Westward Expansion

We have been having such an interesting year, studying
Early American History. It is hard to believe that we are in the last three months of the school year already! It is flying by. I often wonder if I am doing enough schoolwork, but seeing my children excited about what they are learning, reassures me that we are on the right track.

We recently got together with friends to celebrate our studies of the pioneers and westward expansion. These get togethers are one of the highlights of our history studies. While at home, I read lots of great books to the children, we do map work, and also journaling, but the monthly co-op meetings are when we can delve into hands on projects that require more preparation.

At this months get together we made butter! This was actually incredibly easy and group friendly. We simply poured cream into clean mason jars, screwed the lids on tight and let the kids go crazy shaking them until a nice lump of butter had formed. I took a picture of our butter after we made it, but then when I was going back through the photos, I couldn't figure out what it was and deleted. It was yummy, if not photogenic. 

The butter was spread on fresh baked bread, the best of pioneer treats, and eaten along with tortillas, and cattail tubers which we had harvested from our pond. A good study of the pioneers and westward expansion wouldn't be complete without talking about some of the foraged foods that they ate to survive.

We also drank tea made from nettles. Not the tastiest of drinks, but super healthy and according to research, a good traditional remedy for all manner of illnesses, including allergies and anemia.

Another thing we do at our co-op meetings are oral presentations. I feel that being able to give a report is an important part of homeschooling. It is also a helpful motivator for my children to do well on their journaling projects so that they have something good to share with the group. We have been alternating Draw Write Now books with fine art postcards from Mommy It's A Renoir for art journaling prompts. These go nicely with narration exercises, and if we are not feeling creative enough to come up with an original narration, we simply copy the sentences from Draw Write Now as well. These journaling pages then become oral reports for the younger students.

Draw Write Now, Book 5: The United States, from Sea to Sea, Moving Forward (Draw-Write-Now) Mommy, It's a Renoir!

The oldest of my four students still in my homeschool prepared a report on health care, or the lack thereof, during the time period we were studying. My 12 year old created a stop motion Lego movie about Civil War Sea Battles. I love seeing them use various technologies and mediums to prepare their presentations.




For map work, we looked at where the Lewis and Clark Expedition traveled, as well as what area the Louisiana Purchase encompassed. Later, we traced U.S. maps and labeled them with the route which the Lewis and Clark Expedition took, so many years ago.



Back at home, I read to the children from "Sacajawea" by Della Rowland, while they made a tent and pretend fire which they roasted pretend marshmallows over. Or maybe it was bear meat on a stick?
Stories are great at providing prompts for imaginative play. They also do so much to expand your children's vocabulary, these are a few of many reasons why we make a high priority of reading aloud. I also have a basket of books based on the period we are studying, which my children are encouraged to read from as we work our way through the year. If possible, I give my older children books which include source documents. I want them to be aware of what the thought process of historical figures was, and not just hear their stories through a modernist filter. 

The Story of Sacajawea: Guide to Lewis and Clark (Dell Yearling Biography) The Journals of Lewis and Clark (Lewis & Clark Expedition)
Little House Nine-Book Box Set

American History is full of fascinating people, and I am studying it again, with some of the most fascinating people that I know. I hope that your children, and your studies, bring much joy and inspiration to your life as well.

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Fun With Early American History

In our homeschool this year we have been studying Early American History. We have created bows and arrows while learning about Native Americans and cooked over an open fire. We sculpted clay maps of the United States and made tiny walnut shell boats. 

We studied about the Revolutionary War and the children learned how to sing The Shot Heard Round The World. We have also read some wonderful books. These are a few of our favorite books this year.

               In 1492

 

     The Thanksgiving Story

   

There are many other Early American History books that we love, such as Carry On Mr Bowditch and the Little House on the Prairie series but we are skipping those this year to read a few books that we haven't read in a while.

We have also been working on our timeline, both our hallway wall timeline and the book that my 3rd grade daughter is keeping. We love the Homeschool in the Woods timeline figures. They are well done black and white line drawings which are easy to color. Timeline work is a great task to keep kids listening while I read aloud. I also have the children color or draw pictures for their narration sheets.

 

For our project day we joined with a few other families to create tin can lanterns in honor of Paul Revere. Unfortunately, I didn't read the instructions very well. After our project day, I read the above post which suggested emptying your tin can of the contents, filling it with water and then freezing it so that when you go to poke the holes the can doesn't collapse like ours did. 

              

We also drew silhouettes of the children, which was also a bit harder than I had imagined! Try keeping a 6 year old boy still while you draw their profile. Not easy. This is a good project with girls. Older girls. Oh, and make sure you buy 11X17 paper because fitting a child's entire head onto a regular size sheet of construction paper is also a bit difficult.

One of my favorite aspects of homeschooling is reading to my children and talking about books. I get to sit and sip coffee and we all get to learn about new people and places. On the flip side, projects are not my favorite aspect, which is why I try really hard to find people to co-op with so my children can learn from other mothers who are hopefully more creative than myself.


                 

History is my favorite subject to teach, I love learning about the past with my children and through the use of maps and timelines, connect people and stories with their place in time. There are many things to love about homeschooling, and learning history with my children is one of them.

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What are your favorite resources for teaching history?

Quick and Easy Thanksgiving Unit Study

This is a very busy season for us and our history studies do not coincide with the landing of the Pilgrims in America. Even so, I love highlighting the reason why we celebrate Thanksgiving and the attitude of some of the original settlers of our country, so I set aside a day to focus on the Pilgrims and Thanksgiving. 

Chilly Little Pilgrim Boys

                         

The first part of our day involved pretending our living room rug was the Mayflower while I read stories such as On The Mayflower by Kate Waters, with beautiful photographs by Russ Kendall. We also read N.C. Wyeth's Pilgrims, pausing when they got to Plymouth Harbor to interject Samuel Eaton's Day, also by Kate Waters and Russ Kendall. A few days prior we had read Sarah Morton's Day, so we had the Pilgrim's pretty well covered in picture book form. While on the rug-ship the children also composed letters or journal entries in the words of their Pilgrim counterparts.

The Captain

                     

The children enjoyed reading the Bible, singing a Psalm and acting out the eventful journey, especially dramatic events such as a storm. Once the Pilgrims had landed in our stories, we left the rug and did a few crafts.

Intent On His Project

I found some adorable handprint turkeys on Pinterest, and since this was our quick and easy version, we made our turkeys out of construction paper that we had in the house. Unfortunately we were out of yellow, so our feet are a little pale. The example below, was obviously done by our little girl, as seen by the heart embellishments. We added some words describing things we were thankful for to the feathers, and voila, it was an easy handprint-thankfulness turkey.

Since we were also reading about Squanto and the other Native Americans who the Pilgrims encountered we then moved onto making Indian feather headbands. I used the scraps from the turkey project for the feathers and the kids stapled and made their own designs. Ella also took some scrap paper to make a corn cob.

                               

After all the crafting fun and clean up we ate our pottage, which was leftover vegetable beef soup that I had made in the crock pot last night, and then rewarmed this morning with a cup of lentils added.



                                                    
Our celebrations were fun and easy, and when lunch was over, and the clean up done, I sent the children out to play Indians in the bright sunshine. It was a nice break for them from bookwork and a memorable reminder of the life experiences of some of the first settlers to our country.

The 2013/2014 Curriculum Plan

I love seeing what other moms are using for curriculum. I can get into a rut of using what we have on hand or have always used. If it is working, it is not worth changing, but it is nice to know what is out there so I can evaluate whether I have the best fit for each child.

I don't have individual Bible for each child this year. My husband has assigned Bible readings for each day and we copy the verse that stands out to us. We also spend the first hour of our school day in worship and Bible reading. We are finishing Long Story Short which we have loved, reading the daily passages and looking for the next Bible curriculum. My second daughter is also in a Kay Arthur study group on the book of Revelation.

I also haven't listed reading selections. The older three are voracious readers, and with the next 3 I am assigning special books that they have not yet read. I usually assign books that go along with the history curriculum for the year but since this year is a special focus on art history, we are changing that routine a bit by just filling in some of the books that are important to us.

This year's plan for our family,

4 yr old (boy)

Explode The Code- Get Set for The Code

Handwriting Without Tears, Letters and Numbers For Me

Little Giant Steps-a wonderful multi sensory math program for preschool

Lots of good picture books, and listening in on our Bible, science and art studies.

SWR phonogram flash cards

Playing with puzzles, coloring, play dough and other fine motor skill activities

Swimming, going to the park, and other large motor skill activities

Calendar time, crafts and Bible verse memorization

6 yr old  (girl)

Math U See Beta

Explode The Code 41/2

Spelling Power Book A-freebie busywork for days I don't get to spelling

Handwriting Without Tears, Cursive Success

Reading-Rod and Staff Readers only, BJU Heritage Studies 1

Apologia Elementary Science- Swimming Creatures with Jr Notebook

How Great Thou Art-Barry Stebbing

Drawing With Children-Mona Brookes

Mommy It's a Renoir

English For The Thoughtful Child

Spell To Write and Read

10 yr old (boy)

Teaching Textbooks Grade 6 Math

Daily Grams, Grade 6 (We started with Rod and Staff Grammar Grade 5 but it was not working with him)

IEW Writing, Finishing All Things Fun and Fascinating and then picking another book by them.

Handwriting Without Tears, Can Do Cursive

SWR Spelling

Apologia Elementary Science, Swimming Creatures

How Great Thou Art

Abeka World History

Various Literature Selections, He just finished Out of the Silent Planet by C.S. Lewis and will start Treasure Island by R.L. Stevenson next.


13 yr old (boy)

Teaching Textbooks Algebra 1

Rod and Staff Grammar (gr. 6)

IEW writing

Apologia General Science

Understanding the Times (Worldview's)

Latin's Not So Tough

15 yr old (boy)

This year he is taking three classes at a local Jr. College. He goes twice a week with an older sister who is graduated.

Algebra 1 (Jr. College)

Elementary Music Theory (Jr. College)

Political Science, Constitution (Jr. College)

Apologia Chemistry (home)

Bob Jones Spanish 2 (home)

18 yr old (girl)

For our second daughter who has learning difficulties we chose to use a charter school this year. She just turned 18 (today) and we wanted to get the testing done and possible diagnosis before she graduates. We have done lots of private testing and therapy but wanted her to have the opportunity to go on to college or get work with the adaptations she may need. There is a lot of pressure in the charter to pass the high school exit exam, because of this, the charter has added lots of work. We are in line for private tutoring and testing for special needs so when that comes through it may prove to have been worth the hassle.

Teaching Textbooks Algebra 1

Holt Grammar 6 (charter, 12th grade grammar)

Holt Literature

ELA workbook (for exit exam)

Math workbook (for exit exam)

Abeka Health


The oldest children go to martial arts twice a week which helps with covering physical education. The 6 year old does ballet, I wanted her to learn to be graceful before she learned how to gouge someones eye out.

We also have the oldest 6 children in piano, voice or guitar lessons. However, I am terrible about enforcing music practice so our progress, until they start practicing on their own is slow.  Thankfully, several of them want to learn, and take the time to practice.

I am sure I have forgotten something, I was up till midnight making a birthday banner, baking a paleo pumpkin breakfast cake, consulting with my daughter on her anthropology homework and washing my husband's jeans. Life with little ones and college students is very busy, but very fun and fulfilling.

Happy Homeschooling!

A List Of Favorite Resources

We have read a few important books on homeschooling which have helped to develop our philosophy of education. We also have some favorite books and publishers that help us to reinforce our educational goals. Although we don't agree with every word in these books, and we hope you use your brain and the wisdom of the Holy Spirit as you apply what you learn, they have been helpful to us.

Parent Education

A Charlotte Mason Companion

Homeschooling Methods

Loving The Little Years

You Can Teach Your Child Successfully-Ruth Beechick

Montessori From The Start and Montessori in the Classroom-Lillard, Jessen

Endangered Minds-Jane Healy

Teaching The Trivium

Shepherding a Child's Heart-Tripp

Managers of Their Homes-Maxwell

Families Where Grace is in Place

Underground History of American Education-John Taylor Gatto

Audio teaching by Norm Wakefield, S.M. Davis

No Greater Joy, Vol. 1-3, Michael and Debbie Pearl

Giving an oral presentation.

Curriculum

Slow and Steady, Get Me Ready-Oberlander

Handwriting Without Tears

Spell To Write and Read

Apologia Science

Mommy It's a Renoir

Mystery of History

Five in a Row

Math U See

Teaching Textbooks Math

Our schooling has encouraged a love for other countries and cultures.

Medieval Studies

We just had another history get together for our study of the Middle Ages. This time we were talking about the Crusades and life in a castle so our projects were focused on those themes.
The girls and I made lovely princess hats. We found the idea from the Usborne book
Princess Things to Make and Do.
First we cut a piece of poster board into two semi circles.
Next we pulled one semi circle together to form a cone shape. We taped this together.
Then we ripped up pieces of glittery tissue paper and glued them all over the cone.
The last step was to tape three peices of long paper streamers to the hat.
Voila, medieval princess hat!
We could have made it even fancier by gluing pretty fabric to the cone and using real ribbon for the streamers but this budget version was pretty and fun.

My boys also brought string and sticks to make bows and arrows. The children then had an archery tournament.

We also pretended to have a plague and the children were able to use Thieves essential oil scented hankies to prevent contamination. Marla brought a tapestry making activity and the children were able to make up their own storyboard for a tapestry.
And of course we had good food! Marla brought fruit ala Saladin, Heather made lamb stew and we brought bread to use as trenchers and some biscuits for the gluten free crowd.
As always our history day was fun and inspiring for our young students. It is such a blessing to have creative friends to do these projects with.