From 1860-1865 learn about the Civil War – how it began, how the battles influenced the country and the cause and effects. This curriculum is free with activities and reading materials for middle school (recommended 7th-8th grade).

We used lots of free resources including websites, articles, library books and texts. With a little help with Southwestern Advantage, I designed this simple, content based Civil War curriculum for middle schoolers going into high school.

What you will find in this free curriculum:

Nothing Fancy- Just Engaging and Simple

When I create curriculum, I’m not looking for anything too fancy. I like to keep certain subjects simple. You have to teach to the child, the audience. The importance is finding valuable sources for the information. The goal is to keep the content deep and engaging. As you read, you are bringing history to life.

By adding in some wordsearch, crosswords, essay questions, activities and maps, this curriculum can be a good way to learn the Civil War for any middle schooler. My 8th grader hasn’t been grumbling too much. He’s actually been enjoying the simple and straight forward format.

Another aspect to curriculum writing and customizing is the ability to be flexible and tailor it. As my 8th grader is working through the material, I am constantly taking in feedback. He preferred the more direct charts about cause-effect. He suggested having the books and pages listed so he could reference the pages to answer the charts. I modified and adapted to his suggestions and we made progress. He preferred not to color the flags, but liked looking at the differences.

I’m open to suggestions, so as you work through this – let me know what books work or don’t work (sometimes finding these REAL and HONEST Civil War book resources are difficult to find or out of print). Working through the activities can be a good way to assess if your child is understanding the reading material.

Let’s bring history to life.