Hands-On History: Ancient Technology

The topics we cover in ancient history may seem a bit irrelevant to some (foolish) kids, but when we use hands-on, project-based learning, we give our students a tangible, memorable connection to the material they are learning.  Conveniently, most ancient technology is so simple, kids can reconstruct it themselves.  Here are just a couple of …

Hands On History: Egyptian Senet

Kids just love studying ancient Egypt.  I never have a hard time getting them fired up about studying pyramids and mummies, as you can see from the KWL chart my 8th graders started below: (As a side note, I always photograph group brainstorms like this so that we can return to them later.  When we …

Hands-On History: Timelines

Teaching world history in a single year provides me with some exceptional challenges.  We cover so much content in such a short time that I really have to remain on track and make tough decisions about what we can and can't cover.  If you are teaching your own kids, I strongly recommend a four-year cycle for …

Mother Education: Read All The Things

A brief look into my own continuing education today. Our Archbishop recently sent a letter to all the schools that included some suggested reading from a chapter in Tom Wood's How The Catholic Church Built Western Civilization. As I teach Western Civ in a Catholic school, it seemed I should probably read the whole thing. …

“The Promise” for Educators

The film The Promise, which premiered at the end of April, chronicles the events of the Armenian Genocide, an often ignored episode of World War I in which 1.5 million Armenians perished under the government of the Ottoman Empire.  If you have not taken the time to see this movie yet, please do.   The word …