The Best Secular Homeschool History Curriculum
History is without a doubt our favorite subject after math, and I have spent weeks looking for a homeschool history curriculum that we can use.
We are secular homeschoolers so I didn’t want a Christian curriculum, but I really struggled to find a homeschool history curriculum that would work. But I wanted to share with you what we found, and what we have decided to do.
We have decided to study history with no curriculum. This at first made me really nervous, as we both definitely work better with structure. But we have made it work. I would just like to add that we are only at grade 6, next year for grade 7 we will be using a more formal homeschool history curriculum (probably Pandia Press, as discussed later.)
If you enjoy playing games in your homeschool we have put together our top 20 history board games for you to enjoy.
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Table of Contents
Secular Homeschool History Curriculum
These homeschool history curriculums are all we have found that are secular.
They all look great, but not what we were looking for, except for history odyssey. I only say that as we are using Real Science Odyssey from the same company and we really enjoy it. So I think maybe next year we will go for it.
- History Quest – Elementary History Curriculum
- History Odyssey – Middle School & Highschool History this is now what we are using (see our review of history odyssey here)
- School House Teachers – History curriculum for all grades. When you subscribe you get access to EVERY SUBJECT!
- Curiosity Chronicles
- Moving Beyond the Page
- Blossom & Root: A River of Voices – US History Curriculum
Free Homeschool History Curriculum
If I am ever looking for even more history resources, I will check out these amazing free online resources.
- Khan Academy
- Smithsonian History Explorers
- Free periods in English literature timeline printable
- OER Project
- American History Games
- Teaching the Peoples History
- 60 Seconds Histories – if you want quick 60 seconds videos this is a great resource, now completely free on Youtube
- Remembrance Day – I have put together lots of free resources to help you teach about WWI.
- Bonfire Night Activities – Learn all about Guy Fawkes and how he tried to blow up the Houses of Parliament
- Martin Luther King Jr. For kids – if you are looking for ways to study the great man in your homeschool check out our favorite resources.
- Greek Gods Family Tree and coloring pages
Homeschool History Books
We love books, we’re not big fans of the Kindle, I wish we were it would save us a fortune.
All of these books could be borrowed from the library, so you don’t need to splurge if you don’t want to!
We tend to use two key books to assist us with the timeline, and then we supplement with other books, workbooks, online resources, and youtube.
I’m showing my age a little with the Looking At History book! I used this when I was at school over 30 years ago. So apart from that book, you can find all the others on Amazon.
The two books we use as our homeschool history curriculum are The Big Fat Notebook For History and the Kingfisher History Encyclopedia. But as you can see above we have lots of history books!
- Timelines of Everything
- Horrible History Books
- History the Past as you’ve never seen it before
- 100 things to know about history
- Histories Mysteries
- A Short History of the World
- Mysteries in History
- Beowulf
- The Usborne History of Britain
- This is a Horrible Coloring Book
- American History A Visual Encyclopedia
- Castle
- Kings & Queens
History Workbooks
We love using workbooks in our homeschool, I think you either love them or hate them!
But I find that they are an easy way to use for a checkup of understanding.
I found there were not many (although many more if you are in the UK)!
We have only used the 180 Days of Social Studies and it ties in really well with our two workbooks. Although it also covers other subjects, we have only been focussing on the history lessons, and we really love it.
We have recently come across Evan Moor too (yes I know, we are fairly new to America!!), and they have lots of history workbooks too. We haven’t used them yet, but as soon as we have finished the 180 days of social studies we will be ordering them. Check them out Evan Moor for grades K-6.
Youtube History Documentaries
- Crash Course is hands down our favorite youtube channel for homeschool. They have playlists on World History, US History, European History, and everything in between. In fact, we watch a lot of Crash Course for science too!
- Horrible Histories this show is hilarious, and we have been watching for many years. In fact, we have seen these shows at the theatre too.
- History Channel of course, this goes without saying.
If I can’t find the lesson I need on those three channels I just search on Youtube for the particular resource I need. However, in two years, I haven’t needed anything else!
History Live Online Classes
We absolutely love Outschool in our homeschool, as he gets to talk and communicate both with the teacher and his peers.
Outschool has a number of classes on history, so I highly recommend you have a look. Take your first Outschool class today, you won’t regret it.
Curiosity Stream
This is relatively new to us, we only got Curiosity Stream a couple of months, but we are hooked! It is not only a channel for history it has awesome science documentaries plus lots more. You can watch curiosity stream on your computer, iPad, and even download the app on your TV, and at only $20 per year, it is well worth it. Check out how we use Curiosity Stream in our homeschool here.
Please let me know in the comments what you use as a homeschool history curriculum, I would love to know.
Last Updated on 8 June 2022 by homeschoolof1