Saturday, September 26, 2020

History made easy through 5 online games and resources

  

I saw a class full of students, praying to God, “Almighty God, please save us all from World War III”

I was touched by their nobility of thought and compassion for humanity. I went to a kid, sat on my knees, praised him and asked who inspired such noble thoughts in them.

He said, “What noble thoughts! We are praying because we are already struggling with history of 2 world wars, can’t afford to add a third one to our curriculums!”

 

I am sure many of us would be able to relate to this. History has always been HIS-STORY 😊

Not that understanding our own lives was easier, that we need to understand about other’s lives. Not that Math and Matter was enough, that we have to now learn about Men. But that’s history for you. You may like it, despise it; but you can’t ignore it. The beauty of the subject is that It gives us a larger perspective to look at life; the bigger picture. And it helps us out in real life when we least expect it or even without us realizing how it has added to our thought process and perspective of life.

 

However, coming to our immediate concern of how to engage students for history. How to make learning history fun for them. Here is the latest addition in my series of blogs on free resources for various subjects. Below is the list of various sites which offer online videos, games, interactive quizzes and other resources for the study of Indian History.

 

1)      https://www.neok12.com/History-of-India.htm

NeoK12, as the name suggest is the ONE site that you need to visit for all your K12 needs. The site not only contains content for History, but also has a lot of content for subjects like Maths, Science, English etc. I didn’t discover this earlier, but this site is a definite addition to all my previous blogs on free resources for Maths, Scienceand English. The content is also richly covered using Interactive diagrams, flow chart games, vocabulary games, jigsaw puzzles, slide puzzles and lots of brain games.

Coming to history, the site majorly has collection of videos. The topics are ranging from ancient to medieval to modern history and the video quality and depth are reasonably good. All major dynasties and kingdoms are covered in the site along with some videos on prominent mathematicians of ancient India.

The website offers a variety of content in form of games, videos, worksheets, quizzes and activities to teach various topics of English grammar. Fun Stuff zone is a small collection of very engagingly designed activities to make grammar learning fun. The coverage is not very exhaustive though.

 

2)      http://indiaquiz.net/

India Quiz is a hard core quiz site. It has a quiz on history and along with that on a variety of topics. The depth in history is lacking and is surely not linked to any school curriculum. But it is interesting to test your history knowledge and explore. The other topics covered via quizzes are science, gk, culture, know india photo quiz, religion, geography, Indian states etc. It has a film quiz too for parents/teachers to relieve their exhaustion after attending to their kid’s history lessons 😊

 

3)      https://india.mrdonn.org/

Mrdonn.org is a very useful website to study History. In addition to world and American history, it has a special section on Indian history. It covers a variety of topic from Indus valley civilization to Indian scriptures and caste system. The majority of the focus is on ancient history. The content is provided as text to be read by students in question answer format and some online quizzes and games too.

For history teachers (and parents can also use it for home schooling), there are lot of resources like lesson plans, free clipart, interactive games and ready-made power point presentations on Indian history.

 

4)      https://www.studenthandouts.com/study-games/world-history/

Studenthandouts.com is a good site with a lot of resources. The history of world section of the site is particularly interesting for students who want to understand the world history. Although many topics covered may not be part of state board curriculums, but this site is a definite visit site if history is what interests you. The games do not have very high quality graphics; most of them are straightforward fill in the blanks or MCQ kind of questions but it gives a good coverage and allows to revise and understand world history in context.

Aside, the site also has resourceson maths, science in terms of games and printables. This also becomes a worthy addition to my previous blogs on online resources for maths and science. Hope you have checked those blogs !

 

5)      https://besthistorysites.net/

Now this one has a catch!

This is not a site with content, but this is a site which has links to almost 1200 history sites. The coverage is very very very exhaustive and covers a lot of world history. There are specific sections for History related to India. I won’t be able to guide you through this or comment on this, but if you are a real history freak, then you can explore endlessly. Happy exploring buddy!!

 

I hope these resources will help you to engage your kids for study of history. If you like this then please do check out my other blogs on resources for English, maths and science.

Also kindly share this with other parents, students and educators.

Your comments and subscription on my blog are always a big motivator 😊

Happy Gaming!!!