Colonial History: A Family-Style History Program PDF

Course Overview

Colonial History is an activity-based history program. It covers all of the major civilizations that shaped world history including in Europe, Asia,  Africa, Oceania, and the Americas. Students learn to think about and analyze human behavior as revealed in our history while doing hands on activities, crafts, and experiments. The best part is the family-style design that allows you to teach all ages at once.

Learn more about how Layers of Learning works.

What’s In This PDF Set?

Colonial History includes nine individual month-long units including:

1. Age of Exploration – From Portugal and Henry the Navigator exploring the west coast of Africa to Magellan’s circumnavigation of the globe
2. Colonialism – the Portuguese and Spanish empires and the colonies of Britain, France, and the Netherlands until about 1700
3. Reformation – the religious wars of Europe that took place mostly in the 1600s as well as the Dutch War of Independence
4. India – The Mughal Empire and the British East India Company through the Raj period
5. Far East – Ming and Qing Dynasty China and Edo Japan
6. Aztecs, Incas, and Conquistadors – The civilizations of the Aztecs and Incas before the colonial period and then their conquest by the Spanish
7. Africa & the Slave Trade – northern sultanates, eastern empires, west coast kingdoms, the slave trade
8. South Pacific – Australia and New Zealand history and the voyages of Captain Cook
9. Enlightenment – this is the 1700s and 1800s in Europe when philosophers were challenging the power of monarchs, emperors, and the church

A Layers of Learning History Lesson

Each Exploration in the units is written as a complete lesson plan. It will direct you to books to read, videos to watch, projects to craft, games to play, and discussions to have. The units are clear full of Explorations to choose from, and you won’t have time for them all. This is a pick-and-choose curriculum.

Besides the history lesson for the day, the units are lined with sidebars that direct you to discussions, books, famous people, interesting facts, writing ideas, and more.

You will also see a Library List at the beginning and a Show What You Know section at the end that will help you create assessments or tests based on your individual learning.

Reusable and for All Ages

These units books are for the mentor, not to hand to the student. They are supposed to be used repeatedly. Since this is a pick-and-choose curriculum, you do some of the explorations and save others for later on. If you follow the four-year cycle, you will progress through Ancient History, Middle Ages History, Colonial History, and Modern History over the course of four years. Then you will cycle back to Ancient History in the fifth year when your kids are older and learning at a higher level. In all, you may use this book three times with your child.

The Colonial History units contain lessons ranging from making model explorers boats from cardboard boxes to reading actual letters sent home by explorers. There are plenty of concepts for little kids and plenty to challenge high schoolers. Most lessons are meant to be taught to many ages, from 6-year-olds clear up to seniors in high school.  Each age group gets the same Exploration and principles, but they learn on the level they are ready for. Books from your library and video from the YouTube playlists customize the learning for each age.

Extra Resources

YouTube playlists and links to helpful websites are all assembled and ready for you to access on the Colonial History Resources page.

If you are printing the PDF course, you may want a printable Colonial History cover for your binder.

Printable Packs

Colonial History also includes printables for every unit. These are worksheets or paper crafts for the students. The Printable Packs are available as a digital PDF download and come with your purchase on your receipt.

Also Sold As Individual PDFs

The Colonial History course also comes as individual PDF units you can purchase one-by-one as you go. The individual PDFs are exactly the same content as the units that are included within the paperback or PDF Colonial History book. It’s like buying the course chapter by chapter in a digital format.