Need help to make history units

[Cindy]

DS has Down Syndrome. I am trying to make up some History units. He is not interested in traditional history in books. He just sits there as we look at it together. We did the Pilgrims in Nov. and he was not at all interested in their clothing, why they came, the Indians, the Mayflower, etc.

He is now 11, and is reading short vowel words, some sounding out, and learning to add with Numicon. Science is easy he loves to look at things and take them apart. We have been studying parts of the human body and doing a state bird every couple of weeks.

Any ideas of units that might interest him. My letter to the school district at the beginning of the year I said that we would be doing selected units from the 4th grade texts. Well that isn't happening as I can't see him getting into anything in the text.

[TamieJP]

Does he like picture books? Perhaps you could read a long selection of items of the Revolution. Then move on to picture books about the colonies of the USA.

Does he like to watch TV? Maybe some videos to go with the picture books would be what he likes.

Have you seen Lapbooks? I guess you'd be doing the majority of the work but maybe he'd find interest in the topics you have him glue into the lapbooks.

[Cindy]

I was thinking about Lapbooks. I haven't made any before. I am thinking that he might enjoy them. We made a book abour 4 years ago when we went to the zoo. "I see the lion," "I see the deer" etc. He still likes to go through it and can read much of it now.

[Lily]

Lapbooks... journals.... field trips with discussion after ( we would talk at the dinner table about them... or get together with friends)

[LaurieS]

History was a difficult concept for Nevin. So for history we started by trying to develop his understanding of timelines. We started with the timeline of Nevin....... his birth (with pictures), his 1 year birthday, 5 year birthday, last birthday.....

Then we eventually started adding more things to it by going backwards...... siblings births, our marriage, etc.

It seemed to help his history concepts.......

here's a picture of the first timeline we made........

http://share.shutterfly.com/action/welc ... W7Rm2btWbv

Nevin eventually gained some interest in history..... but it took a while.