How To Teach History Creatively to Your Big Kid

For many kids History means a lot of memorization. You have lists and pages of dates, places, and people that you have to cram into your brain.  Who’d enjoy that?!  Even grown-ups would quit after just a few minutes. Luckily for our big kids today, there are many tools and paradigms that we can adapt to help them become more interested in the past.

It’s All About People: Start With People He Knows

Basically, History is the story of people.  Thus, as early as possible, it would be good to encourage the innate curiosity of our big kids to learn about the people around him.  We can help him learn about the lives of his relatives, friends, household helpers, and most especially his grandparents. You can be sure his mind would be very curious to know about the similarities and differences between his life and theirs.  These first doses of history are not only easy for him to comprehend, but are some of the most relevant forms of history in his young life.  And thus, the seed of inquiry and discovery for facts about the past is planted!

Make a Family Crest

Our family alone is a rich tapestry of historical details to get our children started in understanding history.  Though we may not all have been born into families that figure prominently in Philippine history, a peek up and down our own family tree may reveal a number of exciting historical details.  My husband’s family started researching into their family trees in their native provinces of Lucban, Quezon and Carcar, Cebu.  This led both sides of my in-laws’ families on interesting connections and quests about quaint, strange, and funny stories about the lives of known and obscure relatives from all over the globe.  Now, my father-in-law’s family even went a step further and made a family crest for their clan.  On it, they symbolized the three fields in which their clan has prominently excelled in through the decades—music, engineering, and education.  A family tree and a family crest are certainly fun ways to get your little history buff started.

Click here to read more ways to creatively teach history to your big kid.