Upcoming Civil War Study

I've pulled a few resources together and it just might work!

Week 1: Slavery

We will spend the entire first week reading through ...If You Lived When There Was Slavery in America. I love the "...If You Lived..." books. They are packed full of information and still interesting for the kidlets.

Weeks 2-4: Civil War Lapbook

We will be using this book (I have an ebook copy) to make the lapbook at Homeschool Share.com.

Additional books:

**Civil War On Sunday (Magic Tree House #21)
**Escape North! The Story of Harriet Tubman (Step-Into-Reading, Step 4)
**Elise the Actress: Climax of the Civil War (1865) (Sisters in Time #13)
**Janie's Freedom: African Americans in the Aftermath of the Civil War (1867) (Sisters in Time #14)
**The Red Badge of Courage

Field Trips:
Abraham Lincoln Library and Museum - Horrogate, TN
Museum of East Tennessee - Knoxville, TN
Nathanael Greene Museum - Greeneville, TN
Andrew Johnson Homestead - Greeneville, TN

TN, Spiritual Revival, and New Inventions

This would be Adventures in MFW week 18. If you read my earlier post, you saw that I'm not exactly sticking with Adventures. I'm still following the TOC for US History, but I'm using A Child's Story of America as our main text.

History:
This week our state was TN. Since we live in TN we added quite a few coloring pages from The Terriffic Tennessee Coloring Book. We discussed the Second Great Awakening and new inventions, such as the Cotton Gin and the Steam Boat.

Math:
*B* did lessons 44 & 45 plus the corresponding review sheets. She's learning/reviewing place value to 100,000.
*C* did lessons 24 & 25.

Language Arts:
*B* finished PLL Lesson 32 - copywork for "their" and "there" & Lesson 33 - dictation for "their" and "there"
*C* PLL Lesson 32.
*T* started Plaid Phonics Level K. This week he did Ss. We're still planning to continue with Reading Reflex, but I noticed that it would move along much easier if he knew the letter sounds first.

Poetry:

We are reading a 2-page spread from The Random House Book of Poetry for Children each day. We were doing Ambleside Online's schedule for *B* & *C* individually, but it was becoming too much on me. So I'm combining a lot of our Literature. I'll write more about that later.

We read a Biography on Bach and practiced our Hymn. I Sing The Mighty Power of God

Mike is starting first shift on Monday, hopefully that will help us to gain some regularity in our schooling. All of this "here and there" stuff is killing me!!

Tweaking MFW

I actually sat down and integrated A Child's Story of America with Adventures in My Father's World-starting at week 18.

I soooo wish I had done this from the beginning. I love Adventures in MFW, but it's very light on history... for us. Now that we've started our State Studies there doesn't seem to be enough history... for us.

Here it is. I hope someone finds it useful. At least you can see where the states would be covered in a US History Study. Click the box on the far right to make it full screen.

US History Plan

Get your own at Scribd or explore others:

Adventures in MFW ~ Thanksgiving

We're having our big Thanksgiving dinner on Saturday, so I decided to do week 13 now.

Psalm 100

A Psalm for giving thanks.
Make a joyful noise to the Lord , all the earth!

Serve the Lord with gladness!
Come into his presence with singing!

Know that the Lord , he is God!
It is he who made us, and we are his;
we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture.

Enter his gates with thanksgiving,
and his courts with praise!
Give thanks to him; bless his name!

For the Lord is good;
his steadfast love endures forever,
and his faithfulness to all generations.

We read The Thanksgiving Story over 3 days. After the first day's reading, we went out into the field and measured how big the Mayflower actually was. 90' x 26' They enjoyed "seeing" it. It was pretty neat to see how small it actually was.

Math and AO Literature were kept up, but everything else slacked this week.

*B* is loving The Princess and the Goblin. I'm getting hooked into the story as well.

Dinner from New Jersey

Chicken Casserole and Savory Green Beans
(I didn't buy enough fresh beans, so we ate some from a can.)

Adventures in MFW ~ week 15, finished

New Hampshire, Virginia, New York, North Carolina

We actually did NH last week. Right now we've just been doing one state per lesson. I can't wait to start digging into history again!!

On Tuesday, I made a dinner from Maryland. (I know, I'm behind.) We had Crab Cakes and Macaroni Salad. I've never made or eaten either of those before... it was okay.

I got the recipe from Eat Your Way Through the USA. It's a really neat book, it also gives food facts for the states.

I'm hoping that next week will start to become normal again. It's hard to get used to Daddy working 3 days a week. Needless to say, we're STILL working on Zoology chapter 9. They are really learning the stuff though! It amazes me what they soak up as youngsters.

Ambleside literature update: We're still working though week 1. Like I said, I hope things calm down next week. *B* and I started reading The Pilgrim's Progress together. We take turns reading paragraphs.

Adventures in MFW ~ week 15, part 1

I have good news and bad news. The good news is that we only need to "school" 5 more days this month to stay on track. The bad news is that I took a 3 day break this week. Well, I guess that's not really bad news. Especially with our loop schedule. All I have to do is pick up where we left off. I love it! No "extra" planning, needed! (Except to add more Bible readings.) I highlighted what we actually completed this week.

For Adventures in My Father's World, we only completed one state. New Hampshire.

Our Picture Study was Prima Ballerina by Edgar Degas. They enjoyed coloring the picture. We listened to our music selection (from the Nutcracker) while they colored. I got the coloring pages from here.

Reading Reflex and *T*... I keep forgetting to post pictures of his word building exercises. I'm so proud of him!!

Zoology I: Flying Creatures of the Fifth Day

We learned the most disgusting things this week. Yuck #1: When a mosquito "bites" you, it SPITS into the wound and we have an allergic reaction to it. That is why it itches. Yuck #2: A fly uses it's feet to decide whether or not it wants to eat something. Then it VOMITS acid onto your food so that it can use it's sponge mouth to absorb your liquified food.

We started doing Ambleside Online's Literature. *B* is doing Year 3, and *C* is doing Year 1.

It looks like a lot, but really it isn't. The purple boxes are what they do by themselves. I pre-read the selection and when they are done I hear their narration. I don't write it down or anything, I just make sure it's accurate. *C* loves to draw. So, instead of narrating his poem he draws a picture of something that comes to mind while reading it. ~ Notice the sun in the window.

Adventures in MFW ~ week 14

Connecticut, Massachusetts, Maryland, South Carolina

Week 13 is reserved for the week of Thanksgiving, so we will come back to it next month.

This week was a little crazy, so even on the loop we didn't get everything done. BUT being on the loop helped me get more done that I would've.

In Adventures, we did the coloring pages for CT, MA, MD, and SC. We also read about the states' birds in Birds, Nests, and Eggs.

We listened to the "dances" from the Nutcracker Ballet. The kids really enjoyed drinking hot chocolate while listening to the Chocolate dance.

In Zoology, we are still working on chapter 9, insects. At least we're doing it... right? *C* came running in one day, "Mommy, mommy, I found an exoskeleton!!" At church on Sunday he told EVERYONE about his discovery. After we read each section they write at least 1 sentence in their composition books.

We also have a new pet. We haven't named him yet, but he (or she) is a Camel Cricket.

*B* is learning about the metric system in Math. She's having fun with it.

*C* finally took his first math test, and made me grade it. He got a 100%. Poor kid would've been devastated if he hadn't.

*T* did another lesson or so in his workbook, and also did some MUS Primer worksheets.

I had an issue with Song School Latin this week. They have the word house as casa. I don't agree with that, so I taught my kids domus instead. I did email CAP and ask about it. Here's part of the email I got back:

Some dictionaries define casa as "house" as well as "cabin", "cottage", or "hut" (e.g., Wheelock, and the Oxford Latin Course). Other define it as just "cabin", "cottage" or "hut" (Ecce Romani, Cassel's). So while there is some ambiguity among the dictionaries, I think that "house" is an acceptable definition of casa. Furthermore, most Romans (including the Roman middle class) lived in fairly modest dwellings that were more along the of a cabin. In other words, the average Roman lived in a "house" more akin to a casa; where as the average American lives in something more like an aedes. Domus is a more generic term that doesn't make clear what kind of house one lives in. In other words, a Roman living in a casa could still refer to his casa as a domus!

Did you catch that? "Domus is a more generic term that doesn't make clear what kind of house one lives in." That screams: USE DOMUS! USE DOMUS! SSL has nothing to do with Roman history or I might agree with using casa. I just decided that we would learn the "generic term" for house. Isn't that what the word house is? A generic term for one's dwelling?

One more thing, if someone can explain this to me I will be forever indebted to you... if casa basically means a cabin or hut, why would the word castle be derived from it?

We didn't get our Picture Study done this week, but we'll keep it on for next week. I picked Prima Ballerina by Degas to go along with the Nutcracker theme.

Oh, yeah, I hate to say it but Mama's not going to finish Sense and Sensibility. I just can't find the time for it. Ouch!

Adventures in MFW ~ week 12

Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Georgia

Our first week of State Study! euge! My version of MFW uses a Dover Coloring Book for the state pages. I printed the state flags (onto sticker paper) from Enchanted Learning.

They wanted to make a "State Book" instead of putting the pages into their history notebooks. And these are the books I got from the library. I went ahead and got all of the 13 colonies.

In science, we will be coordinating bird study to match the state birds. Most of our readings come from Birds, Nests, and Eggs. This week we read about the American Gold Finch.

This week's picture study: A Sunday Afternoon on the island of La Grande Jatte by Georges Seurat. We read the info here, looked at it "far" and "close" here...

... and colored the picture. Using crayons sort of made it look like lots of dots.

We had a pretty light week. Daddy was cut to 30 hours at work for a few weeks, so we have to adjust to a new schedule.

*B* took chapter 3 math test and did ok. I wasn't very happy, but at least it was something fairly easy. She has a hard time "getting" easy stuff. Anyway, so she also did some Math Mammoth worksheets for extra practice. After I felt she really grasped estimation, we moved on. She completed lesson 27 (meter) and lesson 28 (decimeter).

*C* started Horizons Math grade 2. He did lessons 1-7. He can't wait to get to lesson 10, because it's a test! Crazy boy!

...And that's all she wrote!

Adventures in MFW ~ week 11

First of all I have to say that I LOVE the loop schedule! We got so much done! It's nice to just do one thing if that's all I can squeeze into a certain time frame. Again, wow!

In History this week our focus was George Washington. We finished reading Meet George Washington, and A Child's Story of America pages 99-107. In CSA, we learned about the branches of government, how they work, and George Washington as our first President.

They traced the picture and we looked up the dates in a president book that I have.


Our picture study this week has been "Starry Night" by Van Gogh. We read a bit about him from VM Hillyer's Child's History of Art. After that they colored this page from Enchanted Learning.


We've been studying Tchaikovsky and this week we listened to some music from the Nutcracker.

We actually got to do science this week! Thank you loop inventor! We started chapter 9 on insects. After each section the kids wrote a little bit in their composition books. They also are labeling an insect from Enchanted Learning. The coolest thing is that I got these from Dollar General for 60 cents (how do you make the little cent sign?) each!


In Latin, we did chapter 6 in SSL. We're having fun remembering that "vir" is man, because daddy is a man and he is "weird." :) *C* said "puer" and *L* ran to get Pooh Bear. LOL! They've done 1 page per day in Latin's Not So Tough. We're working on Chapter 3 in Minimus. Just a minute ago *B* said, "quid facis?" I said, "Stuff." She said, "You mean stuffius." Followed by a giggle.

In math, *B* did lessons 23-26 and Monday she will take the Chapter 3 test. I had *C* take the grade 2 readiness test for Horizons and he only missed a few. So, Monday we'll start the grade 2 book. I really only started with grade 1: book 2, because I wanted to make sure that he was ready. He is. *T* did lesson 14 in Horizons K. I found some worksheets leftover from MUS Primer, and I'm having him do some of those. He really needs more practice with number recognition.

Oh, and even though we're doing the loop we've been starting each day with Bible readings. We're using Penny Gardner's compiled list.

On a side note... I've finished the first chapter of Sense and Sensibility! euge!

Adventures in MFW ~ week 10 1/2

We had a light week. Mostly, we did some local history and a little bit of math and language.

I printed this map from the American Revoluntion sample at Homeschool In The Woods.

Tonight we will finish reading Lizzie and the Redcoat. I highly recommend it! We also read The Nutcracker Ballet, as we've been studying Tchaikovsky.

We did a few pages of math and 1 lesson from PLL. This week's copywork was "Jack Sprat."

The highlight of our week was the walking tour of Greeneville, TN. We really did most of the tour but paid special attention to the items related to our studies.

General John Morgan (Civl War) was killed across the street from this church. There's still a cannon ball from that day stuck in the front. Cool, huh?!

Now to the neatest part of the tour. The "Old Greene County Gaol" (Jail).

Here's an excerpt from the Walking Tour Pamphlet:

Originally built in 1804-05 the stone jail was in the middle of Depot Street near the Andrew Johnson Tailor Shop. The rear of the jail was nearly touching Richland Creek... In 1838the old stone jail, in its entirety, was torn down and moved, stone by stone, to the present site. In 1882 [they] erected a red brick second story to the stone jail.

The funniest thing about the jail is that it's smack dab in the middle of the parking lot for the present jail. I mean literally, right in the middle of the parking lot. Cracked me up! Here is the current jail, on the original site of the old gaol. (I took the pic standing in front of the Tailor Shop.)