Teaching PA History

(Article written for PA Homeschoolers Newsletter around 2002, I think)

Teaching Pennsylvania State History


I remember my first reaction to the requirement to teach state history was to rank it right alongside fire safety. When my oldest two got to 3d and 4th grade, I bought A Beka’s State Notebook thinking it would have everything I needed about Pennsylvania. Well, as should have been obvious to me, I suppose, it had nothing about Pennsylvania or any other state but had a bunch of blank pages with topics like “State Government” at the top which I ended up tearing out and putting into a 3-ring binder.

I always thought it would be rather boring to have to study Pennsylvania for an entire year or even one semester. And for us that just wouldn’t work out. Instead we took that 3-ring binder (and we’ve done two others since then with different children and have made our own topical sections) and used them over the course of our childrens’ school years. With this, we have truly enjoyed studying Pennsylvania and have lovely keepsakes and interesting, personalized reference books when we’re finished. We call them our PA STATE NOTEBOOKS. Here’s what we do.

We have a 3-ring notebook divided into various sections:

• My town
• My county
• My region
• Geography of Pennsylvania
• Other places I’ve visited
• Pennsylvania – Its Principles
• History in Pennsylvania
• Famous People
• State Government
• Pittsburgh
• Harrisburg
• Philadelpha
• Sports
• What People Do in PA

We add to this book every year and take pictures wherever we travel in PA. I think the categories are fairly self-explanatory so I won’t elaborate on them and you can customize them to suit your interests or opportunities. I will share some of the things we’ve done over the years that have found their way into our State Notebooks.



In first grade, we took ourselves for a walk around Freeport where we live, taking pictures with our local postmistress outside the Post Office, as well as pictures at the soda fountain in the drug store, pictures of 17th century homes and churches, the Fire Dept., library, and one over-looking the entire town. In the library we photocopied old newspapers with articles about the history of Freeport. Then my daughter wrote directions for getting to Freeport and explained some of the reasons she enjoys living here.

Under “My County,” we have a map showing all of the counties in PA with Armstrong Co. colored in and a page of statistical information where my children had to fill in the blank for the capital, population, and square footage of the county. At some point, we’ll be adding some local history and pictures of the courthouse, etc.

For the geography of Pennsylvania, my young children drew the shape of the state and colored a map showing not only PA but the surrounding states. We also made a map using sculpey clay that we molded to show the topography of our state and used colored beads for major cities and blue plastic cord for the major rivers and we sprinkled the two plateaus with green glitter.

Our State Representatives or Senators have always been more than willing to furnish us with all sorts of materials about Pennsylvania (– just call and ask). From these, we had plenty of information and pictures indicating our state flag and all the state symbols. (Do you know the State Beautification and Conservation Plant?) The answer to this question as well as other statistical information are available at www.state.pa.us/kids. We also did a survey of a number of people to find out how many had been born in Pennsylvania to demonstrate that Pennsylvania has a high percentage of people who remain in the state of their birth unlike many other states.


Like many of you, we love to read historical fiction and there are many many books that are set in Pennsylvania. Three of our favorites for elementary age readers are The Cabin Faced West and Brady, both by Jean Fritz, and Benjamin West and His Cat

Grimalkin, by Marguerite Henry. The Cabin Faced West is a frontier story based in Washington County. We’re very fond of it because we identified strongly with the young pioneer girl in the story. When George Washington comes down her lonesome road and congratulates her on her sacrifices in helping to forge a new country, we believed he would have said something similar to us as we pioneer in this ever-evolving world of homeschooling that we pray will strengthen this country. Brady is a story of the underground railroad in PA. The Benjamin West book is really a “must read.” Find out how this young Quaker boy succeeds in getting his family’s blessing to become an artist and ends up in King George II’s court. You’ll also discover why his cat, Grimalkin, always looked as though he had the mange!
Whatever responses our children made to these books also found their place in our PA STATE NOTEBOOKS.

Every local field trip you take can probably find some kind of resting place in your State Notebook. One of our favorite field trips is visiting places where people work. This past year we visited General Press in Allegheny County where they print labels for food products using enormous 6-color presses. Do you remember the pink rabbit on the yellow and green Pillsbury refrigerated cookies last Easter? We saw thousands of them being printed the month before. We have also visited Joy Cone in Hermitage, Tour Ed Mine (Allegheny Co.), Pound’s Turkey Farm (Westmoreland), and Hershey Chocolate factory in recent years.

Under ”Outstanding Pennsylvanians,” our children have included pictures and information they also gathered from various field trips. Albert Gallatin’s home, Friendship Hill and Ft. Necessity near Uniontown, are great places for homeschoolers to visit. At Friendship Hill the park ranger used all of the support group children to put on a mock trial of the Whiskey Rebellion culprits.

Another year, I conducted an 8-week class on Pennsylvania during which time each student had to report on one “outstanding Pennsylvanian.” Copies of some of these reports made it into our PA State Notebook. Besides a written and/or oral report, each student also had to draw and color a paper quilt square of their famous Pennsylvanian. All of these were pasted onto a large white paper “quilt” with P E N N S Y L V A N I A in red and blue through the center. During this time we also made William Penn hats from black posterboard with felt tops.

Two of my children are quite athletic and have filled their State Notebooks with lots of pictures of their own sports teams as well as clippings of the Steelers, Pirates, and Riverhounds of Pittsburgh. Lots of articles about their favorite teams and players and lots of ticket stubs!

Our section on “Harrisburg” is enormous. Everyone should visit the state capitol and especially the Capitol building: it’s one of the most beautiful in the country. While there do learn about Violet Oakley and her artwork in the Supreme Court and see if you can get a list of all the biblical quotations that have found their way to the walls of the capital building as well. Your legislator will be more than willing to help you make arrangements for a tour. There’s an enormous statue of William Penn at the Whitaker Center a couple of blocks away with which your children will enjoy posing.

I hope I’ve given you some inspiration for studying our truly amazing state where many of the foundations of our country and its constitution were forged. We are constantly learning and recording in our PA STATE NOTEBOOKS!