Showing posts with label American history. Show all posts
Showing posts with label American history. Show all posts

Tuesday, October 21, 2008

Taxation Activity

Just a quick activity we did today:

We are starting to talk about some of the events leading up to the Revolutionary War. I found this activity, and we did it this morning with chocolate chips.

It was quick and very effective. The kids were outraged that they lost their chocolate chips to Parliament, the King, and the tax collector! The tax collector (me) quickly redistributed the chocolate chips so that she wouldn't be tarred and feathered!

Wednesday, September 3, 2008

Week 3 - review

Bible Time: We read from 2 Kings and 2 Chronicles this week. The most important story in our opinion as parents is the story from 2 Chronicles 19-20, where Jehoshaphat led his people into battle with praises. However, even though I really talked this story up and reviewed it with the kids each day, two days later no one really knew anything at all about Jehoshaphat. Junior wasn't even sure if he was a good king or a bad king. *Sigh* I want to go back to this story later on in the year and see if I have any fresh ideas for it.

History: We are doing Colonial Life from Homeschool in the Woods. This week we made fortune catchers and silhouettes. The kids love, love, love the fortune catchers. Junior ended up making one for his grandpa and Peanut made one for a little friend who was coming over.

The silhouettes were more difficult. I will put up a post with silhouette tips later. Dad will take them to work and shrink them on the large copy machine there, and they will make a nice framed piece, I believe.

Our read-aloud is still The Warrior's Challenge by Dave and Neta Jackson. I like it. There are some themes that I feel my kids would better relate to if they were older, but it is not a big deal. The subject of cruelty to Native Americans is dealt with without being disturbing to young kids.
In the evenings, I do read-alouds with Peanut by herself. We love reading the Burgess Animal stories, but we just started on Emily's Runaway Imagination by Beverly Clearly, and we are enjoying it. Somehow I missed it growing up.

For language arts, we are still doing copywork using the Rules of Civility from our unit study.

Reading: Junior finished up Nate the Great and started on Prairie School. Peanut finished The Skippack School, and she really liked it. After the first few chapters, I did not have to share the reading with her. She got into it on her own, and didn't want to wait on me to finish what I was doing.

For science, we got a lot of books at the library, but we haven't gotten started on them yet. Junior is wanting to study buoyant forces. Before I got to the library, I found some directions online for making a Cartesian Diver, so we did that. It was a bit tricky, but we got it to work. The cartesian diver doesn't exactly demonstrate buoyant forces, but it is close enough. My opinion is that when he says "buoyant forces," he means that he wants to do water experiments, and he did enjoy the Cartesian Diver.

Wednesday, June 25, 2008

Web-link Wednesday - BBC History for Kids

BBC History for Kids has some really interesting games and animations for elementary ages, if you are studying any history from that part of the world, such as the Vikings, Celts, or Anglo-Saxons.



If American History is on your menu for the next year, Our Los Banos provides a free curriculum for grades 2-6.



For more great links, visit Web Link Wednesday.