A good knowledge of history, geography, science, etc, is invaluable in later life, so it makes sense to teach our children as best we can. So how do we teach a five or six year old about the Roman Empire, or Florence Nightingale, or the California Gold Rush? Well, the short answer is, you cannot. It is a sad but inescapable truth that whatever you tell a five year old, they will not remember it into adulthood - in fact in most cases they will not remember it once you have left the room. So that gives us a problem.
One of my professors at university had an interesting theory on the subject of education - his theory was that when you teach someone something for the first time, even if they understand it, it takes about a year for them to be comfortable with the idea. This was bad news for those of us in the lecture at the time, because the exams were just six months away, but it is not so bad now for parents of young children. Can it be that the reason the children forget everything is that everything they learn is so new and different, it just confuses them, so they filter most things out?
If so, then yes, if you teach a five year old about the Roman Empire, he/she will almost certainly forget about it straight away; however, a year or two later, they are going to come across the Roman Empire again in school. This time, instead of being an intimidating new subject, it has a vaguely familiar ring to it, and this time they will not forget it quite so quickly. Of course, it might take a few more lessons over the following years before the knowledge really beds in, but the sooner the child gets that initial introduction to the topic, the sooner they will master it. That is the reason I created
http://www.history-for-kids.com