How to Make an Elementary History Project Come Alive

Fall 2026/Lee

I’ll admit, I have always loved learning about history. The in-depth study of a person’s life, or a place, or an event in the form of a narrative has been captivating to me.

Wait! My high school history classes never looked like an in-depth study of any one person, place, or event. My history class consisted of lectures, scrawling down copious dates, and textbooks. And Mrs. Rorie’s (bless her) class consisted of test-induced panic attacks and memories that still haunt me to this day:

Which of the following best describes the key factors at play in the Third Punic War?

Is it:

a. and b.
a., b., and c.
a. only
b. and c.

And then my brain exploded. Not really, but it sure did not feel good! Have you felt this way?

In my opinion, history should be told as a story. My topic today (history projects) is not a complicated one. However, when it’s time to prepare an elementary-aged student to show what he’s learned about a history topic in the form of a visual project and oral presentation, we freeze. We don’t know where to begin. We wonder if we’re helping him too much, or not enough. We start to get frustrated when he says that he can’t find the poster board, which leads to another late-night run to the nearby big-box retailer. And does he even care about showing what he learned, when it seems like he doesn’t really own the story of history?

You might be on the receiving end of one of these project presentations. Did the student take his time to make an excellent project? The work looks like it was rushed. Furthermore, there seems to be a lack of enthusiasm as he conveys what he learned. There is a disconnect between what he knows and the meaning he extracts from it. Does it even matter?

In short, there is a remedy to boring, rushed, unenthusiastic history presentations. From my experience teaching my elementary-aged children, the three main components of a meaningful history presentation are: appropriate resources, an easy note-taking template, and an engaging visual aid.

Appropriate Resources

In any history curriculum, teachers can curate what is typically referred to as a “spine” or foundational text. These vary, but they are often longer books that are used throughout the entire school year. In our homeschool thus far, we’ve used The Story of the World: Ancient Times, The Story of the World: The Middle Ages, and (you guessed it!) The Story of the World: Early Modern Times. The spine text is any “big picture” book that follows a narrative throughout a historical time period. The spine book is essential to the entire school year’s learning. In our homeschool, it has been The Story of the World series.

If you love a good spine book, you might enjoy supplementing the spine with read-alouds that have interesting illustrations.

Here are some of our homeschool’s favorites:

• Old World Echoes by Jennifer Courtney (collection of folklore)
• A Short History of the World (Usborne Books)
• Pippo the Fool by Tracey E. Fern
• Leonardo Da Vinci: Art for Children by Raboff
• Michelangelo by Diane Stanley
• Castle Diary: The Journal of Tobias Burgess by Richard Platt
• Rupert’s Parchment: the Story of the Magna Carta by Eileen Camron
• Gawain and the Green Knight by Mark Shannon
• The Kitchen Knight: A Tale of King Arthur by Margaret Hodges
• Saint George and the Dragon by Margaret Hodges

To find resources that best suit your student, I suggest starting with books from your local library. If you have homeschooled your students up to this point, shop your home, then the local library, then purchase (if you’re looking to add to your home library).

Online digital media (videos, Internet articles, diagrams) can also be helpful in researching the project topic. Assist your student in gathering information from credible sources on the Internet. Encyclopedia Britannica has proven helpful in the past, but I just perform Google searches with my kids present and narrow it down from there. 

An Easy Note-Taking Template

It feels so overwhelming to help a child with research! Where does one begin? After gathering roughly three to four great resources for the project, make a simple template in Google Docs or Microsoft Word that consists of a single-column, multi-row table. Each row in the table corresponds to a specific “sub-topic”. Print this out and give it to your student. See the example:
“Minoan Sailing”

Before you print the template, leave plenty of room for your student to write his notes. Hit print, and have your student decide his subtopics. For example, if his topic is “Minoan Sailing,” then your student writes that at the top of the page. Under the topic, he writes three to five sub-topics, one in each cell or row. Each subtopic will become a notecard. For now, he is just collecting information and organizing it. Don’t worry if his notes look sloppy; as long as he understands his notes, then it is fine. Do not forget to document sources, as this is a requirement in most research projects and is a good practice. You can choose the format in which they cite their sources, but I have tried to model after the APA format.

You might find that sub-topics evolve as your student takes notes. The more you read, the more information on one subtopic you find, and he may decide to break it into two sub-topics. The key is to make sure the student understands the information, and you have given him plenty of space to organize his sub-topics.

One thing you might do with younger kids is read aloud each book or resource to them, then have them narrate back to you what they learned. After reading, you can even ask, “What three things did we learn about?” Their answer gives you the subtopics. Ask about each sub-topic. Transcribe their narration as they are speaking on the template, either on the computer or by hand. The point is, you work together to organize the information, while your job is to help them and model good organizing.

Now, the hardest part is done! All that is left to do is to gather the appropriate number of notecards, having your child copy neatly from his template onto each notecard. Note: You may want to make the last notecard blank until the visual aid is completed. The reason for this is that your student might want to use this notecard to explain how he made the visual. This also helps if you’re running low on historical information to share. Teachers and classmates enjoy hearing about the process, and this can bring your student’s natural enthusiasm for something he made into the project. 

An Engaging Visual Aid

Visual aids can be the most time-consuming part of the project. They can be so fun to make! The folks at Well-Trained Mind Press gave us The Story of the World Activity Book. In this book, you get access to activities (translated: project ideas), maps, and drawings! We pulled our ideas for our visual aids largely from their project ideas. It may be helpful for you to work backward, from visual aid to gathering resources, to note-taking. If you start with the visual aid in mind, it’s fun to flip through the project ideas and select one that you can do at home.

Each chapter in The Story of the World is featured in the activity book. In the activity book for ancient history, all forty-two chapters are divided into sections. These sections are: narration exercises, review questions, additional reading suggestions (which provide great resources, too!), maps, craft ideas, and coloring pages.

Here are some of the things my kids made for ancient history visual aids:

• Clay tablets comparing the Roman alphabet to the Etruscan alphabet
• Cloth that was dyed various shades and concentrations of purple—Phoenician-style!
• Original pencil sketch of a Minoan sailing vessel, comparing it to an original pencil sketch of a Greek trireme
• Egyptian perfume making: photos of the process were mounted on poster board—she also brought the actual jar of perfume to class
• A clay Ziggurat temple model

There are so many great ideas in The Story of the World Activity Book, but it is not really necessary to own one. Just think outside the box. Some questions to consider at the outset of your student’s planning:

• What medium does my student enjoy working in? (clay, paints, fabrics, mosaics, pencil/paper, LEGO, music, drama, comic art, etc.)
• How much time will this take?
• How much money do I want to spend?
• Are there other ways to narrate this story? After all, history is a story! You can be as creative as you want. 

Other Considerations

Do you, the teacher, provide a rubric? Use this as a guide.

• Do you find yourself helping too much, or does your child need more support? Younger kids generally need more support with the reading and note-taking parts of the project.
• Are you enthusiastic? It will rub off if you are! Negative attitudes are contagious, too.
• Is the story cohesive? All history is a narrative. Does your student’s re-telling make sense?
• Can your student run through the presentation part of the project at least three times on their own? Have him practice reading the notecards in his own words. Give your child plenty of time to practice speaking in front of family members, or even in front of a mirror.
• Are you instilling confidence? Make sure you boost your kids’ confidence as they talk about the hard work they put forth. They should be proud!
• Are you experiencing some joy in seeing your kids love history this year? Working on these history projects should be more of a delight than drudgery.

Additional Reading on Teaching History:

• “Textbook-Free Medieval History” (humilityanddoxology.com/textbook-free-medieval-history/)
• “The Story of the World” (mylittlebrickschoolhouse.com/story-of-the-world-2/)
• “How We Use Picture Books and Reading Aloud for History” (mylittlebrickschoolhouse.com/2022/09/11/how-we-use-picture-books-and-reading-aloud-history/)
• “A Textbook-Free History Curriculum? It Is Possible!” (mylittlebrickschoolhouse.com/2022/04/25/a-textbook-free-history-curriculum-it-is-possible/)
• The Year of Medieval History (A Peek Inside Our Homeschool, Year 1) (mylittlebrickschoolhouse.com/classical-conversations-eclectic-approach/#cc-cycle-2)