Young children can engage in close reading, critical thinking, and historical thinking when age-appropriate texts are coupled with discipline-specific tasks. Prior knowledge is an impediment, though. Primary elementary learners simply do not have much of a historical schema. Because of primary elementary students' familiarity with Thanksgiving,…

Bringing history home, an elementary history curriculum and professional development project, began in 2001. As originally conceived, the project's main purpose was to move history from the margins described by Bruce VanSledright into the mainstream of the K-5 school day. Seven years later, the Bringing History Home (BHH) instructional units are…