The American StoryThe Academy · history & civics
U.S. History & Civics · ages 7–12

The American Story

How a country got made — who was here first, what was promised, what was broken, what was fixed, and how the whole thing runs today. One interactive lesson at a time.

LESSON 1 · START HERE

Before 1492

Fifteen thousand years of people, cities bigger than London, a garden that engineers itself, and a constitution written in shell beads — all before any ship arrived. Scrub the deep-time slider, explore seven regions of Turtle Island, plant the Three Sisters, and bust four myths.

Start the lesson →
Track One

The land and the founding

Track Two

The rules: Constitution & government

Track Three

Growing, breaking, mending

Track Four

Know your country

For educators

How these lessons work

Each lesson is one web page a child can read alone or with you: short paragraphs at roughly a grade 3–5 reading level, a read-aloud button on every section, three or four hands-on interactives, a myth-buster set, and a six-question brain check that awards a badge at 80%. Progress is saved on the device.

The hard parts of American history are not skipped and not dumped on a seven-year-old either. Slavery, removal and broken treaties are told plainly, in the lesson where they belong, with the people they happened to named — and always alongside the people who fought back and the promises that were later kept.