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10 Early American History Events that Happened in Fall for Homeschool Middle or High School

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This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

Do you know which event in Early American history was a milestone for freedom of press or who received the first American patent for salt-making? Also, look at my page homeschool middle school for more fun tips.

Studying Early American homeschool history should also include learning about culture, science, art and even sports. All of it embodies who Americans are today.

And when the temperature changes to a bit cooler outside, it’s a great time to focus on Early American history events that happened in fall.

10-early-american-history-events-that-happened-in-fall-for-homeschool-middle-or-high-school-tinas-dynamic-homeschool-plus

Grouping events by season is another way to have your middle or high school student remember things.

Look at these 10 Early American history events that happened in fall, which homeschool middle or high School kids can learn about.

10 Early American History Events that Happened in Fall

1565

ONE/ September 8, 1565. Spanish naval officer Pedro Menendez de Aviles founds St. Augustine, in northern Florida, the first permanent European colony in America.

1620

TWO/ November 21, 1620. The Mayflower Compact was signed aboard ship on November 11, 1620 by the Pilgrims.

They used the Julian calendar, also known as Old Style dates, which, at that time, was ten days behind the Gregorian calendar. Signing the covenant were 41 of the ship’s 101 passengers while the Mayflower was anchored in what is now Provincetown Harbor within the hook at the northern tip of Cape Cod.

1630

THREE/ September 30, 1630. John Billington, a Pilgrim, is hanged for murder. He is the first criminal to suffer capital punishment in the American colonies.

1636

FOUR/ October 28, 1636. Harvard College, the first college in America, is founded in a single frame house and college yard at Cambridge, Massachusetts, for the purpose of educating young men for the Puritan clergy.

1637

FIVE/ November 7, 1637. Anne Hutchinson is banished from the Massachusetts Bay Colony for preaching her belief that faith, not strict adherence to any body of orthodox theology, is sufficient for salvation.

1641

SIX/ October, 1641. The first American patent is issued by the Massachusetts Bay Colony to Samuel Winslow for a salt-making process.

Look at a few of these hands-on projects from Home School in the Woods which I love and make great additions to these topics.

American History Homeschool

1734

SEVEN/ October, 1734. John Peter Zenger, publisher of the New York Weekly Journal is arrested for seditious libel when he prints criticism of Governor William Cosby.

Andrew Hamilton defends him at trial in 1735 and secures his acquittal on the grounds that the truth can never be deemed libelous. The decision is a milestone in the principal of freedom of the press.

1763

EIGHT/ October, 1763. King George III issues a proclamation setting the Appalachian Mountains as the western limit of English settlement hoping to end a war between English colonists and Native Americans by stopping white invasion onto Native American lands.

This proclamation of 1763 brings temporary peace among some Native Americans but frontier settlers are outrages. Many historians see this defiance as the seed of the American Revolution.

1776

NINE/ September 9, 1776. The name “United States of America” is officially created by the Continental Congress.

1783

TEN/ September 3, 1783. British and American negotiators (including Benjamin Franklin, John Jay, John Adams and Henry Laurens) conclude the Treaty of Paris, ending the American Revolution and securing American Independence.

Don’t make the study of fun facts boring. Read about them, cover them and research if your student wants to or simply read them and move on.

Each event though makes for a great unit study and the best part is that they are easy to remember because they all happened in the fall.

Look at these other fall posts:

Hugs and love ya,

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World War II Hands-On History – Make Ration Cakes

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This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.


Continuing on with our War War II hands-on history unit study, we always manage to find a recipe or two that tastes pretty good and making ration cakes today was no exception. Also, you’ll love my other Homeschool Lapbooks – Powerful Tools For Mastery Learning on my page.

Tiny liked the taste of these spice cakes and grew to appreciate war time cooking.

However, he did say the cakes were an acquired taste. This recipe is butter-free, milk-free, egg-free and white sugar-free and helped him to appreciate to make do with what you had on hand to cook with.

World War II Hands-On History. Make Ration Cakes @ Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus

The recipe comes from the Great World War II Projects You Can Build Yourself book, which we are growing to love.

Hands-on History

Look at this pretty easy list of things you probably have in your house.

1. How to make World War II Ration Cakes @ Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup raisins
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp ground allspice
powdered sugar for dusting
Mixing bowl		3/4 cup honey
1 1/4 cup water
3 T. shortening like Crisco
1 1/4 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
12 paper cup liners/12 cup cupcake pan
Sauce pan

Preheat your oven to 325 degrees.

2. How to make World War II Ration Cakes @ Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus

First combine the honey, water, shortening, spices, salt and raisins in the sauce pan.  Heat on stove and bring to a boil for 5 minutes. Then turn off and let the mixture cool.

3. How to make World War II Ration Cakes @ Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus

In a mixing bowl, combine the rest of the ingredients, which are the flour, baking soda and baking powder. Mix it and you can sift the flour mixture for extra lightness, but Tiny didn’t. He just threw it all together.

4. How to make World War II Ration Cakes @ Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus

Then pour the cool liquid into the bowl and mix, but don’t overstir. Then pour the batter into cupcake liners and bake for 20 minutes or until the tops are golden brown.

5. How to make World War II Ration Cakes @ Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus

Next, Tiny sprinkles some powdered sugar on the top. The cakes were just perfect and helped us appreciate time period cooking.

Because we do our unit study and lapbooks too as we plod along, I never have lapbooks in one giant download.

I also do it this way so that you can grab just the parts you need instead of downloading minibooks you may not need.

More World War II Unit Study Hands-on Activities

World War II Hands-On History - Make Ration Cakes
World War II Hands-On History - Make Ration Cakes
World War II Hands-On History - Make Ration Cakes
World War II Hands-On History - Make Ration Cakes
World War II Hands-On History - Make Ration Cakes
World War II Hands-On History - Make Ration Cakes
World War II lapbook and homeschool history unit study.

How to Get the Free World War II Unit Lapbook

Now, how to grab the free lapbook. This is a subscriber freebie.

That means when you sign up to follow me, you get my emails in your inbox and you get this freebie.

► 1) Sign up on my list.

2) Grab the freebie instantly.

3) Last, look for all my emails in your inbox. Glad to have you following me!

Don’t forget to follow BOTH of my Pinterest accounts for more AWESOME pins.

Visit Tina Robertson’s profile on Pinterest.


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World War II Hands-On History – Make a Secret Message Deck

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This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

Today, we kicked off our homeschool unit study about World War II with a fun hands-on activity, which is making a secret card message deck.

World War II Hands-On History - Make a Secret Message Deck. What a FUN way to kick off your homeschool unit study. Check it out

Let me back up first because I want to share with you my original post where I gathered World War II Free Resources For a Middle School Unit Study.

Using some of those resources and sharing more as we now kick off our World War II unit study, I like to introduce new unit studies with a hands-on activity when possible.

Spies, Lies and Secrets in World War II

I grabbed some of the books we had and one we love is Great World War II Projects You Can Build Yourself, which I used on this activity to pique Tiny’s interest.

And what better way to learn about World War II than to learn about secrets, spies and a secret message card deck. Not only did we learn a  bit about spies but it was a chance to sneak in some geography in a cool way.

We read about how a deck of cards could conceal maps to safety. Decks could be soaked in water to take away the top layer and messages would be inside.

So we decided to try this.

1 WWII Secret Cards Activity @ Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus

Looked at what we grabbed.

  • 2 decks of matching cards
  • pen or marker
  • scissors
  • rubber cement (you know the kind with a brush in it)
  • map. I used a map from our WonderMaps which is worth every penny because this cool program can be used over and over. All the maps are listed by theme. So I grabbed the World War II theme.
World War II Hands-On History - Make a Secret Message Deck
2 WWII Secret Cards Activity @ Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus

So I printed the World War II map and then you fold the page in half lengthwise and into half again. Try to crease it well as you go along.

Secret Card Message Deck

Unfold it and smooth it out a bit and then fold it in half width wise, then again and one more time.

3 WWII Secret Cards Activity @ Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus

When you open it up, you will have 32 sections. Take a pen and number each section in the top left of each section until you get to 32.

4 WWII Secret Cards Activity @ Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus

Hands-on History

Then cut the 32 sections out and now you have 32 tiny pieces ready to stick inside the center of the cards.

5 WWII Secret Cards Activity @ Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus

Next match all the cards from each deck until you have all matching pairs.

Then Tiny placed a small piece or section on the card and carefully glued the second matching card on top.

More World War II Unit Study Hands-on Activities

Be sure to not glue the small piece of paper, just glue around the edges.

Important tip: Be sure the cards are facing the same direction so when you turn it over, it looks like one card. In other words it has one back side and one face card side. Cool uh!

6 WWII Secret Cards Activity @ Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus

Tiny presented the cards to Dad to see if he could guess what was different about them. He never guessed there was a small message inside each card.

Too, since a deck has 52 cards in it, there is room to make more spy messages.

Can you tell which cards have been “doctored” above and have a message in them?

And what is better yet is that the pieces of the secret message can be put back together to form the map.

Secret Message Map @ Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus

I think I have Tiny’s rapt attention on our unit study and he is ready to move on to the next part in our homeschool World War II unit study.
Because we do our unit study and lapbooks too as we plod along, I never have lapbooks in one giant download.

I also do it this way so that you can grab just the parts you need instead of downloading minibooks you may not need.

World War II Hands-On History - Make a Secret Message Deck
World War II Hands-On History - Make a Secret Message Deck
World War II Hands-On History - Make a Secret Message Deck
World War II Hands-On History - Make a Secret Message Deck
World War II Hands-On History - Make a Secret Message Deck
World War II Hands-On History - Make a Secret Message Deck
World War II lapbook and homeschool history unit study.

Hugs and love ya,

Signature T

Don’t forget to follow BOTH of my Pinterest accounts for more AWESOME pins.

Visit Tina Robertson’s profile on Pinterest.


Visit Tinas Dynamic Homeschool ‘s profile on Pinterest.

Start the Homeschool Year Off Right: 5 History Ideas for the First Week

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This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

Don’t follow me. Okay, wait follow me, just don’t do what I would do when I started the new homeschool year, which was BORING!

Look at starting the homeschool year off right by using some of these 5 history ideas for the first week or second, or . . .

Start the Homeschool Year Off Right. 5 History Ideas for the First Week @ Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus

Hands-on Homeschool History

One// Play a card game.

A few years ago, I reviewed a card game by Birdcage Press and we fell in love with it and added it to our history.

Also, this Ancient Egypt Top Trumps Card Game is another great option.

The best part about these card games is that it is for ages 6 to adult, so everybody can play together and start the year with a fun kick.

Two// Cook a meal or dish from a certain time period or event.

This is always a hit with the kids. Who doesn’t like to eat something delicious?

Then to add some science to our history we have been eyeballing this book, which is for middle grades but could easily be adapted for other grades.

Then, look at some of these dishes we have made:

Three// Grab my history coloring pages.

If you have kids that are younger, love to color, need a break or just want to do something different to start off history with, grab one or more of my fun 20 Ancient Civilization history coloring pages.

Four// Begin with a living book, which brings history alive.

Don’t start off your year with snoring boring textbooks (zzzzzzzzz). Grab one of these 20 Ancient Civilization History Living Books.

Five// Pop some popcorn and get your history on by watching a movie from Netflix.

Your kids will love you for this one because they’re not sure if you’re having school or learning. You’re doing both.

Look here at Homeschool History Teaching Ancient Civilizations Using Netflix.

If you want some more tips for teaching history, look here at

Avoid teaching history in a boring way, it’s not about dead people, but it’s about the events and details that bring history to life.

Hugs and love ya,

Signature T

Don’t forget to follow BOTH of my Pinterest accounts for more AWESOME pins.

Visit Tina Robertson’s profile on Pinterest.


Visit Tinas Dynamic Homeschool ‘s profile on Pinterest.

Medieval History for Homeschool Middle School

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This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

When I got our box of the Medieval History Pack history curriculum from Beautiful Feet Books, I almost passed out from excitement.  Also, look at my page homeschool middle school for more fun tips.

Medieval History for Homeschool Middle School using Beautiful Feet Books or history living books @ Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus

I was given free curriculum from Beautiful Feet Books and I was paid for my time. However, paid for my time does not mean paid off. All opinions are my own and for sure I will always tell you what is on my mind. When I do accept a review, it’s because I’m giddy to tell you about it. Read my full disclosure here.

For just a moment as I opened up the box from Beautiful Feet Books, I had a flashback to my public school high school years when I learned about the Middle Ages from a history teacher who wasn’t a rule-follower.

My teacher planned a huge high school medieval feast to kick off our study and because I answered the most questions correctly about medieval history, I was crowned medieval queen. Complete with costumes and activities, I won’t ever forget the fun of learning about history in the older grades.

Memory making moments from my high school years stuck with me and hands-on history and living books became part of my must-haves for my homeschool.

Beautiful Feet Books has been part of my homeschooling journey for many years because it fits my criteria of how history should be covered in the middle and high school years.

When my first son, Mr. Senior 2013 was in Kindergarten, I used Early American History with him. Next as I folded into my day Mr. Awesome 2016 and Tiny, we used the Early American and World History and the Medieval History Sr. High levels.

You can read my article, When We Used Beautiful Feet Books as our History Spine to grab more tips about how I use Beautiful Feet Books.

Beautiful Feet Books Living Literature for Middle School Homeschool @ Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus

However, because Tiny was young when I studied medieval history with my older two sons, I felt that Medieval History Pack was a better fit for us right now.

Living Literature Bringing Medieval History Alive

Look at some of the reasons why we love using the Medieval History Pack.

  • Living books should be a staple of any great course about history and we just can’t get our fill of them. Tiny started off reading The European World, Beowulf and then on to King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. We always have trouble following the teacher’s guide because once you get hooked on a living book, you can’t put it down. It’s important to mention here that though I have used a lot of living history books in our study, I value the fact that Beautiful Feet Books spends time culling over the very best ones so that I don’t have to. Again, with this level, we were not disappointed.
  • If you have kids that are middle or high school level, I know you can relate to the struggle in keeping history entertaining and educational because so many programs want to move away from interactive activities to exclusive book learning. Making us choose to either prepare a child for rigorous history in the upper grades or making it entertaining seems to be two choices homeschool curriculum providers throw at us. I reject that mentality which is why many times I come back to Beautiful Feet Books. They show us we can and should have both when we homeschool our older kids.
Beautiful Feet Teacher's Guide @ Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus
  • Also, the teacher’s guide gives me the freedom to incorporate living literature as a unit study because it is filled with teaching ideas, but it is not overly complicated. In other words, I don’t want to have to follow a schedule exactly, but just want a framework to work within.
  • However, if you run short on time the teacher’s guide has just enough guidance if you want it. For example, it has vocabulary words for the reading, ideas for hands-on activities, and of course geography and history helps.

How to Make Learning About Medieval Geography Stick

Medieval map work using living literature @ Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus

Another reason that we wanted to use Beautiful Feet Books was to incorporate geography in a hands-on way that sticks.

Don’t get me wrong. Computer programs and pre-labeled maps are super resources, but learning the nitty-gritty of geography happens when you can dive into it.

Middle Ages Map using Beautiful Feet Books @ Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus

Making a map of the medieval world as suggested in the teacher’s guide is what piqued our interest. Creating a hand-drawn map and taking time to label regions and cities helps Tiny to remember what Europe looked like back then.

We are off to a great start using his map and we can’t wait to add more to it as we will continue on with our study this year.

Does Teaching History Develop Essential Thinking Skills?

Beautiful Feet Books has never been about having to move fast with quick bites of history. I don’t want my sons rushed when it comes to understanding the ideals of the past because it affects the way people think today.

Too, let’s just face it. When it comes to medieval history, we not only want to dig deeper, but we want our kids to savor learning about knights, castles and jousting.

That takes time.

You’ll love these ideas for literature and hands-on ideas from Beautiful Feet Books.

Look at these other things I want you to know about.

  1. It is a 35 week program, which means it is a year long program. You just can’t rush the richness of the points learned in the literature.
  2. If you are looking for a day by day guide, this is not your program. If you want wiggle room to add your own spin to it but to have some ideas for each week, you’ll love the flexibility of the teacher’s guide. I added in our own science. Look at Medieval Chemistry and Homeschool History.
  3. With the book choices, it easily adaptable for high school. Look here at the suggested credits for high school.
  4. The teacher’s guide has answers and the definition of the vocabulary words in the back of the book. Did I mention it is in beautiful color?
  5. I did notice a few links that were not up to date, but I found them easily on the home page of the suggested link. Again, having the other links for extra reading is a huge benefit to helping Tiny understand this time period and I appreciate him being able to use his iPad along with reading the books.

I won’t hide my obvious bias and love toward Beautiful Feet Books because it has been around for a long time and there is a reason why. Simply, it works.

Learning about history should be action-packed and motivating. With a framework to work with for studying medieval history, you’ll love this curriculum.

You’ll want to see how I used one of the living books, The World of Columbus making 5 days of Free Printables for a unit study. Also, look at 8 Ways to Teach Homeschool History Other Than Chronologically and Should Homeschool History Be Covered in Chronological Order?

What do you think, will this curriculum work for you?

Hugs and love ya,

Signature T

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