We learned about the Civil War with Notebooking, Field Trips, Books, and Movies.

Growing up in Georgia, I learned the Civil War is important history. Many museums and historical sites commemorate the events and battles that took place and they’re all very accessible for day trips or short vacations.

But they do glorify the Confederacy.

You don’t see any Nazi memorials in Europe except in appropriate museums…

As a child, I attended reenactments of battles at Stately Oaks, a replica of the house in Gone With the Wind. My family took vacations to visit Andersonville, Fort Sumter, and Chickamauga, along with plantation home tours.

I think every Southern state has a Civil War museum, mostly glorifying the Confederacy and perpetuating the “Magnolia Myth.”

I feel it’s very important to teach my white children real history. We learn about all sides to the story. I feel my Georgia public school education was rather sloppy and often told incorrectly, even by black teachers who were at the mercy of the curriculum and administrators.

It’s so important to talk about history and to discuss race and current events, cause and effect.

This book helps me teach better: Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong by James W. Loewen

Travel:

Freedom Center

Springboro Underground Railroad Walking Tour

Stone Mountain

Stately Oaks in Jonesboro, GA

Civil War Sites

Topics:

Causes of the Civil War
Foreign aid
Dred Scott
Abraham Lincoln
John Brown
Underground Railroad
Reconstruction
Racism
KKK

Resources

Adventures in Mommydom American history lessons
Lapbooks and notebooking pages
Homeschool Share lapbook
Stone Mountain and The Cyclorama
Civil War for Kids
Civil War.org
PBS The Civil War
Slavery Unit from Our Journey Westward
Lapbook from Homeschool Share
Resources from the Homeschool Mom
Addy American Girl Unit from Fields of Daisies
War Between the States from Tina’s Dynamic Homeschool Plus
Unit Study from Susan Evans
Resources from Creekside Learning
Pages from Bonnie Rose
Lapbook from Jimmie’s Collage
Practical Pages
Productive Homeschooling $
A Journey Through Learning Lapbook $

Movies

(use viewer discretion)

Books

Civil War for Kids
The Patchwork Path: A Quilt Map to Freedom by Bettye Stroud
Show Way by Jacqueline Woodson
Follow the Drinking Gourd by Jeanette Winter
Unspoken by Henry Cole
The Secret to Freedom
Henry’s Freedom Box
Sweet Clara and the Freedom Quilt
The Drinking Gourd
Under the Quilt of Night
The Last Safe House
Light in the Darkness
Before She Was Harriet
Cause: Reconstruction
Forty Acres and Maybe a Mule by Harriette Gillem Robinet
40 Acres and No Mule by Janice Holt Giles
Freedom School
The Monitor
Shots Fired at Fort Sumter
Across Five Aprils
The Red Badge of Courage
An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge
Welcome to Addy’s World
The Journal of James Edmond Pease: A Civil War Union Soldier, Virginia, 1863
When Will This Cruel War Be Over? The Civil War Diary of Emma Simpson, Gordonsville, Virginia, 1864
A Light in the Storm: The Civil War Diary of Amelia Martin
My Brother’s Keeper: Virginia’s Civil War Diary Book 1
After The Rain, Virginia’s Civil War Diary Book 2
A Time To Dance, Virginia’s Civil War Diary Book 3
Abraham Lincoln’s World
Abraham Lincoln: A Nonfiction Companion
Civil War On Sunday
Abe Lincoln at Last!
The Perilous Road
Freedom’s Wings: Corey’s Underground Railroad Diary Book 1
Flying Free: Corey’s Underground Railroad Diary Book 2
Message In The Sky: Corey’s Underground Railroad Diary Book 3
You Wouldn’t Want to Be a Nurse During the American Civil War! A Job That’s Not for the Squeamish
You Wouldn’t Want to Be a Civil War Soldier!

How we do history…

History Series:
American Revolutionary War
Civil War
World War I
World War II
Iraq and Afghanistan

We use Tapestry of Grace for our main history studies. You might also like: Raising Readers and How We Study History.

My girls especially love the living books and literature selections. They have a government supplement that is wonderful for high school. Four learning levels means the whole family learns together. Each unit has Internet links to relevant sites (most I’ve never heard of). The Revolutionary War begins at the end of Year 2 (from Byzantium to the New World) and the beginnings of our new nation is in the first unit of Year 3 (from Napoleon to Teddy Roosevelt).