Teaching Canadian History With My Canadian Time Capsule – Hands-On History
You can take Canadian History from boring to fun with My Canadian Time Capsule, an online hands-on history program.
If there was one class in high school I hated more than math it was history. It was dry and boring. I never understood the point!
It wasn’t until I was married and my husband, who loves history, took me to national historic sites and museums that I began to understand how amazing history can be.
Over the years in our homeschool, we had touched on bits and pieces of Canadian History in our studies but I struggled to teach it in our homeschool as a full course.
Using Canadian History Textbooks
I tried my best to pull together a program of study from homeschool resources I had on hand and could get from our local library for my son.
It wasn’t enough. Oh, he learned dry facts and figures.
He slogged his way through it and was glad when he could check it off and move on.
Did it meet the requirements? Yes. But that was not exactly the feeling I wanted him to have about our history program.
Why Teach Canadian History?
History is old, boring, dull, and has nothing to do with us… right?
That is what my teenage self thought and felt. But the truth is, history impacts us more than we like to admit.
Learning about what happened in the past helps us know how and why the world is the way it is now.
They say, “Hindsight is 20/20” meaning it is easy to know the right thing to do after it has happened. In the same way, studying what happened in the past can help us learn from the mistakes made and make better choices in the future.
Disclosure: I may receive commissions for purchases made through links in this post.
Canadian History Books:
The Kids Book of Canada
The Kids Book of Canadian HistoryCanada Coloring Book For Kids: Beautiful Canada Landscapes,Scenic Lovers for kids simple pictures, Kindergartners And Preschoolers, Perfect Gift For Canada Lovers, easy to colorCanada Year by Year
Learning about Canadian history helps us understand our own culture better and learn more about how Canada relates to other countries. It’s also about learning empathy and how to examine experiences from someone else’s eyes.
Why Canadian History Is Considered Boring
Canadian history is often a bunch of dry facts in a textbook. Read the chapter, answer the questions, write the report, and take the test. Done.
Does anyone else remember that or just me?
Any history taught that way is boring. What makes Canada’s history even harder to teach is that it isn’t really that long and doesn’t have some of the big, explosive events that draw attention if you only look at the big picture.
The key is to lean in close and see the small moments! Getting to the ground level and seeing history as it happens changes the viewpoint and when that shift happens you’ll find that Canadian history can be pretty cool!
How To Make Canadian History Fun
Lisa, the creator of My Canadian Time Capsule, shares how to make history fun in this video.
One of the points I loved was the importance of us, as parents, being excited about what we are teaching our kids. When my husband talks about history his eyes light up and the kids pay attention.
We also need to include the things our kids love. We started visiting national historic sites around us such as the Halifax Citadel National Historic Site. Walking the hill, exploring the buildings, and being able to hold actual history in your hands brought history alive!
Using My Canadian Time Capsule To Make History Fun
When I realized I needed to teach Canadian history at the high school level to my daughter I knew I needed some help.
As a working mom, I wondered how to make Canadian History more enjoyable. I wanted to make it fun, hands-on, and exciting! But I didn’t have the time to pull something like that together myself.
This is why I was excited when Lisa, from The Canadian Homeschooler, let me try My Canadian Time Capsule with my daughter. In exchange for access to the membership, I agreed to share our thoughts on how the program worked for us.
What Is My Canadian Time Capsule
My Canadian Time Capsule is a 12-month hands-on, interactive unit study program focusing on various Canadian history moments.
You know those fun subscription boxes you can get in the mail each month? My Canadian Time Capsule is a digital subscription box that focuses on history.
It’s a monthly, hands-on, choose-your-own-adventure style membership where you can dig into specific moments of Canadian history and experience it.
Each month, you will get access to a new Time Capsule, a moment in Canadian history, filled with resources, activities, printables, and more.
The goal of each capsule is to immerse yourself in that single moment and take a look around. Its intention is to get you and your children excited, interested, and learning that Canadian history isn’t boring after all.
One really great aspect of My Canadian Time Capsule is that every child learns through different methods, you’ll find a variety of activities, including:
- Videos
- Online games
- Mapping
- Art
- Writing
- Crafts
- Experiments
- Music
- Books
- Cooking
- Games
- and more.
What Topics In Canadian History Will You Study?
One thing to keep in mind is that My Canadian Time Capsule is NOT a comprehensive chronological look at Canadian history.
This is great because instead of following a timeline, you get to jump from moment to moment to focus on interest and curiosity.
Each month includes a new aspect of Canadian History to discover.
If she completed everything early we took time to dive deep into anything that caught her attention and she could do extra reading, projects, and activities if she wanted to.
Currently, there are 12 units but more may be added in the future.
The current history units are:
- The Klondike Gold Rush
- Les Voyageurs
- Women & the Vote
- The Vikings
- The Halifax Explosion
- The Underground Railroad
- The Canadian Pacific Railway
- The Great Depression
- War of 1812
- Frank Slide
- New France
- Battle of the Plains of Abraham
What I really loved as a busy mom is that it is totally done for you. I didn’t have to do anything but maybe pick up a few supplies. Most of them I had in the house but a few like chocolate chips for the cookies had to be purchased.
My daughter loved building and being able to express her creativity with this online learning program.
What Does Each Canadian Time Capsule Include?
Each monthly lesson includes different interactive resources, such as:
- A Note to Parents
- Mapping
- Book suggestions
- Watch a Video
- Web Quest
- Primary Sources
- Read a Book
- When you have completed the lesson you can print off your stamp
Building History Connections
Learning new information is great but when you can connect it to something you already know and build on it, that is when the magic really happens.
We made a family trip to Halifax, Nova Scotia, and visited Citadel Hill and the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic. They have a terrific display for the Halifax Explosion, which you will note was one of the topics in My Canadian Time Capsule.
While there we saw the beautiful Hope and Survival Quilt. Barbara Orr, the little girl who flew a quarter of a mile in the air is shown on the quilt.
The kids learned a lot visiting the museum and it was amazing to see the dots connect when my daughter did the topic in My Canadian Time Capsule.
Because it was a topic she was already familiar with she was excited to dig in and see what else she would discover.
One of the activities in the Halifax Explosion lesson was to create an Emergency Preparedness Plan. We get a lot of storms and this lesson was very practical. I love it when what you are learning has practical and real-life value.
Digging Deep For Your Older Kids
The program is recommended for children from about grade 5 and up it is easy to scale up for high school.
My Canadian Time Capsule encourages conversations and connections with your kids. Get involved in what your child is learning. Craft, draw, sketch, and explore right along with them.
Dig deeper with these 11 thought-provoking questions:
- How is Canada different from other countries at this time?
- How far our world has come in the last 10, 50, 100, or 1000 years?
- How have events influenced other cultures and communities?
- What impact has what you learned had on cultures and communities throughout the years up until today?
- How can we learn from past mistakes?
- What did they do right?
- Can we see patterns in our history that need to be broken?
- Can we see patterns that need to be kept?
- Did this event cause a major change?
- Did this event influence or have a meaningful part in the story of the world?
- What value does this event have to the big picture?
Add In Historical Fiction
Look for historical fiction books designed for tweens or teens. These books are not too hard of a read. They also don’t require large commitments of time, while being fast-paced, which helps keep the child’s attention.
How To Access My Canadian Time Capsule
As a tired mom sometimes simple things are … hard. As much as I love this program I did struggle to figure out how to access it.
Here are the instructions in case you have 5:30 pm brain too!
- Purchase My Canadian Time Capsule.
- Choose the monthly or annual pass, the annual pass is the better deal. Note the prices are in Canadian Dollars.
- Check your inbox for instructions.
- Click the link and you will be taken to the library which has a TON of information and is where I got lost.
- On the left choose “memberships”
- Choose already registered, and you are in!!
Is My Canadian Time Capsule Right For Your Family?
If you are studying Canadian history this year and want to ditch the dry textbooks I highly recommend My Canadian Time Capsule.
Although it is recommended for children from about grade 5 and up it is easy to scale up or down depending on your children.
I adjusted it for my daughter by giving her a lot of free time to dig into anything that caught her attention. She did extra research, used lego to build models of what she learned, and sketched, and baked.
Not being stuck to a timeline was great. You can also print off a timeline for your kids to make the visual connection when something was happening.
Although the course is accessible online, the activities themselves are a combination of videos, printables, activities, online games and research, and more.
This program is faith-neutral. That means while most units will not need to discuss religion for the ones that do, it will be from a historical viewpoint and not a personal one
My Canadian Time Capsule is available in either a monthly or yearly subscription. When you purchase My Canadian Time Capsule, you will get access to a new unit every month for 12 months. When a new unit is unlocked, you will have lifetime access to the program materials.
You can learn more here: My Canadian Time Capsule
Curriculum Help:
- Online Homeschool Language Arts Curriculum for High School
- CTCmath For Homeschooling
- How To Make A Homeschool Transcript
Are you studying Canadian History this year? What resources are you using? I’d love to know. Leave me a comment below.
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Hi, I’m Jen. I help working moms juggle their career and homeschool their kids by providing support, systems and tools. You are warmly invited to Join the Online Community Here!
