Category Archives: History

Honey Springs Battlefield Education Day ~Checotah, OK

 

jawbonesOnce every three years the Honey Springs Battlefield has a re-enactment of the civil war battle that took place there.

banjo listeningThe day before the re-enactment they had an educational day!

Most people that know me are aware that I am pretty passionate about history.

In fact I leave it as one of the last subjects of the day I teach so I do not spend the whole day on it!

I feel like I am surrounded by like minded people at these history events!

ringtossA couple other homeschool mom’s came with me to this event.

Here is my friend Stephanie helping to demonstrate a game that would have been played at that time.

We offered her because she has girls (at least that is the best excuse I could think of).

blacksmithsmokeThe boys kept trying to hide from the smoke coming from the blacksmiths fire.

soldier talking drummersEveryone was nice and very patient!

We saw a lot of the same people that had been at the Homeschool Day at the History center!

I love introducing my kids to history at a young age.

Of course boys hate learning about hero’s and battles.

So difficult to get them into weapons…

And don’t even get me started at how much they hated the loud booms made by the guns.

They suffer through it because they love me so much no doubt.

Creation Study ~Day 6 Land Animals & Man

books insidebookAs always we are using the “Answers in Genesis Curriculum for kids” for our history.

I bought “Dinosaurs for Kids” by Ken Ham for the animal part of our study.

It goes through the different ages of dinosaurs sometimes giving the evolutionist view as well as the biblical view.

We have been talking a lot about the fact all animals were created to be herbivores.

It is something that is easy to forget when you look at a Great White Shark…

zootrip watchingWe went on a zoo trip at the end of our study and I had the boys point out what day the different animals were created on.

It was such a simple exercise but so good!

I also threw out another day once in a while.

Like “I spy something created on day 3!”.

It was a tree.

bobcatWe also watched videos on the Answers in Genesis website.

You could study anatomy with Day 6, I had thought about it but ended up going easy on our last week of creation instead.

This study has been so informative for me!

I love when I get something out of what we are learning!

I will continue studying the timeline for the rest of the school year.

Right now we are learning about Jubal and Tubal-Cain.

I really like how much this gives us the big picture of history in the bible.

I feel like ancient history and the bible are mostly kept separate from each other.

But they should be taught together!

What better way to understand the Israelites slavery in Egypt then to study Egypt at that time?

Here are the other days of creation and what we did for them.

Day 1 Light, Day & Night

Day 2 Atmosphere

Day 3 Dry land & Plants

Day 4 Sun, Moon, & Stars

Day 5 Sea & Flying Creatures

 

History in March ~The Underground Railroad and Abraham Lincoln

We started out March with the underground railroad for history.

It was a hard subject to explain to a 5 and 6yr old.

We read about Harriet Tubman in our Value Tales book and my oldest got mad.

Very mad about the way she was treated.

The funny thing was the civil war made more sense to him after reading about slavery.

We read the You Choose history book on the Underground Railroad.

I highly recommend it to anyone doing this study!

Both of my boys (ages 5 and 6) really got into it.

I forgot to take a picture of all the books on the underground railroad together since I really did not think we would be spending much time on it.

After we started studying it we stretched it out for two weeks.

This is the only picture I have of one of the other books we read.

Friend on Freedom River by Gloria Whelan is a beautiful book.

I have really liked all of the books I have read in the Tales of Young Americans series.

The illustrations are beautiful and the stories pull you in.

We listened to the three part series on the Underground Railroad by Adventures in Odyssey.

I cried.

It was amazing.

We usually listen to these in the car on the way to a field trip or something.

When I get to our destination I always feel like I am being hunted, or in the midst of a battle.

We also read Booker T. Washington’s a Slave Among Slaves.

It was in a reader so I had my oldest read some of it and then I finished it since it was a little long for him.

It was a great read.

The second part of the month we learned about Abraham Lincoln.

Again this was supposed to be a short study but it ended up going two weeks.

I love that about homeschooling.

We again listened to the Adventures in Odyssey on Abraham Lincoln.

It ends with his assassination.

I did not tell my boys what was coming.

I felt mean but I thought they would get more out of the story that way.

Thankfully they did not end it with too much drama so it was not as scary as I thought it might be.

We did the reading guide with the magic tree house lesson plan while reading the book Abe Lincoln at Last!

They have lesson plans to go along with the Magic Tree House books!

The reading guide is towards the end of the lesson plan.

We only did the reading guide this time but the boys loved finishing reading our chapters and running over to the computer to see what they remembered.

After reading the Magic Tree House book we read Mr. Lincoln’s Boys.

They mentioned the boys in the Magic Tree House book so the boys loved reading more stories about them.

Just a Few Words Mr. Lincoln is about the Gettysburg Address.

At the end of the book they have the Address and the boys were excited to hear it after reading about it in the book!

The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln was a hard book for my oldest to hear.

I did like how it did not end with him getting shot though and continued the story until they caught Booth.

There are a lot a good books out there on America’s history though!

Do not give your child a book full of dates to learn history!

Give them a good piece of historical fiction first, make history exciting!