Homeschooling and National History Day are a perfect fit. National History Day provides an excellent venue for homeschooled students to dive deep into history and gain a wealth of knowledge. Along the way, they develop invaluable skills in researching, organizing, and writing, along with the ability to acquire and analyze knowledge from multiple resources.
Since 2014, my children have participated in National History Day. For the past six years, I’ve also organized a performance for the students in our homeschool group that centers around the annual National History Day (NHD) theme. You can read more about that in my post Two Ways to Learn History.
NHD Annual Theme
Each year, NHD announces the annual theme. Previous years have included themes like “Triumph and Tragedy”, “Breaking Barriers in History”, and “Taking a Stand in History”. Students are able to choose a topic they’re interested in and look at it through the context of the annual theme. This year it’s “Communication in History: The Key to Understanding”.
The goal is for the student to use the theme to narrow the scope of their topic. Using the framework of the annual theme, an unwieldy subject like the Civil War becomes manageable and individuals like Marie Curie or Martin Luther King Jr. get a more focused and deliberately researched approach, rather than a simple biographical account.
The NHD Contest
Students can choose to enter the NHD contest individually or as a group. In addition, there are five different types of projects to choose from:
- Paper
- Website
- Performance
- Documentary
- Exhibit
My children have chosen to do a paper every year. Although the research paper relies heaviest on writing, the others all require a process paper and a significant amount of writing as well, whether it’s text on a website or exhibit or dialogue and narration for a documentary or performance. No matter what project type they choose, they’ll be writing.
It’s a big project and a lot of work but the NHD website is a comprehensive resource for both educators and students. And our state and regional coordinators here in Colorado provide amazing support as well.
NHD has become an integral part of my homeschooling. Through it, my children have learned:
- Solid research skills
- Improved writing
- A greater appreciation for their chosen topic
- And how to persevere with a long project
My older two sons have taken college-level English Composition classes in high school at our local community college and both have done extremely well. I felt like their experience with National History Day played a key role helping them prepare for college level research and writing.
By the way, the NHD contest is only open to 6th through 12th graders. However, there’s no reason you can’t have your younger children do a scaled-down project with NHD as a guide.
Our NHD Process
NHD is a two to three-month process for us. My children generate ideas in early November, decide on a topic, and then start compiling information and developing their thesis. Before Christmas break, it’s research and rough drafts. After Christmas, it’s final research and polishing it off for completion in mid-February.
I do have to mention that I love learning from my children as they research and write. Thanks to them, I now have an in-depth understanding of the Bletchley Park Codebreakers, a lesser-known leader of the French Resistance, the Voyager probes that were launched in the 1970s, American abolitionist Silas Soule, and many more topics.
If you have any questions about homeschooling and National History Day, I’d be happy to help. Just use the comments section below.
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