Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Recommended Resources History! Yay!

DS is showing signs of being ready for some real history stuff. I adore history, and one of my Big Goals as a parent was/is to make sure my kids get a better run at history and geography than I did as a kid.

So, it is with great glee that I ask:

Anyone have great ideas for 3 yr olds and history? I just started reading to him a "diary" of an early industrial revolution era sempstress. He's attending to which recipes he knows that come from medieval sources, and starting to attend also to geographical origin. He's done a little pottery and egg tempera.

I'd like to hear Anything and everything you can think of, I'm all excited.

I think my DD was 3 when she picked up a historical paperback I had read, flipped it open to the photos in the middle, and demanded to know what they depicted. I was more than a little horrified, because the book was about the JFK assassination. But, I answered her questions, and she found the whole thing fascinating.

Later on, we found some children's books at the library that described what life was like when [insert historical figure here] was a child, and she found those very interesting.

In general, at that age, I'd say just follow their interests, and you can't go wrong.

My DD4 loves learning about history. Go to museums. On a trip recently we asked DD if she'd rather go to a dinosaur museum or a museum about the French and Indian War. She thought hard and said, "Well, I really don't know enough about the French and Indian War. Let's go there."

I think my DD loves the narrative. History is just a bunch of stories with common themes. She loves the biographies as well. And, she just loves the who, what, when, where, and why's of war.

She memorized the president in their order when she was 2.5, and those guys served as great stepping off point for American history. She was also naturally interested in Greeks, Romans, Egyptians, and American Indians. It is kind of flashy history, you know? NASA's history was also fun.

I am all for little bits of exposure over time. Just follow their interests. (Like, I am pretty sure my DD's eyes would glaze over if I started reading a book about the Industrial Revolution, but to each their own.) We really just read about history, answer her questions, let her ramble about it, and occasionally visit a museum.

We just went to the library and visited the history section and looked up history stuff in the catalog and checked out a bunch of stuff. My son, then 4 1/2, would read some of it and reject some of it. He's always loved history documentaries as well. When he was 7, we stopped at the video store to let him pick out a movie - a treat. He chose "The War in Iraq" by the History Channel. He loved it. So, I agree with the above, expose him to a lot of stuff and let him pick what he's interested in.

Later, the Time Warp Trio series are good - you choose how the story goes by answering questions at different points. I'm thinking they were all historical fiction but I can't quite remember.

I always love the Usborne history books: http://www.usborne.com/catalogue/history.aspx?area=H

We're lucky here in Philly. We go to Revolutionary War re-enactments. I love the smell of musket fire in the morning!

We do early medieval re-enactments/demos I love the smell of stockfish in the morning! (yeah, it's an acquired taste...)

We do a bunch of stuff already, including museums (helps that he's sometimes the _exhibit..._ ;), and also a lot of living history, like cooking, dancing, singing, etc. He's just made the jump from saying "Is this the way they ___ a long time ago" to asking more anchored questions like "were the vikings before or after castles."

Right now, he's really into military history... any suggestions for handling that with someone his age? I get tripped up on what is and is not appropriate...