Notgrass History’s new Homeschool History membership site is the perfect place to find homeschool history videos for kids. Whatever topic you’re covering in your homeschool history curriculum—whether it’s China, American history, immigration, ancient history, Black History Month—Homeschool History has educational videos and resources to help enhance your study. Find out why we’re super excited about this new tool for homeschoolers.
I received a free Homeschool History membership for review purposes and I was compensated for my time. All opinions are my own and I am not required to post a positive review.
On Saturday mornings, my children race out of bed enthusiastically. I don’t mind. We’ve made a deal.
See, we’re quite conservative with the use of videos for entertainment at our house. We’ve tried different systems for keeping track of and managing who gets to watch what and when.
Inevitably, it ends in an argument about one child having an unfair advantage in selecting the programming. It gets exhausting, and I’m all about finding solutions that make our lives more restful, not more exhausting!
So, we decided that they could wake up early on Saturday mornings and get their fill of cartoons for the week, just like we did when we were kids.
As a bonus, this allows us to sleep in one morning a week, or, as is more often the case, to wake up early anyway and drink coffee in uninterrupted solitude.
Why We Look For Kids’ Learning Videos
It’s still a surprise to me that children are so enamoured with videos. No matter what chore or task they’re asked to do, they work at it with amplified speed and diligence if they know a video reward waits for them at the end.
Do I use this to my advantage? Why, yes. Yes, I do.
I’ve learned that not only do they enjoy watching videos much more than other mediums, they also absorb the information better.
Often, when I’m reading to them, I find they’re drifting in and out of what I’m saying, but when they watch a video, their ability to pay attention is heightened. They listen better, understand more, and retain longer.
Because of this, I try to incorporate videos into our homeschooling routine whenever possible.
Though I still am a curriculum junkie and can’t help stocking up on dozens of books each time I go to a homeschool conference, I’m always searching online and at the library for videos we can use to enhance our lessons.
Using Homeschool History Videos to Supplement Your History Curriculum
Unfortunately, not all educational videos are designed with children in mind and sifting through history videos on YouTube and other websites to find the ones that are most appropriate for my children is rarely an option. I just don’t have that kind of time.
For example, we’re currently using Sonlight F as our primary homeschool history curriculum. This curriculum is rich in detail about the Eastern Hemisphere and the countries that comprise it.
It’s a well-curated glimpse into a part of the world that we don’t see represented in our modern literature enough.
But it is A LOT OF READING. At any given time, we’re reading a handful of non-fiction titles about these countries as well as one or more historical novels, and the pace is quite brisk if we want to get through it all by the end of the year.
Don’t get me wrong. We love reading and these books are great. But sometimes, it just feels like too much.
The writing style feels foreign to us and there are a lot of things we can’t picture. We have to look stuff up all the time just to understand what we’re reading about and that slows us down.
When we studied China, I looked hard for educational videos for kids to enrich our history curriculum, but everything I found was either hard to understand, dull, or inappropriate.
What could have been a really cool learning opportunity for my children fizzled out unsatisfyingly.
Homeschool History’s Videos and Resources Animate History for Kids
You can imagine my excitement, then, when I learned that the team at Notgrass History had put together a new membership site that fills this need perfectly.
Homeschool History is a new database resource for homeschoolers that aggregates kid-friendly, educational resources from around the web into one easily searchable tool.
The site works exactly as you think it should, giving you a rich suite of history video resources—including world history videos and documentaries for kids—in three simple steps.
- Open the resource database.
- Enter your keyword.
- Choose the type of resource you are looking for.
Immediately, you receive several recommended resources that have been pre-screened for you!
Watch how easy this is:
What else can you find on the Homeschool History Resource Library?
The video library alone has me completely swooning over the Homeschool History membership site, but the educational resources aren’t limited to history videos for kids. The database also includes these types of educational media and suggestions:
- Audio/Music: For example, for our China study, we could find a modern recording of ancient music from the Tang Dynasty. Other audio resources include choral performances, history-themed podcast episodes, and authentic recordings from the Library of Congress’ collection.
- Books: The books include picture books, historical fiction novels, and non-fiction titles such as biographies for kids. For our China unit, many of the novels recommended line up with those in our Sonlight curriculum, which are of the highest quality.
- Events: The events category is still growing, but includes information on current events such as historical re-enactments that children can visit to learn more about different periods of history.
- Historical sites: If you’re looking for homeschool field trip ideas, Homeschool History lists historical sites that would be perfect for history field trips. Incorporate visits to sites such as the Canada Science and Technology Museum, CS Lewis Square, the International Spy Museum and the Folger Shakespeare Library into your next family vacation. You can also conduct a map search to find sites specific to an area near you so you can take some impromptu educational field trips if the mood strikes.
- Educational websites: Finally, the Homeschool History database includes links to educational websites for kids for many of the topics included on the site.
What Historical Topics are Covered on the Homeschool History Website?
When you purchase a Homeschool History membership, you get access to videos and resources for over three hundred different topics that you may want to cover in your homeschool.
You can use them to supplement any homeschool history curriculum you use or as the basis for your own thematic unit studies if you are homeschooling without curriculum.
Here are some examples of the topics included:
What I love about the Homeschool History Membership
Discovering the Homeschool History membership site has opened up a ton of opportunities in my homeschool.
We’re now able to supplement our Sonlight history curriculum with video clips and movies that bring the topics we’re studying to life. My kids can see and experience all of the different places and time periods they’re learning about in a deeper way.
And I am not the one trying to track down resources for them! This is huge, as I honestly didn’t have the time to keep up with sourcing resources for all four of my kids, who are mostly all covering different things.
Homeschool History has brought together everything I need to enrich my homeschool history lessons into one rich resource, and I’m excited to see it expand even more in the coming months.
If you’re looking for resources to supplement your homeschool history curriculum or want to put together you’re own unit study, I encourage you to check out Homeschool History today. Priced at just $24 for an annual membership, you really can’t go wrong!
Sophie Agbonkhese is a writer, homeschooling mother of four, and a recovering overachiever (who occasionally relapses). She is the founder of My Cup Runs Over, a site dedicated to helping busy women simplify and enrich their lives. When she’s not writing or debugging websites, Sophie spends her time reading, dancing, bullet journaling, reading, gardening, listening to audiobooks, and striving fruitlessly to have a clean house for at least five minutes.