Recently I decided it was time to find something that appealed to my kids more on the topic of history. We’ve been slowly working our way through “The Story of the World” series, but can’t seem to get through the 2nd book, The Middle Ages. I have been insisting that we work chronologically through it, but my kids just are not really enjoying this series so much anymore.
I think its an excellent series, but I feel like my not being able to keep things moving forward has caused the content to feel like it’s plodding along. My daughter (10yrs) has been listening to the CDs at night when she can’t sleep, for months. But she insists on listening only to the first couple CDs and she’s practically got those memorized by this point.
My son is only 5yrs (almost 6) and this has been his first time around with the series. He’s already losing interest. I don’t really think history is particularly appropriate at his age…at least in this format…so I’m not particularly concerned with this. My biggest concern with him is simply to teach him to read, and even more important, to make sure he has LOTS and LOTS of play time. I don’t believe he really needs much academics right now at his age.
But it does help to have something both my kids can enjoy together…and since I do want my daughter to be engaged in learning some history, I finally decided to pull up the old “Liberty Kids” tv shows and see what they thought of them.
They were an instant hit!
Both my kids are now begging to watch this series (my 10yr old insists on watching them in order…which is good, since that’s how they were designed to be watched, as its an ongoing story of the American Revolution.) and even my 5yr old is really getting into it!
Now, I don’t for a minute believe my 5yr old is really “getting” what he’s watching…but it’s a fun way to introduce American history to him and as he gets older we can continue to revisit these shows and he can get a deeper and deeper understanding as he’s developmentally able to understand what he’s watching.
We’ve been watching the series on Netflix Instant View, which I HIGHLY recommend (there’s TONS of great kids shows and documentaries! And if you have an iPhone or iPad, they can even watch on the go!) Netflix has the complete series available instantly, so we’ve been really enjoying working our way through the story of the American Revolution, myself included!
I also just discovered that there is a resource website that shares games and activities and other things to supplement the viewing of this show. Will be making use of that now! Very exciting!
I’ll share more on this as I get a chance to try out some of these things…For now we’re still working our way through the videos and I’m getting ready today to make a list of the historical characters they are learning about so that I can look for some books to check out from the library to share more about these people with my kids. As always, I’m on the lookout for excellent non-fiction picture books…as I find these to be the most engaging for both myself and my kids. Anything that is much longer tends to just be too overwhelming and just doesn’t get read by us.
I’d love to hear from anyone that has also used this series with their children, and any ideas or extra resources you may have found. Also would love to know if you know of any other video series that helps to bring the stories of history to life for children. I know about the School House Rock series, History Rock…but other than that and Liberty Kids, I’m unaware of any others.
Time for me to set my fingers to work on Google! 
I’ll update my search as I find interesting things to share with my kiddos in my search for engaging history shows and books that will keep the interest of both my 5 and 10yr old equally. It’s a challenge! 🙂
Please leave me suggestions in the comments below…I’d love to hear from you!
