how do you get them interested in history? Ages 6 10 and 12. We go on road trips every year and i always include a historical site or something. But i loved history and geography as a kid in this age range and wanting the same for my kids. That said my wife and I do not try to push our specific interests on them but want them to find their own. Just looking for ideas to get them to WANT to know about our country's past and not make it seem like an boring extension of school.

Ideas?

I think you are on the right track with the field trip, you might want to do more than one a year. I realize probably the trips to the more historical sites might have to be once a year but there should be other things that can be seen on a day trip. You might want to encourage them to read a little about what your are about to take them to see.

My two daughters didn't really catch the history bug but my son did in a huge way. He and I will visit one of the islands where my dad fought in WWII and visit where my grandfather fought in WWI.

Maximus, that is exactly what we did on our trip to gulf shores a couple of summers ago. Youngest loved it ran around everywhere to see the planes. It sucked that we were front row for blue angels waiting for 90 mins and literally six minutes before the air show it got really dark and lightening struck. Cancelled. Missed the USS alabama because of time we went through Mobile but we plan on going back.

We have started to minimize time on devices with the kids unless school related but that hasnt really equated to reading time like i had hoped. They dont mind the history but not as passionate as i would hope

Going down to galveston for a day so may hit up NASA and have tickets to holcaust musuem from a groupon deal so will do that i think


Libertyag, we do more than just one trip but my job gives me the entire month of july off so we go on usually a three week vacation but we do a lot of two/three day trips. With the oldest being in 7th grade it is the year of texas history so we are planning to talk to teacher this week in fact on things they have discussed so we can maybe go to those areas on weekends over the spring and what we call winter here

Maximus_Meridius said:

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Among the earliest vacations I can remember were the family trips to Disney World in Orlando. We seriously went about every 3 or 4 years when my brother and I was growing up. Well, one of the stops would be the air museum in Pensacola. As a kid of around 5 or 6, I wasn't really into all of the planes, but they had cockpits from various aircraft that you could sit in and play with switches and such. This got me fascinated with aviation and its history. Then on the same trip we would stop and see the USS Alabama, which also had some interactive things. Other trips we went and saw the USS Texas. From there it just seems to have developed naturally.

I guess my point is to make it interactive. Kids can't really appreciate some of this stuff from a purely intellectual point until they're a bit older. If my parents had taken me to Shiloh battlefield at that point, I'd have been bored to tears. Kids need to experience it through touch and sight where possible.

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Excellent point.

BQ78 said:

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My recommendation on National Park Batllefields, don't just drive the tour and not get out of the car, go to a specific place and walk the battlefield. Kids like that if just to burn off energy. But it teaches adults about what the soldiers endured. I walked Pickett's Charge with the kids, walked shiloh down the Hornet's Nest to the Peach Orchard, Did Hood's Texas Brigade's attacks at Chickamauga from step off to Snodgrass Hill, Gaine's Mill and Little Round Top. You may get your feet wet and muddy crossing streams but you'll see where they went and if the history doesn't interest the kids the nature probably will.

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Ok I officially hate you! Just kidding of course. But now I want to do what you have done and I am no kid! Think this weekend I will find some books on some of those battlefields. I have read most about them many years ago. But I want to refresh my memory and then plan a road trip with my wife to walk those battlefields.

Wicked Good Ag said:

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Maximus, that is exactly what we did on our trip to gulf shores a couple of summers ago. Youngest loved it ran around everywhere to see the planes. It sucked that we were front row for blue angels waiting for 90 mins and literally six minutes before the air show it got really dark and lightening struck. Cancelled. Missed the USS alabama because of time we went through Mobile but we plan on going back.

We have started to minimize time on devices with the kids unless school related but that hasnt really equated to reading time like i had hoped. They dont mind the history but not as passionate as i would hope

Going down to galveston for a day so may hit up NASA and have tickets to holcaust musuem from a groupon deal so will do that i think


Libertyag, we do more than just one trip but my job gives me the entire month of july off so we go on usually a three week vacation but we do a lot of two/three day trips. With the oldest being in 7th grade it is the year of texas history so we are planning to talk to teacher this week in fact on things they have discussed so we can maybe go to those areas on weekends over the spring and what we call winter here

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Sorry I misunderstood.

If you have time in Galveston, you might want to check out Seawolf Park. It has a submarine you can go inside and a destroyer escort. Picnic area and a place for the kids to run and play. Even has fishing piers if the kids are into that.

Met a gal on my trip last year to Tarawa, her dad and my dad landed one beach apart. They came down this summer and we went to the park. Had a good time.

Oh hell, I completely forgot about NASA. On this same trip, we'd also hit Stennis Space Center and Kennedy Space Center. Probably one of the reasons why I'm an engineer today. I've heard they've really done a lot of work at KSC and also Johnson. Stennis is also nice, but I don't know that there's all that much "interactive" about it. Seeing the rocket test stands was neat, though.

Also, we had games we'd play in the car. While dad drove, mom would read those trivia card packs to us, those often had history on them. We also had a game that was similar to "20 Questions." You would pick a person, any person either living today or in history, and everyone else tried to figure out who it was by asking questions about them. We eventually had to dispose of the question count because we were picking seriously obscure people. Dad would pick some random fighter pilot from WWII, my brother knows more British ship commanders than should be allowed, and I would pick some off-the-wall scientist. We got to where we'd read history just looking for random names to stump everyone else (my family might have a disorder...).

We're all in. We are Revolutionary War reenactors. These pics should summarize . I have posted some here before:

Audrey at Halifax Historic Site in NC



Nathaniel at Mt Vernon


?oh=51d17d3e1f33e92f8d6820aab246296e&oe=58F67670

MAttie at Williamsburg

The comment from my 8 year old, "I liked Williamsburg better than Washington DC."

My son made that hat you see there, or at least cocked it up and put the decorations on it. We either made or were given their clothes also. We have sewing parties, etc.

If you can work genealogy into it, it might help. Grandpa was a badass in WWII or something like that can inspire a kid.

Just being a good story teller can help immensely. Enthusiasm is also contagious...

I'm going to try and do a few cemetaries with my son in Texas over the holidays. Hopefully my mom can add stories and make it interesting. He has already seen the Carolinas and Virginia, so making Texas interesting historically may be a challenge. If I could just figure out some expedition where we find a grave back in the woods, that would be the best.

One problem kids have is context. WWII is interesting because there were books around our house as kids and there were war movies. Also, when we went to the mall or to the state fair, there were an endless quantity of models of tanks and WWII dioramas. I could visualize it.

When I was a kid, one of our family friends in Desoto bought a Civil War game for tabletop and had it set up. As a seven year old, I was enthralled, though I didnt play obviously. This was 1977 or so, so there were no video games or other distractions. Within two years my parents had carried me to Vicksburg and some other sites like Shiloh. I was hooked.

Also, my dad, an old coach, used to literally bring home reel movies that were black and white documentaries. That was because things like that weren't available on TV when I was a kid.I don't know how to be analogous to that, since we set up a projector in the living room and we'd watch a move about the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier on a wall. I cannot replicate that experience.

libertyag said:

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BQ78 said:

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My recommendation on National Park Batllefields, don't just drive the tour and not get out of the car, go to a specific place and walk the battlefield. Kids like that if just to burn off energy. But it teaches adults about what the soldiers endured. I walked Pickett's Charge with the kids, walked shiloh down the Hornet's Nest to the Peach Orchard, Did Hood's Texas Brigade's attacks at Chickamauga from step off to Snodgrass Hill, Gaine's Mill and Little Round Top. You may get your feet wet and muddy crossing streams but you'll see where they went and if the history doesn't interest the kids the nature probably will.

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Ok I officially hate you! Just kidding of course. But now I want to do what you have done and I am no kid! Think this weekend I will find some books on some of those battlefields. I have read most about them many years ago. But I want to refresh my memory and then plan a road trip with my wife to walk those battlefields.

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That would be so great. My wife and I lived in Virginia for a while, but I was in medical residency and I had a latent history interest period, so she has never seen even one Civil War battlefield. She has been to Guilford Courthouse (Rev War) and to Camden, but Revolutionary War battlefields are generally just fields. There aren't too many structures. Hopefully I'll get to take her to Gettysburg, Antietam and Fort Ticonderoga.

I agree with the above post. You have to immerse them and maybe it rubs off. I have taken my boys to probably 15 ACW Battlefield Parks and numerous "staff rides' to places that are not even parks. Also took them on numerous living history events ( mainly Lewis and Clark Bicentennial) all over the country and let them take part complete with appropriate clothing. Their Grandfather and myself have extensive libraries on a broad spectrum of historical topics. However, it is hit or miss if they take interest in it or not.

My oldest has took the bait. He reads the same books I read, studies military history (historic and modern, mainly because I was in Iraq and Afghanistan) and actively goes and visits battlefields and historical sites on his own. The youngest? Nope... he spit it out.

BQ78 said:

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My recommendation on National Park Batllefields, don't just drive the tour and not get out of the car, go to a specific place and walk the battlefield. Kids like that if just to burn off energy. But it teaches adults about what the soldiers endured. I walked Pickett's Charge with the kids, walked shiloh down the Hornet's Nest to the Peach Orchard, Did Hood's Texas Brigade's attacks at Chickamauga from step off to Snodgrass Hill, Gaine's Mill and Little Round Top. You may get your feet wet and muddy crossing streams but you'll see where they went and if the history doesn't interest the kids the nature probably will.

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I don't hate you BQ78. That is the only way to see battlefield parks. Have done Pickets Charge as well as the Texas Brigade attack through Devils Den. Gaines Mill, Malvern Hill, Wilderness, Second Manassas, Sharpsburg. Put them in the trenches at Petersburg.

When you can tell vivid stories about what happened where they are standing and get them to imagine what it was like back then.

Good posts all.



Oh and one more thing. I leave toy soldiers and reenactment stuff around the house. It gets destroyed and lost, but whatever. It gets used at least.

There are boxes of tin soldiers under the Christmas tree but my kids don't know it.

Moreover, how do girls become interested in history? My mom has been doing genealogy for years but I don't know why it clicks with her. The amount of information she knows about frontier Virginia, North Carolina and south Carolina is astounding. A few years back she trekked back into a swamp in SC to see an archaeological dig. Sounded awesome.

Another good day trip from most of Texas is the National Musuem of the Pacific War (Nimitz Musuem) in Fredericksburg.

I haven't been there since I was a kid, but I have heard they put in interactive and other kid oriented displays.

Texas Yarddog said:

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Another good day trip from most of Texas is the National Musuem of the Pacific War (Nimitz Musuem) in Fredericksburg.

I haven't been there since I was a kid, but I have heard they put in interactive and other kid oriented displays.

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I bought this book:

1001 Things to Spot from Long Ago

It's a fun picture finding book at base level. I ask my kids questions about the pictures to lead them into discovery. Sort of like a Socratic method.

Such as the castle scene on the cover:
1. Why did they need walls?
2. What is the water around the castle for?
3. Why aren't they using tractors to pull the carts?
4. How long ago do you think this was?
5. Who would live in the castle? (The king, queen etc. which leads into..)
6. What made them king? Why don't we have a king?

I have found that asking them these things, rather than just telling them allows them to be more involved. Figuring stuff out makes it a little more memorable and fun. We go down different historical "rabbit holes" from just one pictures. For example, there is a "Middle Ages Feast" picture, and it shows the people eating which peacocks and other weird things on the table. We went into a long discussion about why we now eat some birds or animals and not others.... and how some cultures still eat weird things like dogs, horses, etc.

They have kind of outgrown this book, but I still use this method when we go places.

VanZandt92 said:

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Moreover, how do girls become interested in history? My mom has been doing genealogy for years but I don't know why it clicks with her. The amount of information she knows about frontier Virginia, North Carolina and south Carolina is astounding. A few years back she trekked back into a swamp in SC to see an archaeological dig. Sounded awesome.

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Don't know. Both my brother and I are ACW and military history fiends. My sister was right there with us on all of our vacations and trips to the battlefields that my dad took us to. Exposed to the same library at home. Doesn't give two cents for it.

I am very jealous of my brother. Lives about a mile from the intersection of Highways 15 and 50 in Loudoun County, Virginia at the base of Bull Run Mountain. Had more Civil War Era soldiers march past his house that you can shake a stick at. Mosby even stood on his front porch was ambushed by union cavalry a stones throw away. Teaches school in Leesburg. Walks through Ball's Bluff Battlefield every day at lunch.

I hate him.

VanZandt92 said:

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Moreover, how do girls become interested in history? My mom has been doing genealogy for years but I don't know why it clicks with her. The amount of information she knows about frontier Virginia, North Carolina and south Carolina is astounding. A few years back she trekked back into a swamp in SC to see an archaeological dig. Sounded awesome.

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I think, like with boys, it depends upon their own inclinations. My parents loved going to off- the-wall museums, antique stores, cemeteries, and battle sites when our family traveled, and I was a fidgety kinda gal so they learned pretty quickly that while my brother could stroll slowly through a museum for hours, I needed more activity and especially something relatable.
For example, I loved the 'Little House' books by Laura Ingalls Wilder so I was excited when they took me to visit a Living History farm and get to make things the way she might have (the hands on component the other poster was talking about). Later as a young adult I participated in a class at a historical site where we cooked breakfast the way they did in Victorian times. I learned pretty quickly that those old stoves were tricky!
It was not so much that I was interested in 'girl stuff' as much as a lot of the war history/battlefields focused more on guy stuff at a time when it didn't really hold much interest for me. As I grew older and realized that history is so much more than that, then my general interest grew.*
I was fortunate enough to have parents that helped nurture the spark (cooking and growing up in pioneer times) and helped it to expand and grow from there.

*It probably helped that as I grew older and had read so much more, history began to make more 'sense,' if you will. For some children, context is everything. Also, like the poster above noted, school begins to cover history in more depth as the grade level increases. History is such a broad subject and I am thankful that I was encouraged to follow the rabbit holes that intrigued me.

You all have been to some neat places with your families!

Rabid Cougar said:

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VanZandt92 said:

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Moreover, how do girls become interested in history? My mom has been doing genealogy for years but I don't know why it clicks with her. The amount of information she knows about frontier Virginia, North Carolina and south Carolina is astounding. A few years back she trekked back into a swamp in SC to see an archaeological dig. Sounded awesome.

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Don't know. Both my brother and I are ACW and military history fiends. My sister was right there with us on all of our vacations and trips to the battlefields that my dad took us to. Exposed to the same library at home. Doesn't give two cents for it.

I am very jealous of my brother. Lives about a mile from the intersection of Highways 15 and 50 in Loudoun County, Virginia at the base of Bull Run Mountain. Had more Civil War Era soldiers march past his house that you can shake a stick at. Mosby even stood on his front porch was ambushed by union cavalry a stones throw away. Teaches school in Leesburg. Walks through Ball's Bluff Battlefield every day at lunch.

I hate him.

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Dang that is awesome!

I do live by the Great Wagon Road, which, in terms of Civil War, was the road of Stonemans Raid and the Battle of Shallow ford. Also, many armies marched along the road .

I need to get some old maps and find the roads of the era. I got that ACW road info from neighbors. I guess it's all true. Stonemans cavalry raid definitely rode through here.

VanZandt92 said:

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We're all in. We are Revolutionary War reenactors. These pics should summarize . I have posted some here before:

Audrey at Halifax Historic Site in NC



Nathaniel at Mt Vernon


?oh=51d17d3e1f33e92f8d6820aab246296e&oe=58F67670

MAttie at Williamsburg

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That's me standing beside my daughter while Washington addresses her.

I just wanted to thank you guys for the advice. Merry Christmas to all. And have a Historical New Year

Lewis and Clark Living History Pompeys Pillar- Billings , Mt. Sept.2006


Bismarck , ND October 2005

Fourth of July Creek, Atchison, Kan 2004. Actual location of camp made on 4 July 1804 at confluence of Creek and Missouri River, which is now three miles away.

I have more but none on a web site to be able to post. Both of my boys made at least 7 of the 14 Major events that took place from 2003 to 2006.
As I said before, the oldest is very much into history. The youngest, who too part in more of events, not so much.
It is a hit or miss on the parents effort..

I do want to post this one. I think I have posted before so pardon me if I did so.
Me in an 1802 U.S. Army Fatigue Uniform at Atchison, Kansas 2004. The overshirt/workshirt is made of hemp. This hung at the Pentagon on the Army Section's Inner Corridor from 2004 to 2006.

And Merry Christmas to all of you and your families!

Rabid Cougar said:

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I do want to post this one. I think I have posted before so pardon me if I did so.
Me in an 1802 U.S. Army Fatigue Uniform at Atchison, Kansas 2004. The overshirt/workshirt is made of hemp. This hung at the Pentagon on the Army Section's Inner Corridor from 2004 to 2006.

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That's awesome