Journey to Excellence

This week in our  Road Trip USA  unit study, we traveled to Minnesota and then snuggled right into our home state of Missouri. Minnesota We started out our studies by going through the materials in  Road Trip USA  and coloring our notebooking page. Then we went on to watch the segment about Minnesota from "The States" dvd. We read Minnesota Facts and Symbols by Bill McAuliffe. (I highly recommend  The States and Their Symbols series of books.) While our cinnamon apples were baking, we did a really great Monarch butterfly art project . I thought these turned out so cool! Missouri Again for Missouri we read our Road Trip USA materials, colored our notebooking page, watched the Missouri segment of "The States", and read Missouri Facts and Symbols  by Emily McAuliffe. I learned something new … Missouri was the first place for the Olympics to be held outside of Europe. It coincided with the World's Fair in St. Louis. We w...

This week we learned about Illinois in our Road Trip USA unit study. We watched the video "The States" on Illinois, completed our notebooking page, read Illinois Facts and Symbols by Emily McAuliffe, and then learned about Al Capone, Wyatt Earp, and Frank Lloyd Wright. After looking at images of the Unity Chapel , the first reported design of Frank Lloyd Wright, we went on an architecture photo scavenger hunt. We walked around our downtown area looking for shapes in the architecture. It was fun to see that every building was comprised of shapes put together. With the designs the kids come up with on Minecraft, maybe we will have some future architects or engineers!

Our Road Trip took us to Massachusetts and New Hampshire this week: Massachusetts Looked up Boston on our wall map and atlas Completed the state symbols coloring page from Road Trip USA Read Massachusetts Facts and Symbols by Emily McAuliffe Read A Big Cheese for the White House by Candace Fleming Read The History of Electricity by Elizabeth Lachner, focusing on Benjamin Franklin Interviewed Benjamin Franklin at THIS SITE . Watched Shelley Duvall's "Tall Tales and Legends: Johnny Appleseed" Talked about Paul Revere and listened to a dramatic reading of "The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere" Made chocolate chip cookies New Hampshire Looked up Concord on the wall map and atlas Completed the state symbols coloring page from Road Trip USA Read New Hampshire Facts and Symbols by Muriel L. Dubois Watched Youtube videos about Old Man of the Mountain and it's collapse Read poems from Poetry for Young People: Robert Frost Li...

This post is a day late because we have had a busy weekend of hanging out as a family. Here is what the kids and I did this week studying Maine and Maryland with Road Trip USA. Maine: Found capitol on map Colored state sheet with facts Learned about the Portland Head Light Made lighthouse art (it started out as a specific lesson but turned into individual projects) Read: Birdie's Lighthouse and Sea Chest Read 50 States and learned that Main is the toothpick capitol of the world and the largest paper producer The state animal is the moose, so the kids made "antlers" with yard sticks and balloons and then walked around the house, and ran outside, to see how difficult it might be to carry around those heavy, bulky antlers Baked blueberry muffins Maryland: Found capitol on map Colored state sheet with facts Read books about Harriet Tubman: Minty and Moses Read 50 States Looked at scrapbook pages from Rick and my trip to Baltimore and Fort McHen...

Welcome to Study America Saturday where I share with you all we have learned about America this week, as well as any cool deals I find out there related to American History. First, I need to give a shout out to Mary at Winecup Christian Academy and thank her for recommending "The States" dvd series from The History Channel . We received it today and watched the segments on Connecticut and Delaware as a review of what we had learned this week. I love this dvd series and I highly recommend it! Thanks, Mary! Now onto what we studied: We are using Road Trip USA as our spine this year for learning U.S. Geography. This week's states were Connecticut and Delaware. For Connecticut, we: Found it's capitol, Hartford, on our world map Completed and colored the state symbols notebooking page Made a  Praying Mantis craft  (scroll 3/4 of the way down the site to find it) Watched video on the Old State House Baked a Connecticut apple pie from scratch (yum!) Rea...

Two years ago I started posting all about Dawson's (then 9th grade) studies on American History. I had spent the previous summer creating an American History curriculum for him using the dvd series "America: The Story of Us" and some other resources. It was such a great year! Well, this year the little kids and I are embarking on a road trip ... Road Trip USA , that is! I purchased the downloadable curriculum from Confessions of a Homeschooler, printed out the massive number of pages (because I needed two student workbooks), and put them in individual binders. I purchased a couple of companion books to go with our study. As this is our major unit study for the year ... and we WILL complete the entire thing this year ... I have decided to bring back Study America Saturday and will post all about our American History and Geography lessons from the week. We started our new school year this past Wednesday, and it worked out that we had just enough days to co...

After an extensive American History study with Dawson this past year, my children's extreme interest in the United States, and the upcoming election (Dawson and I will also be studying Current Events and Government this year), I was excited to learn about the DVD offer from Learn Our History by Mike Huckabee. I knew that I would want to have a unit study on the Election, and even purchased one from Amanda Bennett , but I was still worried about my ability to adequately teach the ins and outs of the election to two third graders. Honestly, the electoral college, conventions, elephants, GOP, and right or left wing jargon leaves me confused! I was never taught what any of this means. Obviously being a part in electing our nation's leaders is the most important job any one of us will do as Americans, so being knowledgeable about the process is important! Although the DVD entitled "Election Day: Choosing our President" came at a cost of $9.95 plus shipping and han...

Only two more units to go, and I will wrap them both up in this post. (Well there are actually five left, but I only completed lesson plans through the next two.) This was as far as we were able to get in the series this year. We were at the end of our school year and Dawson was ready to move on to his unit-of-choice: knights. The next two units in the America: The Story of Us series were Episode 8: Boom and Episode 9: Bust , or better known as The Roaring 20's and The Great Depression. We spent three weeks combined on these two units. Our book for both units was The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. I had never read this book before and I thought it was an excellent portrayal of the good and bad of the 20's. The symbolism was astonishing and meaty, and I recommend having your student do an essay on the symbolism in the piece. I wish I would have done that with Dawson. We watched both Episodes 8 and 9, did the discussion questions/video quiz fo...

The next unit in the America: The Story of Us series was Episode 7: Cities . We actively spent two weeks on this unit. However, we started reading our Living Book for this unit early when we gave up on My Antonia while studying Episode 6. We loved our book for this unit on the early Cities. We read City of Orphans by Avi. It did a great job of giving the reader the flavor of immigrant life during this time, the poverty they suffered, and tenament life. It was also a great story about the newsies of the time. The setting was in the streets of New York City and the Waldorf. Great book! We watched the entire Episode 7, did the discussion questions/video quiz for the episode and vocabulary words. These can be printed by going here . The Episode Guides are down the left hand column on the site. All "notebooking pages" are printed from Advanced World History Vol. 2 from Hold that Thought! All "America's Heritage" references are materi...

This week's set of lesson plans did not happen on Study America Saturday because yesterday Brynne and I were celebrating a day of all things The Secret Garden . Hope you weren't checking your computer all day for the lesson plans for Episode 6 (somehow I think you might have better things to do.) But, we're here now. So, let's go ... We have finally moved past pre-Civil War and Civil War to Episode 6: Heartland .   We spent four weeks on this unit. Our living book in this area was a real DUD! In fact, about three-quarters of the way through it, I slammed it shut and said, "We are done! I am so bored reading this!" I had high hopes for a book by Willa Cather. (We were going to read O' Pioneers by Willa Cather, and after reading reviews decided to switch to My Antonia . Maybe the other was better.) I wish that I had a recommendation for you, but I don't. If you have a book from this era that you can recommend to my readers, PLEASE leave...

You might have thought I had given up on my lesson plan post for "America: The Story of Us". But, I haven't! We were traveling and recovering from traveling for the past three weeks. But, today I am back and ready for the next installment. You now find us on Episode 5: Civil War .   We spent five weeks on this unit. Again, it was just too good and rich to wrap up in three weeks. And we spent several days watching one of my absolutely favorite miniseries from when I was a teenager. We read two books about this period: The Mostly True Adventures of Homer P. Figg by Rodman Philbrick (a 2012 Newberry Award winner). We really enjoyed this book. It had a lot of historical facts that brought the time period alive, but it had the vibe of Huck Finn. I recommend this book for some fun, informational reading. The second book we read was Chasing Lincoln's Killer by James L. Swanson. I saw this book by chance on the list of 2012 Sequoyah winners, so picked i...

Some accidental American History occurred this week for Eli and Brynne. While in Pensacola, Florida, on Spring Break, I took the kids to tour Ft. Barrancas. According to the National Park Service, "European colonization, American expansion, and threats of invasion led to the building of coastal forts along the northern Gulf Coast. Situated on the bluffs (barrancas) overlooking Pensacola Bay and the gateway to the outside world, Fort Barrancas served as the lock on the gate from potential foreign invaders." "The forts of Gulf Islands National Seashore span almost 150 years, from the Spanish colonial Bateria De San Antonio (1797) to the World War Two-era Battery 234. This reflects the historic value of the anchorages at Pensacola Bay, Florida and Ship Island, Mississippi. Most striking among these are the American Third System forts: Fort Pickens, Fort Massachusetts, Fort Barrancas, and the Advanced Redoubt, all of which saw action during the Civil War." ...