building the Future" - this gives about 60 portraits to do over the 36 weeks of school)

Ch 10-13 of My First History

Year 4 - continuing in Great Canadian Lives and My First History of Canada

Basically covering from about 1830 to 1867 (1/2 of Danger on All Sides, From Sea to Sea)
(start at "Building the Future" and go to the end of the book - this gives about 60 portraits to do over the 36 weeks of school)

Ch 14-15 of My First History

Additional Reading:



The Last Safe House: A story of the Underground Railroad - Barbara Greenwood - add during the North to Freedom section.

Year 5 - My First History of Canada - other resources unknown at this point

Ch 16-19 + about 1/2 of 20

Covering from 1867 to about 1939.
Topics include, but not limited to:

RCMP

Gold Rush
WWI

Halifax Explosion

Famous 5 (women's rights)

Depression


Additional Reading:
Gold Rush Fever: a story of the Klondike, 1898 - Barbara Greenwood
Factory Girl - Barbara Greenwood

Year 6 - My First History of Canada - other resources unknown at this point

2nd half of Chapter 20, chapter 21

Covering from 1939 to present
Topics include, but not limited to:

WWII
Japanese Internment
Gov't help - UI, CPP, Family Allowance, Medicare
FLQ Crisis
Quebec Nationalism / Referendums
Canada Act

NOTE

Great Canadian Lives is unfortunately out of print, and can be expensive. Because it is used for 3 years, it may be worthwhile to purchase, especially if you have multiple children that will be using it. I will be using the library until I can find an inexpensive copy (our library has several copies). Update - there is a copy online here but as copyright is still in effect, not sure how they have it there....

However, if you can not find this resource in a manner that fits your budget, please feel free to replace it with seperate biographies of a few people within the various periods of history! (If you have any recommendations, please share!)

4 comments:

  1. Hmmm, some of these ideas look interesting - even to me as an Aussie!

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  2. Thanks. I am counting on the other Barbara Greenwood being as good as "A Pioneer Story".

    It has taken quite a while to find a resource I liked - I ahve taken so many Canadian History books out of the library! Some would look good for a bit, then I was bored to death... lol. The "Great Canadian Lives" looks good and is telling history through little biographical portraits. It is only a page or two per person, so I'm hoping it is enough to get a feel for each person - but from the stuff I've read, I've got a better idea on what some famous Canadians did than I did before.

    It also took a while to figure out how much to put for each year - but this seems like a reasonable breakdown of the years for the first 6 years.

    Anyway - I have to say that Canadian History is a LOT more interesting than it ever was in school - and I sure hope that my kids will find it interesting.

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  3. Hi Heather,
    I came through your SCM forum post.

    This looks good and brava for doing it yourself. Have you read the Barbara Greenwood books? I am wondering how the fiction/non-fiction mix is. My son loves historical fiction (as do I).
    Best,
    Richele

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  4. At this time, I have only read "A Pioneer Story" by Barbara Greenwood. However, I was very impressed with it, and have heard general good things about her books by other homeschooling mom's, so I have added them in my plan.

    For "A Pioneer Story", each chapter started with the fictional story, which was a wonderful introduction to the topics that followed. I'd say it was about 5 or so pages of reading for a chapter, and had value as historical fiction. Then there would be maybe 4 to 10 pages of information, depending on the topic(s). Some of these had things that you could do as an activity, like making cheese, or finger-spinning some cotton etc... which I admit we didn't do, but would probably add a lot to the interest.

    Hope this helps!

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