Beyond Clapping for Credit - History Cards

When I was in college, there were many joke nick-names for courses, and one (Music Appreciation) was facetiously called "Clapping for Credit." As a homeschooler, it's incredibly easy to slip into a clapping-for-credit mode, and we've found that if we don't require some quizzing (narration ala Charlotte Mason, or otherwise), we have a student who seems to be familiar with a lot, but verbally able to describe little.

Recently we'd been enjoying Professor Rufus Fear's Famous Romans Series from the Teaching Company, but after finishing the first half of his lectures, we were a little alarmed by how little our guy could narrate back the salient points of the people and main events discussed in the course. I think it surprised him.

What we've added now (and seems to help) - are cards that we made to practice the names, people, and place.



On one side is the person or event, on the other, bullet points detailing key facts. Just a dressed up version of an index card. We had some punched out card stock, but regular card stock would also probably work fine. A blank template can be downloaded here.

This has worked out so well, we're going to use them for other subjects, too.