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I decided to post some photos after reading some discussion on the K12users list regarding history record books. The pics are below. Maybe this will prompt other people to share their history record books! I love seeing what other people are doing, and mooching their ideas! One person on the list (Joyce) had a GREAT idea involving 4×6 file cards, and I could see doing that and then using clothespins and a string on the wall to create a timeline! The cards could be kept in either a file box, or in a photo album with clear pockets that would let you see front and back. Or how about baseball card size history records! They could be kept in the clear baseball card storage pockets that fit into binders. Okay, sorry… I digress.

KS is currently using “The Wonder of Ages” by Knowledge Quest Maps. It’s GORGEOUS, and she loves working in it! I deliberated forever about buying it, and had I known it would be such a hit, I’d have bought it a long time ago. I bought the downloadable version, so I can print out copies for all my kids eventually. I printed the pages back to back on 65 lb cover stock and put them in a binder. When we run out of room (which we haven’t yet!), I’ll print a few additional pages and chop off the top part so the timeline is continuous, and insert the extra half pages where we need them. (For more on this idea, see Charlene Wistad’s article on creating a timeline book.) Additionally, KS creates at least 2 summary sheets and drawings for history each week. She can choose which lessons/readings to summarize. She uses some paper that I found that has a blank portion at the top, and college ruled lines underneath. Those go in her schoolwork binder.

KR isn’t doing much for her history record book this year. We should do more, but she doesn’t like to draw or color, and isn’t a big fan of narrating either. I think that once the baby comes, I’ll probably start trying to get her to narrate a bit more.

These images are from a couple of years ago. Our history record books were scrapbook style. The downside is that the kids would work on them ALL afternoon. The good thing is that… well… the kids would work on them all afternoon!! We ended up scrapping the idea because it just became too time consuming. They could probably do it more independently now, though again, I doubt that my younger daughter would care to do it at all.

These images are from KS’s history record book. She drew or colored the images, and then made little folded “books” and glued them near the images. She wrote the lesson summaries inside. The first image is of the little books closed, and in the second image, you can see them open.

Here are some pictures of KR’s history record book. As you can see, we did a lot of cutting and pasting bits from the pdfs for K12 history. She narrated, and I did all the writing. To reduce the pdfs by half, or a quarter, I use some software called Fineprint, which allows you to reduce and print multiple copies onto a single page. So if you have a 4 page document, you can choose to reduce all 4 pages and print them together on a single page. Hopefully, that makes sense. Anyway, it’s a handy tool.