Getting Started with Our America in the 1800s Homeschool History Course

America in the 1800s is a homeschool history course designed to help students feel like they are living in the time periods being explored. Through numerous readings and writing assignments such as journal entries and letter writing, students get a unique chance to relive this important period in America’s history from the early days of westward expansion, through the Civil War and Reconstruction, and finally through the days of the transcontinental railroad and Indian Wars.

Course Sample for Our America in the 1800s Homeschool History Course

To view a full sample of this course, click here.

America in the 1800s
By Karen Robuck

Unit 1—Westward Expansion before the Civil War
The Oregon Trail

Hello, and welcome to America in the 1800s. We will begin with early westward expansion on the Oregon and Santa Fe Trails. We will travel down the Erie Canal. We will visit gold miners in California and freedom fighters at the Alamo. We will also touch on a sad time in our nation’s history—the American Civil War and Reconstruction. Then we will head west again, with the buffalo, the Indian Wars, and the transcontinental railroad. Throughout our study, you will not have tests or quizzes (you may jump for joy at that statement.) You will, however, have writing assignments. No, you will not be writing reports. I want you to imagine you are living in the time period you are studying. Then I will ask you to either write a journal entry or a letter related to the topic. Don’t worry; I’ll give you ideas as we go along.

Note to parents: Unless your state requires such assignments to be graded, don’t worry about letter grades. Use the writing assignments as opportunities to teach editing and revision skills as part of your language arts. I will provide a rubric to aid in evaluating the writing assignments.

SchoolhouseTeachers.com note: Parents should closely monitor children’s use of YouTube and Wikipedia if you navigate away from the videos and articles cited in these lessons. We also recommend viewing the videos on a full screen setting in order to minimize your students’ exposure to potentially offensive ads and inappropriate comments beside or beneath the video.

What will we be reading? Most of your readings are from the World Book resources available here at SchoolhouseTeachers.com. I will also provide booklists for additional reading. Since each family has its own preferences and each library has its own unique collections, I will not be requiring specific titles.

• Let’s begin by looking again at the area that Lewis and Clark explored.
  http://www.worldbookonline.com/student/media?id=lr004190&st=lewis+and+clark

If you would like to review Lewis and Clark’s expedition before we start, go to this link:
http://worldbookonline.com/student/article?id=ar321480&st=lewis+and+clark#tab=homepage

You could also read:

• Any biography of Lewis and Clark
• Any biography of Sacagawea