When will they learn about...

Charlotte Mason says something along the lines of the point of it all being not that the children can correctly pinpoint who wrote/did what in the age of whom, but to give them a sort of pageantry of the mind, rich in ideas and relationships.

 It's not that the facts don't matter, it's that if the children don't have curiosity, love, interest, if they don't even care, none of the facts really sink in anyway. There are things missing from every history book that are worth of attention, but history is a wide and deep topic and there isn't time to give all topics all the attention they might merit in the school hours alone.

So flesh things out with biographies, visits to local historical sites, include museums and historical marker visits in your itinerary if/when you travel, notice those other opportunities for connections in your reading, and in your living  ( a little goes a long way, don't eat up the hours they should have of free time to explore their own interests).

In my own life, I remember learning most about Balboa when my family visited Balboa park in San Diego as a child perhaps 10 years old. If I had ever heard of him before I did not remember it, but visiting the park gave me a wide eyed discovery of the idea about exploration including botany, and curiosity about the man himself.

 My own kids made their first 'discovery' of Cortez when they read Keats' poem: On First Looking into Chapman's Homer

Much have I travell'd in the realms of gold,
    And many goodly states and kingdoms seen;
    Round many western islands have I been
Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold.
Oft of one wide expanse had I been told
    That deep-brow'd Homer ruled as his demesne;
    Yet did I never breathe its pure serene
Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold:
Then felt I like some watcher of the skies
    When a new planet swims into his ken;
Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes
    He stared at the Pacific—and all his men
Look'd at each other with a wild surmise—
    Silent, upon a peak in Darien.

This last stanza was quoted in one of the Swallows and Amazons books by Arthur Ransome (AO did not then exist, but it is now one of our free reads)- it caught my kids' attention and we looked it up to learn about the poem, the poet, and the people and places he is referring to. Education is not a catalog, it is a discipline, an atmosphere, and a life, and this is how it continues- like circles on a pond or a game of association, a new thing suggests another new thing, and children who have learned to keep their native curiosity go on learning forever. ( I just sidetracked myself looking up multiple references to Ponce de Leon because he was once governor of Darien and may in fact be who Keats should have named instead of Cortez, but perhaps it would have altered his rhyme scheme?)

The atmosphere Mason speaks of is the one we have, the people we are, the home and culture we create when we bring a family together and grow together- so be sure to incorporate that into your days and lives as well, as you discover your own realms of gold in which to travel.