You’d think that since this is the close of our school year I’d be ready for a break, but I am SO excited about studying U.S. History for the first time. There are hundreds of great resources out there to study American history! I’m just glad we’ll be cycling back trough it again in a few years, since there is no way we can do everything that I’d like to do. (I have to really pull in the reigns on myself here. Really. I get carried away…)
Because we like to be literature heavy around our home, here is our list of books (both read-alouds and individual reading) for our study of American history.
Easily incorporate poetry and picture study into your homeschool day with Script-n-Scribe Americana!
Chapter Books
- The Courage of Sarah Noble | Download Unit Study (Also see our previous post.)
- Sign of the Beaver | Download Unit Study | Book Club Ideas & Unit Study
- Squanto, Friend of the Pilgrims| Native American Connections
- Witch of Blackbird Pond
- Matchlock Gun
- Johnny Tremain | Download Lapbook/Unit Study (Scroll down and click on “American Revolution Lapbook” for download of Johnny Tremain lapbook.)
- Amos Fortune, Free Man
- Rifles for Watie
- Sarah, Plain and Tall | Download Unit Study
- Dear Levi: Letters from the Overland Trail
- Helen Keller
Picture Books
- North American Indians
- The Thanksgiving Story by Alice Dalgliesh
- The Ox-Cart Man by Donald Hall | Download Unit Study
- Paul Revere’s Ride by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, illustrated by Ted Rand
- If You Were There When They Signed the Constitution by Elizabeth Levy
- A Picture Book of George Washington by David Adler | Download Presidents Day Lapbook
- So You Want to Be President? by Judith St. George | Download Presidents Lapbook
- Johnny Appleseed by Reeve Lindbergh | Download Unit Study
- Buffalo Bill and the Pony Express by Eleanor Coerr
- Abe’s Honest Words: The Life of Abraham Lincoln by Doreen Rappaport | Download Lapbook
- Abe Lincoln Crosses a Creek: A Tall, Thin Tale by Deborah Hopkinson
- The Transcontinental Railroad by Jean Blashfield | Download Unit Study
- If you Traveled on the Underground Railroad by Ellen Levine
- If You Lived with the Cherokee by Peter and Connie Roop
- Apples to Oregon by Deborah Hopkinson | Download Unit Study
- Wagon Wheels by Barbara Brenner
- The Story of Inventions by Anna Claybourne (Click here for a free on-line version.)
- When Jessie Came Across the Sea by Amy Hest
- Remember Pearl Harbor: American and Japanese Survivors Tell Their Stories
- Through My Eyes by Ruby Bridges
- How to Make a Cherry Pie and See the USA by Marjorie Princeman | Download Unit Study
- Williams Bennett’s The Children’s Treasury of Virtues
- Don’t Know Much About the Presidents
Reference books
A corresponding Homeschoolshare (or other) unit study is listed next to the book if it is available. Homeschoolshare also has American Revolution resources that include notebooking pages and a timeline. We will be using more narration, dictation and copywork this year using the literature we’ve selected. Because our 3rd grader likes lapbooking, we may choose to lapbook a couple of the books along with some new lapbooking and notebooking resources I came across recently at Practical Pages. Be sure to explore the Practical Pages website for more free resources, including a famous artists lapbook, famous musicians wall chart, and Bible lapbooking templates and other activities. The key here is to take some time to figure out which lapbooks or unit studies you would like to complete, or just stay tuned to find out what we’re doing.
The first three sites contain all free resources – be sure to explore these sites because there is MUCH MORE available that ties into this cycle than what I mentioned here. We hope this is a useful collection of resources to everyone! (At a later date, I will be updating this post to include lesson plans for when we will be reading which books.)