Life on a Midwestern Farm

I think that one reason kids don't like history is that their only exposure is to boring textbooks that are essentially written to meet state requirements.  Real history is the story of people's lives and not just the elite that students are mandated to study.  This is why I like to spice up what we are doing with primary source items.  For example here is a nice description of what life was like on a Midwestern farm in the 1800s.  It has both a description as well as diary entries of the daily drudgery of the farmer.

Here is a virtual tour of a farmer's home that includes some oral histories of living on the farm.