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americancivilwar

18 American History Board Games Which Brings History to Life

October 30, 2022 | Leave a Comment
This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

Today, I have 18 American history board games which breathe life into your history teaching. You’ll love the other history games I have too.

I am a big fan of gameschooling.

No matter what your homeschooling style is, gameschooling can add a fun element which helps kids retain more than just facts.

Playing American history games can help them gain an understanding of the why, how, where, when, and who of history through learning geography, trivia, strategy, and general information.

Today we are focusing on some American history board games to add to your homeschool day.

I have drawn deep from the Amazon well and found games to cover quite a few major periods of American history and they’re ones we’ve used too.

From the first people that set sail on the soil of the new world to revolutions, Civil War within America, westward expansion to a cover up at the Watergate hotel, your kids will love them.

American History Games

You can play them at home as a supplement to your history lessons or in place of a lesson some days for a fun break.

They are a great tool for co-op days as well.

And small card games can be great for waiting at restaurants or doctor’s offices.

Additionally, look at some of the topics your child can learn about.

  • Political History
  • Social History
  • Economic History
  • Religious History
  • Diplomatic History
  • Art History
  • Women’s History
  • Science/Medicine History
  • Food History
  • Environmental History

Then there are academic skills as well. Look at this list below.

  • reading fluency
  • comprehension
  • problem solving skills
  • critical thinking, reasoning
  • self regulation
  • verbal communication skills
  • increased vocabulary
  • social skills, patience, resilience, logic,
  • and a lot more skills that come with board game play whether its trivia, strategy, or role playing.

Did I also mention that a lot of these games below will also teach civics, geography, math and science? Yes! yes!

Other Fun History Games Resources

Too, look at these other fun history games resources:

  • Easy Hands-on Fun Ancient Greek Games for Kids DIY Knucklebones
  • Unit Study: French Revolution + Free Storming the Bastille Game
  • 7 Super Fun History Games to Bring the Past to Life
  • Free Ancient Egypt Mehen Printable Board Game (Hands-on History)
  • Free Ancient Greece Go Fish Game – Ancient Greece Unit Study
  • 13 Free and Fun BEST Printable History Board Game

You’re sure to find something here to go with your unit studies, unschooling, relaxed schooling, or gameschooling.

Let’s jump into finding your family the perfect American history board game.

18 American History Board Games to Bring History to Life

No matter what your homeschooling style is, gameschooling can add a fun element that really helps kids retain more than just facts.

1775 Rebellion The American Revolution | Board Game |

A historical strategy boardgame that takes you into battle with a bright beautiful map and several historical scenarios to help with game play.

Professor Noggin's History of The United States Trivia Card Game

FUN FACTS: Get ready for a fun card game that teaches about famous discoveries, people of the Revolution, and African Americans in history!  This kids card game makes learning history fun for all ages!

Professor Noggin's American Revolution Trivia Card Game

FUN FACTS: The American Revolution was a serious time in history when thirteen colonies joined together to break away from the British Empire.  In this kids card game, adults and kids can have fun learning the history of our great North America!  Topics include Life before the war, Heroes, and the Battle for the Sea.

Professor Noggin's Civil War Trivia Card Game

FUN FACTS: History can be a tough subject to make fun for some children.  The Civil War card game takes fun facts beyond dates and timelines to make it an interesting and engaging subject to learn about.  Famous Battles, Heroes, and 'Life As..' topics make this a fun kids card game.

American History Deck

A simple deck of cards for playing whatever card game you like but this one features American historical figures and comes with a book to tell about each. But you can use these for other things
too…Can’t decide who to learn about next? Draw a card to pick. Take out one of each figure and have your child line them up in timeline order. Call out a historical fact about one of the figures and have your child flash the matching
person. 

Fifty-two portraits adorn these 55 cards of this stately deck. The four suits are periods of U.S. History-Colonial, Federal, Civil War and Frontier. These include a detailed biographical booklet and rules for various card games. 

TUSA US Presidents Card Game

Entertaining, educational card game brings American history to life

Find out which year Jimmy Carter took office, whose presidency saw the first American in space, and how many pets Calvin Coolidge owned

American Trivia Game

FUN PARTY GAME: American Trivia features two-sided cards, with 1,000 questions that cover five categories: Geography, History, Pop Culture, Sports, and General trivia. Making this a great party game that can be played by a wide range of ages.

The Oregon Trail: Journey to Willamette Valley by Pressman

It's a race to Willamette Valley as you join the wagon train and seek your fortune in the West!

Place tiles to discover the trails, rivers, forts, and towns that lie ahead

Constitution Quest Game

Simple directions with added twists for fun, interesting, engaging game play

Play in less than an hour...the more you play, the more you learn!

Catan Histories: Settlers of America Board Game

Catan is a homeschooling favorite and there are many version and expansions.

This one is set in a young United States and explores the country by laying railroads to move and transport goods around the country.

Ticket to Ride Board Game |

STRATEGY GAME: Build your tracks across the United States in this fast-paced and strategic board game. Connect iconic North American cities across a map of the 20th-century USA and build your train routes to earn points

Freedom The Underground Railroad | Board Game

A very important part of history was the Underground Railroad, players of this cooperative game become abolitionists raising money and helping escaped slaves to freedom.

Watergate

Learn about the events, the people, and the politics of one of the biggest presidential scandals in history in this two player card game. One player is the Nixon Administration and the other is a
journalist gathering evidence.

Bold Made Card Games Features Portraits of Amazing Women in History

MADE FOR ALL AGES - This fun card game is designed for the whole family. It's perfect for bonding with kids, chlidren, teens, adults and grand parents. Bust it out during a reunion and watch everyone dive in! Perfect family games for kids 4 and up!

Historical Miniatures Battle Game

For the child that is wild about military history this is a great strategy game that you will want to add to your collection. Lead your little troupe of plastic army men to battle with accurate historical terrain and objectives.

Monopoly World War II

Is there anything they haven’t made into a Monopoly game? Properties are named after famous battles and there are WWII facts on the backs of the property cards as well.

The Colonists

The Colonists is a strategy game where you work to establish and develop a new colony. While it does not specifically teach about American Colonies it gives a good understanding of what was needed for one.

Deal or Duel Hamilton Game: An Alexander Hamilton Card Game

In the face of the political instability and financial turmoil of the American Revolution, only one individual always came out on top: Alexander Hamilton. Pit your survival instincts and spending savvy against all the founding fathers (and mothers) in this historic action card game whose simple objective is as old as Ameritocracy itself: get all the money or die trying.

Leave a CommentFiled Under: Teach Homeschool History Tagged With: american history, americancivilwar, early American history, games, hands on history, history, history resources, historyspine, homeschoolhistory, modern history

15 EASY History Ideas for Homeschooled Kids Who Don’t Like School

May 4, 2020 | 2 Comments
This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

As a history lover I find dates meaningless; I totally sympathize with home educators and kids alike who hate anything school-ish, but I especially feel your pain when learning history. With these 15 history ideas for homeschooled kids who don’t like school, I know you’ll find one or two fun things you can use.

The first tool I use to bring history to life are (1) lapbooks.

I’m not the craft lover. However, I found a way to use lapbooks for my kids which benefited them and brought history to life.

15 EASY History Ideas for Homeschooled Kids Who Don’t Like School

Using lapbooks as a way to feed a kid’s passions and adding enrichment has been one of the best ways I’ve taught my kids.

I came close to giving up lapbooks because I over worked it. We almost went from lapbook lovers to lapbook haters. Read how I fought back and made lapbooks suit our purpose. My tips are here at Beware of the 3 C’s of Lapbooking. Don’t make my mistakes for beginner lapbookers.

Also, I have more than 30 history lapbooks here on my site.

Click on UNIT STUDIES on my site for the drop down menu where I divided the lapbooks by time period.

Another way to teach your kids is to do what kids naturally like which is to read (2) stories or to be read to.

15 History Ideas for Homeschooled Kids

You can present history stories in at least two ways.

First, you can use laid out history curriculum like Story of the World which has a reader and hands-on activities to go along with each period of history.

We loved this series.

Second, use a living book or story book.

Look at these series of books.

  • The who was/what was books. There are over a 150 books or topics to choose from.

  • Also, the American Girl Historical Characters series is historical fiction. The series is a fun way to make history meaningful.
  • Another series kids love is the Horrible History books which has British humor. The books are full of jokes about history.

Your kids will love learning about the smelly parts to history. Horrible History also has a YouTube channel which I listed below.

  • You Wouldn’t Want to Be is another fun series we are trying too.

Homeschool History Field Trips

Additionally, history just doesn’t come from stories, but it’s learned through (3) field trips.

If your kid is turned off to books because he learned from boring books, then take field trips in person and take virtual field trips.

Taking a trip through a cemetery brings enough mystery into learning history for the day.

Walking through the house of a pioneer family or visiting a one-room schoolhouse gives your child a picture of what life was back in the day. A tiny spark of love for the past can be ignited from a fun field trip.

Look at my post 22 Awesome Homeschool History Field Trips for ideas of places to visit and look below at a few ideas for virtual field trips:

  • Buckingham Palace
  • Mount Vernon
  • Ellis Island
  • The Great Wall of China
  • The White House

Too, a (4) geography twist makes a wonderful slant on history.

We used the Ancient Empires to learn about continents and not only did we learn about countries we found interesting, but we learned their history while having fun with a group of other homeschooling families.

 In our co-op each family chose a country, created a pizza box display, came in costumed dress for the country they represented, and made a delicious recipe to share with others.

Look here at my post Amazing Hands-on History Activities for 14 Ancient Empires (free notebook cover too) to see how we used it.

Make your co-op as big or as small as you want. However, some kids do quite well learning with others about subjects which they consider boring.

Homeschool History Curriculum

Another study of history and science with a geography angle using living books is one by Beautiful Feet. Your kids will love the science slant.

There are no shortages of FANTASTIC ways to cover history through geography by focusing on a country.

Case of Adventure is another one we loved.

Destination Scotland - CASE OF ADVENTURE

What I like about Case of Adventure is being able to focus deep on just one country through a story and lapbooking and notebooking type of activities.

Case of Adventure - Country-Themed Kids Activity Books

Another interactive way to learn history is to (5) look real close at your own circle of family and friends.

Use what you already have at your disposal. Most people, even acquaintances, love to help educate kids.

Interview people who are from other countries or who lived through certain periods of history. It can be your parents, grandparents, or extended family member or even a friend who is well-traveled.

My kids interviewed my mom who grew up picking cotton and farming; they interviewed a close family friend of ours from Africa. The friend of ours from Africa cooked my kids soup from her country and showed them handmade objects in her house from her native country.

Speaking of connections, another friend of ours was an international flight attendant. I got creative again. There is no harm in asking.

We ask her to take pictures of each country she visited and pick up a few mementos. She was happy to oblige and told us it gave her something to do on the layover. We gave her a few dollars to spend.

She couldn’t bring back a lot from different countries since her suitcases were small, but candy and key chains make great mementos to study about from other countries.

We still have our kimonos from Japan. The items from Japan were some of the ones my kids really loved. Mementos gave my kids something to hold and look at which cemented cultural awareness and love of people and history.

Homeschool History Unit Studies

Did I mention the pictures she took of the local people, food, and costumes made for a fantastic study? We couldn’t wait for her to get back from each flight.

  • Japanese fan
  • Chopsticks
  • Japanese kimono
  • Cool keychains

Another slant I took with my kids which they really loved was to look at a period of history through a (6) real person or (7) event/place which piqued my boys’ interest.

Feed and fan a history love for your kids by basing your teaching on your kids interests.

An example of how I did this was our Wyatt Earp unit study for a history character and the FBI for an agency or interesting place to learn about.

Choosing a character or event/place has a helpful side benefit. Your topics and time period are considerably narrowed. Your child and you have a starting point for learning history.

Look at Free American History Lapbook – The Old West Through the Life of Wyatt Earp.

Narrowing your focus only to the time period of your history character and learning where he lived and traveled, what was life like during his lifetime, and significant events in his life ties history to a real person. It’s a life study.

This same outline of how to teach history focusing on a person applies to a place. The FBI unit study topic was narrowed down to when it came to existence and events during modern times.

Homeschool History Media and YouTube

In addition, (8) media and/or YouTube channels can revive the love for learning history.

Look at a few of these.

  • The Horrible History YouTube channel.
  • The Simple History channel is another fun site.
  • If you have Prime Video then Drive Thru History is another option for an older learner.
  • Timeline – World History Documentaries is another channel for older learners. From the site: “We’ll be exploring the mysteries of ancient Egypt, shedding light on the dark ages of medieval Europe and examining the First and Second World Wars.”
  • Liberty Kids on YouTube is another big hit for fun history.
  • The Armchair Historian another great twist on history. From the site: “The Armchair Historian is a history channel specializing in animated military history.” Pretty cool.
  • Crash Course. Click on the playlists.
  • American the Story of US is also on Prime Video or DVD and excellent for older learners.

Studying (9) art history is another unique way to study history.

If you have an art lover or even a kid who loves to draw, they’ll tolerate history with a focus on culture.

Art is the way persons or cultures of the past express emotions about day to day life whether it’s appeasing their gods or crafting items for everyday use. It’s a great angle to teaching history.

Look at Art History Kids.

Homeschool History Tips

Look at these other unusual approaches to teaching history. (10, 11,12,13,14)

  • Study women in history.
  • Cooking time period recipes. Look at these historic recipes.
  • Study fashion through the ages of history. Look at my post Bring History To Life With Historical Costumes: Fun, Fashion and Unforgettable.
  • Learn history though a movie like Star Wars to learn about battle tactics and apply to modern day.
  • Learn fictional history from a novel like Lord of the Rings. Learn about Middle Earth and bring history alive through fiction. The Lord of the Rings has it own geography, history, languages, and legends.

Finally, the last fun way to make history fun for the kid who is most challenging to teach is to use (15) history games. You can learn so much from board games and they don’t have to cost a lot.

Look at these 13 Free and Fun BEST Printable History Board Game. Also, check out the ones at Homeschool in the Woods.

Recap 15 History Activities

Look at these ideas in a nutshell for you:

  • Lapbooks
  • Stories
  • Fieldtrips
  • Add a geography twist
  • Look to family and friends
  • Look at history through a historical person
  • Learn history through an event
  • Watch videos/use media
  • Learn history through art
  • Study women in history
  • Learn history through cooking
  • Learn history through fashion
  • Lean history through a movie
  • Learn history through a novel
  • Learn history through a game
15 EASY History Ideas for Homeschooled Kids Who Don’t Like School

You’ll love these other resources I have:

  • How to Create a Creditworthy American History Course (& resources)
  • 7 Unique Ways to Supplement U.S. History for High School
  • 4 Shortcuts to Teach Hands-on American History in Half the Time
  • How to Teach History in 14 Lessons (From Daunting to Doable)
  • 10 Early American History Events that Happened in Fall for Homeschool Middle or High School
  • Start the Homeschool Year Off Right: 5 History Ideas for the First Week
  • Medieval Homeschool History – 4 Surefire Ways to Beat a Boring Study

What do you think? These 15 unusual homeschool history ideas should at least get a nod or two yay from even the most stubborn learner.

Hugs and love ya,

2 CommentsFiled Under: Hands-On Activities, Teach Homeschool History Tagged With: american history, americancivilwar, early American history, hands on history, history, history resources, historycostumes, historyspine, homeschool, homeschoolhistory, medieval homeschool history, middle ages history, modern history, movies, secularhistory

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