Category Archives: History

The Greeks and the Olympics

11/20/2014 Danielle Huddleston Leave a comment

Along with our study of the Astronomy, we were also learning about the Greeks and the first Olympics!

If you are looking for a great interpretation of the Odyssey for kids then check out Mary Pope Osborne’s (author of the Magic Tree House) “Tales From the Odyssey”.

I chose a story from this version to compare to another adult version I had already.

I have to admit that I have not really read the Odyssey before but I really enjoyed comparing the two with my boys.

They are starting to get to such a fun age to teach!

The “YOU CHOOSE Ancient Greece” was of course a big hit.

My boys get so much from these books!

They do all the scenarios trying to see what will happen and learn so much history while doing it!

I have really liked this video series for kids, “Ancient Civilizations” this one was on Greece.

It is easy to understand and has nothing bad in it.

It might give you a butterfly and rainbows view of each culture but the boys and I discuss the downsides so that is okay.

We looked up what people in Ancient Greece might have eaten and that is what we had for lunch!

This was so much fun!

They had Fig Newtons in Ancient Greece.

Didn’t you know that?

Sometimes you have to wing it when your store does not carry figs…

I used the Lesson Plan on The Magic Tree House Classroom Adventures site to get some ideas for our Olympics.

We decided to wear clothes instead of being authentic.

Clothing works better for pictures.

All I did for their tunics is cut a hole out of a rectangle of sheet and tie it with a rope belt.

We did:

Discus

High Jump

Javelin

The Stade (race)

Wrestling

I made a crown out of morning glory vines for the winner.

We did not have any Olive Tree branches lying around.

Since there are only two of them I had them wear it after every victory instead of waiting until the end.

The victor of the Javelin!

The Stade.

This one was not on the site but my boys had already read that there was wrestling so they insisted it be a part of our games.

They saw right away why clothing was a problem.

I don’t see why they did not include this in the lesson plan.

What?

You don’t want the children wrestling in school?

We watched these events on the Olympics site to compare and get an idea of what it is supposed to look like.

We don’t always get to do so much hands on for our history but it was so much fun!

I think the boys are going to remember the Greeks.

History, Homeschooling

Solomon, Hatshepsut, Spartans, Jonah, & King Tut

10/31/2014 Danielle Huddleston Leave a comment

The timeline we are using speculates that Hatshepsut could be the Queen of Sheba that meets with Solomon.

I think it is an interesting theory so we learned about Hatshepsut at the same time we were learning about Solomon.

We used the action bible for Solomon.

“Hatshepsut, His Majesty, Herself” and “Hatshepsut: The Princess Who Became King” were similar books so we just read through one of them.

We also watched “Unwrapping the Pharaohs” by David Down on Hepshetsut.

We read “How the Sphinx got to the Museum” before and the boys liked it a lot.

It is a nice intro for younger kids.

The boys read these top three books on their own.

It is nice and sad at the same time.

We can get through a lot more books but I miss out on some now.

I got this book with the grand plan of doing lots of fun things while learning about Egypt.

The only reason any of the projects in this book got done is because of the boys though.

My youngest insisted on making this house.

All that prep and he spent maybe 5-10mins on it…

I asked if maybe he wanted to put a little more work into it but he insisted it had everything the picture did.

He also really wanted to make the chest in the book.

I just let him go at it.

For King Tut, I had the boys read “The Curse of King Tut’s Mummy” and “Who was King Tut“.

There are some documentaries on Netflix also but I have still not gotten to them!

I have no clue why, it happens.

For Jonah, I thought I would mix it up a bit and bought the Adventures in Odyssey episode about him to listen to.

It was really good and helped the story come to life!

We watched the documentary from PBS called “The Spartans” also.

It was well done and very interesting but you might want to watch it before letting your kids watch it.

They mentioned the Spartans love life a couple times in a way that may not be appropriate and I learned things that I never remember learning about the Spartans before.

Like the city elders got to decide if your baby was worthy of being a Spartan or not, if they decided they were inferior then they would throw them off a cliff…

They also took boys away at the age of 7 to turn them into super soldier/killers.

Apparently Hitler was a big fan of their society if that helps.

We only watched the first episode.

I was pretty scarred from just that.

My boys being typical boys thought a super soldier society was awesome…

They glossed right over the infanticide.

We talked about the drawbacks to being a Spartan though.

I think they realize raising little boys to be killers might not be fun or the best thing for a people.

Boys…

Camping, History

MN Trip ~Day 5 The SHT

10/10/2014 Danielle Huddleston Leave a comment

There are very few pictures from our second day on the Superior Hiking Trail because it rained!

It was supposed to rain for most of the time so one day of rain was not too bad.

Of course when it started sprinkling I did not want to put my rain jacket on.

I was hot so I thought I would wait.

Later I had to try to dry out my wet things and I realized I was not planning far enough ahead.

The trail was pretty muddy in spots so the fact they had bridges and boardwalks in places was really nice!

This is a really well travelled trail and they seem to take good care of it.

Since we were headed to Tetteguche State Park campground that day we headed up Mount Trudee which would had some really awesome views.

Since it was raining I thought I would take pictures the next day when we headed back that way instead of trying to get my camera out of my pack, where I put it to keep it dry.

I found out really quickly that one of my shirt choices was really bad.

The grey one you see hanging in our tent is a really cheap Danskin from Walmart and it is amazing.

It dries quickly and is a great base layer.

I wore a black t-shirt from target on top and it soaked up the water like a sponge.

That guy is not coming hiking with me again…

Even though the park let us call them to check into our campsite we still decided to make the 2.5mile trek to the visitor center to check it out after we set up camp.

Even though it poured on the way there, I am so glad we did it!

They had a fireplace!

We stayed there for a couple hours to dry out and then headed back into the rain…

It was a cold wet night but that is what happens sometimes when you camp.

I should have brought a base layer for my legs instead of just the pants I wore.

Live and learn.

What is your favorite thing to bring with you camping?

I was dreaming of long johns all night…