Dan,
We have home schooled for years and the best two directions we have found
(and what we are using at the moment) are published curricula:
A literature Approach to U.S. and World History, by Rea C. Berg - uses
other well known books, mostly biographies and novels, to teach.
and, Key Deicsions in U.S. History: A participatory Approach, by Patrick
Henry Smith and John Croes - sets vignettes of critical points in history
and asks the students to decide what to do - kind of a 'choose your own
ending' approach.

Now, both of these are U.S., not NY, things, but both include a lot of NY
stuff. For NY textbooks, you're going to have to get books more than
thirty years old (which is not necessarily bad) as the change from
teaching NY history as a seventh grade subject to teaching 'local history'
as a forth or fifth grade module has destroyed the market for NY history
texts and the stopped publishing them.

Wayne Miller

On Fri, 3 Sep 1999, Daniel H. Weiskotten wrote:

> Hello all:
>         I just received a request for suggestions as to some good books to teach
> New York State history to home schoolers.  My library and the sources I
> most often use are either really old or are very topic-specific and
> wouldn't be of much use to the educators.
>         Can all the good people here put together a list of their favorite readily
> available books that would suit the home shcool curriculum (all ages)?
>         The person who asked is an active-duty soldier in Germany, and any
> suggestions for sources that he could get overseas would be fantastic!
>
>         Dan W.
>

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Wayne L. Miller                         Special Collections Librarian
Feinberg Library                        2 Draper Avenue
518-564-5206                            Plattsburgh, NY 12901
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        "I wonder what will happen today!"  -Maggie Muggins-
"Not even God can change history...which is why he tolerates historians."
                                        -Voltaire
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