How to Teach Biographies
How to study humans throughout history, over all four classical cycles, Charlotte Mason-style.
How to Teach Biographies
Choose one or two people who you would like to study each term. You can either read about these people as a family, or each child who is able to read independently can study these people on their own. Or, perhaps you will read about one person as a family and have each child read about another person.
The people on the biography lists were assigned to a specific cycle and term. If you want to change this up, you’re welcome to! Also, because I scheduled the people to fit into a term, sometimes there are extra chapters assigned to a week, just to make it through an entire book in seven weeks. You can adjust this and take longer to study a person, if you prefer.
When you or your child sits down to read a biography, make sure to have the following tools on hand: a timeline book or book of centuries, maps of the world and of the U.S., and a writing utensil. Find the locations that are mentioned in the book. Write down the significant dates in your timeline book. This will solidify the learning and help tie it together to other subjects you read about with your child.
Have your child narrate what he or she learned. There are different ways to do this:
Have your child tell back what they learned in a chapter.
Ask your child to write or draw what they learned in a chapter.
Or, have your child give a presentation about the person, with visuals (like a poster board with pictures and words on it, or a slideshow presentation) at the end of the term.
OR, simply have your child narrate each week using #1 or #2, and then ask them to choose one person to give a presentation on at the end of the school year. If you would like to, you might have your child create a costume to dress up like the person they have chosen. This would be a fun event to invite grandparents to, or to do with a group of homeschool families.
When you choose a book, make sure to pay attention to the “Form.” The Forms are groups of grade levels:
Form 1: pre-K through 1st grade
Form 2: 2nd through 3rd grade
Form 3: 4th through 6th grade
Form 4: 7th through 8th grade
Form 5: 9th through 10th grade
If a book was placed under a “Form,” that means that the child should probably be in that Form (or higher) to read it independently. Any of the books listed can be read aloud, though you may want to check the content of some of the Form 4 and 5 books before reading them to a young child.
I am a big advocate of “Whole Family Homeschooling,” and Biographies are one of the topics that is easy to teach to all of your children at once. This can be done by reading one or two books aloud to your kids–or, have them narrate out loud to each other what they’ve been learning in a book.
The artists, composers and poets are listed under the appropriate terms, and you may want to touch on at least a little bit of information about these people each term. Some of these people have little to no resources written about them, anywhere, though. As I’ve scheduled the GLC reading plans, I have been able to see so many gaps in children’s literature! I have listed the people and whatever resources I could find. I will update these charts as I find more resources and send email updates to let you know!
I have also scheduled some Anthologies throughout the year. These are great books that teach about several different people throughout the year. Sometimes, there is a new person each week, with a single chapter about the person. And sometimes, like with the Hero Tales books, I have scheduled a person over two weeks.
Some of the people listed here are heroes who have done amazing things, and some are cautionary tales–people in history who made poor decisions and caused harm to people. We cannot ignore these people in history, and you get to decide if you would like to spend an entire term studying these people, or if you would like to cover them more quickly. I think learning about all kinds of people is important. Also, even the good people have some less-than perfect qualities–because they are not Christ. I share all of this just to encourage you to be discerning about the people your You know your child’s heart and I have confidence that you will choose the very best people and books for your child.
The picture books listed don’t have to be read on the exact week they were scheduled. You might get one or two and read them slowly through the term, or fill a basket with them and allow your children to read them during scheduled or unscheduled moments.Also, I’ve listed some “Fun Resources” under each person, whenever they were available. These are optional and can be used anytime during the term.
When multiple books are scheduled for one person, the intention is for you to be able to choose whichever book seems best for your family. Don’t worry, you don’t need to buy all of the books! You may find a book that is not listed here, and that’s okay, too! Just divide the number of chapters or pages by seven weeks. If you find a great resource you think I should add, email me: admin@gentlelearningco.com.
You may wish to print the reading schedules for people you have chosen for the year, or add the assignments to your homeschool planner or personalized spreadsheet. It is not necessary to print this entire document.
When more than one chapter is assigned to a week, I have typed each chapter on a separate line, so that the reading plan to be printed and used as a checklist throughout the term. As you read one chapter, put a checkmark by it or cross it out (or both), and move on to the next chapter on another day.
Click on the images below to see the cycles:
More Information: How the People Were Chosen
When I first considered adding a Biography component to The Gentle Learning Co. reading plans, I noticed that the majority of the people with books written about them would fall under Cycles 3 and 4 because of the years the people lived. There were hardly any biographies for Cycles 1 and 2. For example, our family really enjoys the YWAM Heroes of the Faith books, but all of those books were written about people in relatively modern times. Since I want children reading about lots of different people, and not just during two cycles, I decided that I needed a different way to divide up these biographies. I divided the names up based on the following ideas:
Geography
Claritas Publishing Memory Work
Anthologies
Geography
If one of the people was a missionary and worked in China, or Africa, or South America, I would put their name on a list for the cycle in which that particular geographical area is studied in the Claritas Publishing Memory Work.
Claritas Publishing Memory Work
The GLC cycles follow the same cycles as Claritas Publishing memory work. Some of the memory work includes names, under history topics and science topics. For example, Isaac Newton is mentioned in Cycle 4 because of Physics. Chemists are mentioned in Cycle 3, and astronomers are mentioned in Cycle 2. I placed these people’s names on the cycles in which their names are mentioned.
Anthologies
After I divided the names by Geography, Memory Work, and Time Period/Historic Events, Cycles 3 and 4 were still the cycles with the longest lists. I then looked at which anthologies fit each cycle the best. I skimmed through all of the Hero Tales books, From Jerusalem to Irian Jaya, the Ten Girls and Ten Boys books, and others. I assigned those books to each cycle, and then I noticed the names that were included in each book that had already been placed on a list for a different cycle. I decided to rearrange a few of these names, just to make them line up with the anthology assigned to the cycle and to even out the cycle lists a little more.