Wrapping Up Week 10 (2016-17)
History: The Start of the American Revolution
I am really glad we are using The Light and the Glory for Children (and its sequel) as our “spine” this year. It is helping set a good pace for us as we move through the events of early American history. Without it, we might be tempted to speed through the entire Liberty’s Kids series, but because we are going chapter by chapter in the book, we have time to really explore each event, looking at various books and videos to help the children become familiar with the important people and details.
Paul Revere: We’ve talked about Paul Revere before, when we were going through Five in a Row, but that was three years ago, so we pulled out some of our favorite resources from that study, as well as adding a few new ones this time around.
book: Paul Revere’s Ride (there’s an audio recording of this poem from Homeschool Radio Shows)- audio: “Listen My Children” from Homeschool Radio Shows.
- audio: Adventures in Odyssey #197 “The Midnight Ride” (This was interesting because it discussed some errors in Longfellow’s poem as well as giving more information about Paul Revere.)
- video: Liberty’s Kids episode 5 “Midnight Ride”
- video: “The Flame Returns,” part of Animaniacs Season 3, Episode 25 (streaming on Netflix right now, though they call it Vol. 2, Episode 12)
Lexington and Concord: The battle at Lexington lasted only about 15 minutes before the British moved on to Concord, but it is important because it marks the beginning of years of fighting between the Americans and the British. We found several good resources for learning about it, and the boys really memorized a lot of details that kept popping up in each one.
- book: Sam the Minuteman (We also used the literature guide from Progeny Press, which led to some great discussions, as well as a helpful vocabulary lesson that was reinforced in several other resources we used this week.)
- George the Drummer Boy by Nathaniel Benchley tells about the battle from a boy on the British side
- video: Liberty’s Kids episode #6 “The Shot Heard Round the World”
- video: Schoolhouse Rock “The Shot Heard Round the World” (and we watched “No More Kings“)
- video: April Morning (This is full-length movie starring Tommy Lee Jones about a father and son at Lexington. It’s not rated, but my husband and I watched it with the older boys and we were okay with it. It is about battle, but there’s no gore and as about little violence as one could have given the subject.)
Ethan Allen and the “Green Mountain Boys” at Fort Ticonderoga:
Ian and I also watched The American Revolution, which covered all these subjects. (I found it this streaming on Amazon Prime and it’s aimed at children, so I figured we’d give it a try. Ian, always ready to watch anything, joined me in previewing it, but I found it a little too slow to show to the other kids and after we got interrupted I didn’t bother going back to finish the whole thing. The best thing about it was reinforcing things we had already learned about.
Chapter 12 in The Light and the Glory also mentioned the battle of Bunker Hill, but we’re saving that until next week when it’s covered in Liberty’s Kids to talk more about it.
Biography
The last sentence of Chapter 12 in The Light and the Glory introduced the man who would step up to lead the new Continental Army: George Washington. I decided to make him the focus of our biography studies this week so the boys would be more familiar with him as we move on. We read George Washington: America’s Patriot from YWAM Publishing’s “Heroes for Young Readers” series, as well as George Washington by Ingri and Edgar Parin d’Aulaire
Veritas Press
Elijah has been begging me for months to sign him up for a Veritas Press Self-Paced History Course, and while he loves his VP self-paced Bible course, it just hasn’t satisfied him. This week I heard the VP was having a Back to School Sale (use code BACKTOHOMESCHOOL for $100 off until 9/26!) on their Self-Paced courses, so I decided to go ahead and get him started on “Explorers to 1815.” In the first three days he completed 7 lessons, and the first words out of his mouth when we woke up Saturday morning were, “Can I do a history lesson?”
Upcoming Reviews
We’re enjoying several products right now, so watch for these reviews in the next few weeks (may contain affiliate links):
- KidsEmail.org
- The Pray-ers / Book 1 Troubles by Mark S. Mirza
- The Cat of Bubastes from Heirloom Audio Productions
- If You Were Me and Lived in…Colonial America (An Introduction to Civilizations Throughout Time) (Volume 4) and others in this series by Carole P. Roman
- Elementary Spanish 2 (Grades 3-5) from Middlebury Interactive Languages
Ian has been going through 
Instead, I planned other short readings from various older books I’d gotten with the e-book bundle from 
We didn’t do all the activities in the notebook (we skipped the copywork because my boys are already doing other copywork and they find it tedious), but we did enjoy the other pages. I especially liked the “mini-books,” which are like lapbook components that the students cut out, write in, assemble, and then attach to pages within their notebook so when the student has finished the course they will have an extensive collection of work all in one spiral bound book. Having the pages in order in the new edition got my boys excited as they saw what was coming up, and these were a wonderful way to keep them learning while giving them something active to do.
The one subject I did actually spend some time on was history, mostly because I was eager to dive into the next chapter of 
classes and me tutoring a group of 4th grade “Journeymen.” For the most part it went really well. I’d forgotten how much I enjoy teaching, and I’ve got a great group of kids to tutor this year. At the end of the day, my own kids were all smiles and excited about the mornings they had had with their tutors, so we’re off to a good start, and I look forward to seeing where this year takes all of us.
So this week (which was supposed to be a “writing” week), I decided to thrown in a quick look at John Wesley, since he was a friend of George Whitefield, whom we read about in 
I really want the boys to keep building upon what they learned in their writing class last year, so when a friend mentioned that she wasn’t going to use the IEW book she had bought for her children to go through this year, I decided to take it off her hands and make that the basis for our writing program this year. We jumped right into 
This week was another odd one, but again I’m thankful for the flexibility homeschooling provides for our family. We attended a memorial service for a family friend, spent a few hours at the 
Of course, once Elijah saw what he was doing, he wanted to do it as well, and he loved it so much he begs to do coding every day. He logged 188 minutes this week, and would have done more if I’d let him. I’m amazed at how much he’s learned and the drawings he’s created with code. For now, I’m learning alongside him so I can help, but I know it won’t be long before he’s zooming ahead of me and will have to figure things out on his own.
Level 1
The “Go Squish” cardgame we received is one of those activities. Similar to “Go Fish,” the game is played using vocabulary cards. At Level 1, the students just say the vocabulary words (“Desayuno?” “No desayuno.” At Level 2 they use complete sentences (Tengo desayuno. Tienes desayuno?” “No, no tengo desayuno. GO SQUISH”).
