History Fair Projects

My kids enjoyed participating in the annual AHE History Fair this week, although it was a slightly different experience to normal.

Online

This year’s event was online. Instead of everyone displaying project boards in a hall, an electronic version of the project was submitted. Instead of being able to physically check out all the other entries, we could view all the projects from our computer at home.

While it was lacking in the usual fun and festive atmosphere that a real life gathering brings, it did allow for some pretty creative entries! There were Powerpoint slideshow documentaries, 3D animation videos, TED-style talks and various other forms of presentation.

Our Projects

Due to our lack of time (and my lack of headspace) we stuck to a fairly normal version of a history fair project. All three school-age kids wanted to build a model of some description, so that was where most of their time went. They also had some handwritten information glued to a display board.

Grace really wanted to build a model of a rich Greek person’s house, so this is what she came up with:

Alex loves bridges and building things out of popsicle sticks, so he settled on a model of the Golden Gate Bridge. This is his project:

Jess thought the Leaning Tower of Pisa sounded pretty interesting, so that’s what she studied:

Process

Usually I would organise it so that we spent the whole term gathering resources, researching and working on projects. However with all the busyness we really only started looking into it in the last couple of weeks. Most of the work was done in just the last week, which meant putting aside our usual school work for a few days! (something I find hard to do)

Also, I am usually far more hands-on in the whole process, but this time I mostly left them to it, which resulted in far less output, organisation and perfectionism!! But it enabled them to experiment by themselves, and face the consequences of poor planning! Towards the end, I made a few suggestions and helped them get it all put together. Plus the bridge needed a bit of engineering assistance to stop it falling over!

A worthwhile experience

I always find the history fair a fun way for the kids to learn about a new topic, and would definitely recommend it to other homeschooling families! It doesn’t have to be fancy or perfect, just remember it’s more about the learning that takes place than the final outcome. Working towards the final product provides the incentive to do all the former work though!