World History Classics

This is a continuation of my posts on Classes by Classics. World History is an all encompassing task to study. One could spend their entire life studying all the cultures and their various histories throughout all time. Think of it...the entire world's history! Most of us are lucky if we study a few stories about a few important periods of time. I would like to emphasize that pretty much all non-fiction is part of world history, so we could really pull any non-fiction book and read it as part of our world history studies.

From the TJED for Teens list:

• Antigone
• The Illiad
• The Odyssey
• The Trial and Death of Socrates by Plato
• Nichomachaen Ethics by Aritstotle

We have added:

• The World Before Christ: An LDS Perspective by Dan Hunter
• The World After Christ: An LDS Perspective by Dan Hunter
• Great Books of the Western World

See my post about our History Notebooks for more about what we are doing for history.

American History Classics

'I cannot tell a lie.'

American History is a pretty easy one to find classics on...or so I thought. Once I began studying American History, I realized that so many sources vary in their coverage of events. For example, I was raised on the story of George Washington and the Cherry Tree...remember that one..."I cannot tell a lie." How disappointing to find out the story is a lie!

It then becomes difficult to find true historical writings. I find that older versions seem to be the most correct and that we need to make sure we are reading unabridged versions of stories and histories. It is my belief that each time we read someone's abridged version, we are getting more opinion than fact unless it is well documented where the information comes from.

NOTE: This list overlaps with American Government. We choose to work on 100 hours for each subject and only allow a work to count towards one subject.

From Thomas Jefferson Education for Teens:

• Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglas
• "Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death"
• "The Present Crisis"
• Also see the list for American Government

We have also added:

We found a fabulous history series by Dan Hunter at Living History Books. These are LDS based and we love them! There is an American History set that we have not started yet, but it is on the list (Vol. 1 and Vol. 2). We have some of the other sets and love the writing style as well as the detailed outlines, time-lines, maps, and references to where he got the information from; making this series of history books one of the few "curriculum" items we feel are classics. It is written from a very TJED point of view (no tests or worksheets) and Oliver DeMille even wrote the forward for them. Dan Hunter suggests that rather than test students, require projects or papers written on people or events (see below for more info).

HISTORY NOTEBOOK
We are embarking on a new idea to make our own history notebooks. I am getting mine started in order to "model" this for my teens. When I mentioned it nobody shouted, "Hooray! I always wanted to make a history notebook." Rather, I got one blank stare that said in silent mocking tones, "Seriously?" and another moderate eye roll that sarcastically mimicked, "Another great idea mom has to add to my full study load." I know, it might only seem appealing to the history fanatic, but I hope to get one started myself first and maybe inspire some others in my home later. ;-)

Check out this free download over at Living History Books on making your own history notebook.

Here are also some free notebook pages I made up to use based on the download listed above.  It didn't like his, not clean enough for me I guess. There are three different line height pages, including emergent writer (primary lined) pages, which Dan Hunter's does not include.

American Government Classics

I love learning about the birth of America, the various changes over time, and the current state of our great nation. This is one of the most important subjects to study from the classics. Textbooks have left out so much of what is true and necessary in the study of our government. One must study the original documents and the original words of the founding fathers in order to gain their own understanding of what government is and should be.

There are a lot of books listed here. For high school "credit", we choose from these lists and study for 100 hours to constitute a high school credit per Missouri law. That is pretty easy to do from this list, however, we continue with this list for Depth Phase.

From TJED for Teens:

• The Declaration of Independence
• The Constitution of the United States
• "The Gettysburg Address" speech by Abraham Lincoln
• "I Have a Dream" speech by Martin Luther King Jr.
• The Real Thomas Jefferson by Allison, Maxfield, Cook and Skousen
• The Real Benjamin Franklin by Allison
• The Real George Washington by Allison, Parry, and Skousen
• The Making of America by W. Cleon skousen
• Democracy in America Vol. 1 and Vol. 2 by Alexis De Tocqueville
• The 5,000 Year Leap by W. Cleon Skousen
• The Law by Bastiat

Others we have added:

• The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin by Benjamin Franklin

Again, I would like to add sections of The Great Books of the Western World. 

• Volume 43 - Articles of Confederation, The Federalist, On Liberty by J. S. Mill
• Volume 2 Syntopicon - Chapter 3 -Aristocracy, Chapter12 - Constitution, Chapter 16 - Democracy, Chapter 31 - Government, Chapter 42 - Justice, Chapter 46 - Law, Chapter 47 - Liberty
• Volume 2 Syntopicon - Chapter 59 - Monarchy, Chapter 62 - Oligarchy, Chapter 63 - One and Many, Chapter 64 - Opinion, Chapter 90 - State, Chapter 95 - Tyranny, Chapter 98 - War and Peace, Chapter 99 - Wealth, Chapter 101 - Wisdom

The World Before Christ: An LDS Perspective

I posted several weeks ago about my son's need of some new history books. We decided to purchase 'The World Before Christ: An LDS Perspective" by Dan P. Hunter. We have been using this three volume set for a few weeks now. I have somewhat mixed feelings about this set of books.

At first, I was quite impressed with the various quotes and documentation included in this work. My concern comes in that so much of the book seems to quote "The First Two Thousand Years" by W. Cleon Skousen. I'm beginning to wonder if we should have just read his books and not purchased this set if it is going to do so much quoting, paraphrasing, and referring to this other work. Also, I am not completely convinced that Cleon Skousen's view on history is 100% correct, which would also make this work possibly not correct. However, not all the quotes are from this one work. There are scriptures and doctrinal books mentioned as well.

Another challenge with using this curriculum is that it has three volumes and each time period, or Epoch as it is called, is spread throughout each of the three volumes. We like to study our history sequentially and so we are having to go through each volume to finish each Epoch. Chris wanted to take the bindings apart and put them in the correct order to make it easier for him. I have not done that yet, I'm not sure if I will.

The proposed way to use this set is to go through one volume a year of each of the various sets, then repeat using the second volume. So a curriculum plan would look like this:

• Year 1 - The World Before Christ: An LDS Perspective - Volume 1
• Year 2 - The World After Christ: An LDS Perspective - Volume 1
• Year 3 - The World Before Christ: An LDS Perspective - Volume 2
• Year 4 - The World After Christ: An LDS Perspective - Volume 2
• Year 5 - The World Before Christ: An LDS Perspective - Volume 3
• Year 6 - The World Before Christ: An LDS Perspective - Volume 3
• Year 7 - United States History: An LDS Perspective - Volume 1
• Year 8 - United States History: An LDS Perspective - Volume 2
• Year 9 - Native American History: An LDS Perspective

Basically, a family would study each volume together and make their way through all of the volumes throughout your homeschool life. I do not feel these volumes could be read independently by children younger than 14, and even then, they need to be good readers. There are several references, books, videos, etc. listed in each volume as possible inclusions for each Epoch. We have had a hard time finding the videos listed in the book, so it is difficult to say if that is very helpful.

It looks as though Chris will go through more than one volume a year, simply because he loves history and wants to study it in depth. He is studying the scriptures along with the history books. I had hoped he would LOVE these books, but I think he likes them fine.

Constituting America

I support organizations that teach Americans about America. I have read The Constitution of the United States a few times, but I heard about this undertaking by Constituting America to read the Constitution and the Federalist Papers in 90 days. I decided to take this challenge and hope that you all will too!

I'm a little behind in posting this, but I hope you'll do it with us!

Reading Schedule (Article are the Articles of the Constitution):

• Tuesday, April 20 – Read Article I
• Day 1 – Wednesday, April 21 – Blog on Article I; Read Article II
• Day 2 – Thursday, April 22 – Blog on Article II; Read Article III
• Day 3 – Friday, April 23 – Blog on Article III; Read remaining Articles (IV, V, VI, and VII) of the United States Constitution
• Day 4 – Monday, April 26 – Blog on Articles IV, V, VI and VII of the United States Constitution; Read the Amendments 1-10, Amendments 11-27
• Day 5 – Tuesday, April 27 – Blog on the Amendments to the United States Constitution; Read Federalist Paper # 1

Favorite Curriculum: History - "The Story of the World"

I hated history growing up. I just could not find a way to like it. I knew I had to take it to graduate and I did as little with it as possible. You know, "just enough to get by." Even when we first started educating our children at home I know I did not give much emphasis to history, which I'm sure my kids picked up on.

After floundering around the first two years at home and when I decided to "go it alone" and not use the public online school, I came across The Story of the World by Susan Wise Bauer. I liked the short stories and the fact that it was linear in it's teaching. So much of what I remember from my own education was disjointed dates, names, and facts that I could not reconcile to where, why, and how I needed to know this information. All of this has been rectified by using this curriculum! It makes sense, it is sequential in time line, and it is interesting.

Chris came to me the other day and said, "History is my favorite subject. I don't want you to ever sell the Story of the World books." (I've sold several of the books I did not think were classics.) So, I guess The Story of the World makes my classic list and will be part of our home library indefinitely. We do not use the activity books, just the four core books that cover the First Nomads through Modern Day. I also love that these books do not just focus on the Western World, but cover Eastern countries and religions. Defnitely 5 out of 5 stars on my list.

August '09 - Week 4

Devotional - "Let Him Ask of God" daily inspirational readings.

Government - "The 5,000 Year Leap" by Cleon Skousen - Part I - Discussion on the Articles of Confederation and how it was inadequately balanced.

Math - Individual Math-U-See books

History - Story of the World, Vol. 2 - "Medieval Monasteries" - Famous Men of the Middle Ages - "Alaric the Visigoth" - Stories of Beowulf Told to Children - "How the Fire Dragon Warred with the Goth Folk", "How Beowulf Overcame the Dragon", "Beowulf's Last Rest" - We are also keeping a Book of Centuries (see Mom Notes below).

Science - Magnetics Kit - "Chemistry for Every Kid" - Learning about how magnetism is a force of nature.

Latin - We began Latin two years ago and pretty much let it go after awhile, but we are getting more serious about it as our foreign language for high school. - Latina Christiana I - Lessons 1-3.

Family Projects - Reading: "On the Banks of Plum Creek" - We had a lot of yard work and cleaning of camping equipment to do. I am so much cleaner with the camping gear than when our stuff is used by the Boy Scouts. We had a LOT to clean! I took the kids to the Retreat last week only to find all of our stuff was so filthy that we attracted a lot of bees.

Fieldtrip - We attended our first outing with the local homeschool support group. There were tons of young adults, which was very exciting for our youth. I can see that there will be lots of youth for them to get to know that have common educational lives.

Individual Phases and Studies

Marlayna (Project Scholar) - Projects: Guitar practice. - Reading: "Ugly", "Zel", "Bound", "Boy Proof" - Mind Benders A4-B1

Christian (Love of Learner) - Projects: Guitar practice. - Reading: "Wizard Heir"

Mom (Ready to be a Mentored Scholar - but, still looking for a Mentor) - Reading: "Utopia" by Thomas More, "The Edge of Recall" by Kristen Heitzmann, and "Common Sense" by Thomas Paine - Math: Math-U-See Algebra - Reviewing what I have forgotten. Apparently I can't remember how to divide fractions either...

Mom Notes: We created a Book of Centuries last year, but actually put very little into it. I decided to put more effort into this in hopes of making a binder of reminders of all the history we have studies and where it fits in a time line fashion. For more information, see this site about the Book of Centuries.

Grand Canyon & Other Stuff

Grand Canyon
Last Wednesday (was that a week ago?) we went to the Grand Canyon with Les & Ronda's family. They stayed the night and we all got up early and drove about an hour to the canyon. It was such a beautiful day! Here are some pics from that trip. It rained on the way home, but at least we did not get rained on at the canyon.

Chicken Run (Nope, not about the movie.)
We worked on a fenced area for the chickens Saturday. They are getting bigger and needed room to roam...safely! We added a doggie door to the coop so they can get in and out of the coop as needed to get out of the wind, rain, and snow. Our bunny, Joey, decided he wanted to explore that area too and had a great time hopping around. He was hilarious doing some extra little hops and twists to show how excited he was to be out in the dirt. The bunny has a hard time with the doggie door, he sometimes slips off the ramp and takes several attempts to get into the coop/shed. I need to get that on video...it is so funny!

Bunk Bed
Chris got a bunk bed for his room off of Craigslist. It is one of those with a futon couch on the bottom. We spent hours putting that thing together on Saturday. *whew!* He is happy to have the couch so he can sit on that while he plays Playstation games and uses his Linux computer that we built together. We now have plenty of beds so come on up and visit!

Goat Barn Anyone?
We are looking for a large shed or small barn to house some goats. Marly is anxiously waiting for the right price on milking goats, but she needs a place for them to stay first so we can keep them safe (see More Nighttime Visitors). She has saved up close to $200 for the goats, but it is far from enough for a shed for them to live in. Heavenly Father has blessed us with several things to allow us to have animals and I believe he will send something our way when the time is right. Craigslist and Freecycle have been huge blessings!

School House Rock

I remember these little videos that used to play during Saturday morning cartoons. I ran across them on YouTube and thought...."I can use these for homeschool." I mean, I thought they were catchy and fun when I was a kid. Of course, my kids think they are corny...but they do teach something, unlike most cartoons these days.

This one is my favorite - Conjunction Junction:



Here are some others that I found about:

Grammar

• Interjections!
• Lolly Lolly Lolly Get Your Adverbs Here
• A Noun is a Person Place of Thing
• Verb
• Unpack Your Adjectives
• Grammar: The Tale of Mr. Morton
• Prepositions
• Pronoun
  

Government & History

• I'm Just a Bill
• No More Kings
• The Preamble
• The Shot Heard 'Round the World
• Elbow Room
• The Great American Melting Pot

Science

• Dem Bones
• Electricity
  

There are tons more...

Week 19

Ok - I've been very bad about keeping up on my homeschool posts with moving and all. But, it is never too late to get back on track...forgot to post this one on the right day.

Christian - King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table by Sir Thomas Mallory, Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe (Playaway) - We let Christian go out-of-town with cousins for most of the week, so he did not get as much done this week. He did take a couple of classic books with him on Playaway.
Marlayna - Owl in Love by Patrice Kindl, Mariel of Redwall by Brian Jacques, The Shamer's Daughter by Lene Kaaberbol,
Me - Books - Emily Post's Etiquette and started Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin - Audio files at LDS-HEA - Darla Isackson, Paul Mero, Reed A. Benson, John Taylor Gatto, etc.

Do Together -

• Devotionals - Let Him Ask of God pg. 143 thru147
• Read Aloud - Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingals Wilder
  
• Government and Freedom - Mandate video on the President's of the United States, Civil War, and The New Deal
• Mathematician - Mathematicians are People Too "Galileo" pgs.45-51
  
• Musician - Spiritual Lives of the Great Composers pgs.27-34
  
• History - "Roman Empire" - Story of the World Vol. 2 pgs. 1-5 and Usborne Encyclopedia of World History pgs. 182-191
• Genealogy - Worked on my side of the 15 Generation Chart - See Mom Notes below.
  
• English and Grammar - Winston Grammar (we skipped school this day)
  
• Artist - (we skipped school this day)
  
• Science - "Ears and Eyes" - Usborne Science Encyclopedia pgs. 370-373, How the Body Works, Human Body Coloring Book
  
• Words of the Day - irreverant, meticulous, vindicate,

Mom Notes - We are loving the 15 Generation Chart! It has been so exciting to write in all the names of the ancestors we have information on. It makes it easy to see where work needs to be done. Also, we decided to highlight those born in other countries. Each country has a color - England, Canada, Ireland, France (American born are not highlighted at all) - so that we could get a visual picture for what percentage we are of each culture. We discovered that my mom's side of the family is American clear back for 9 generations! Also, I am a 4th generation Arizonan and my children are 5th generation Arizonan. How often do you find that?

Spring Break

We are having a truly awesome Spring Break! I wish I could post pictures, but Sam took the camera with her to her dad's before I could download the pics. Oops! The only huge bummer about this trip was that Mike was working the whole time and could not go with us.

We took off to cooler country...but not that much cooler! It was 70 degrees in Flagstaff while we were there. Oh well, at least it does not get over 100 there. We spent time exploring the countryside and visited the Sunset Crater Volcano and Walnut Canyon in Northern Arizona.

Sunset Crater Volcano - This was really neat, especially since we just read the book and saw the movie for Journey to the Center of the Earth by Jules Verne. Of course, the movie is NOTHING like the book. In the book, they describe the lava fields and entering the dormant volcano. We could totally picture what it was like since we could see it in real life. Very cool! If you ever get a chance, don't forget to take an hour out of your way to see it! We did not hike too much, but there is a 1/2 mile hike further up to see more. Oh, and they don't allow dogs on the hiking trails! :-( It was sad to lock Maggie up in the car.

Walnut Canyon - We have seen the turn-off for Walnut Canyon several times and never taken the time to go. It is right off I-40 and closer than I thought. Marly was not up to taking the 240 stairs down to see the actual cliff dwellings, but we'll attempt it another time when she is feeling better. There is a short Rim Trail that allows you to see the caves from the opposite rim. I wish I had known more about this because we would have brought binoculars. We'll remember to bring them next time! Again, a very cool place to stop and see. Dogs are not allowed there either.

We are so lucky that Marly has a Golden Access Pass that was given to her when we went to the Grand Canyon a few years ago. She was restricted to a walker at the time and we inquired about handicap services. The next thing we know, they are handing us this free life-time pass for her to get into ANY National Park for free. It is for her and up to 4 people. So, needless to say, we take advantage of owning this pass.

2009 - Week 4 - This Week in Homeschooling

This week my children began a babysitting job for a sister in our ward who had a very preemie baby (1 lb. 10ozs.) I am happy for the experience my children are receiving, but greatly saddened by the situation of this dear friend and her family.

Kid's School:

• Devotionals - Gospel Principles lessons 10-11 (spent 3 days on lesson 11)
  
• Classes/Clubs Attended - Principles of Leadership
  
• SAT Prep vocabulary & spelling words - Review last week's words - New Words - dilate, doleful, conciliatory, insolvent, fawn
  
• Grammar & Writing - Journal Entries on each book read - The Winston Grammar Program: Basic Level - Word Roots Level A A1 & A2
  
• Science - The Human Body Unit - Nervous System - Useborne Science Encyclopedia pg. 364-367, How the Body Works pg. 115-121, Human Anatomy Coloring Book p. 24 (College level book - we do not memorize the terminology, but the detailed pictures are really good).
  
• P.E. - Daily dog walks. We were supposed to attend a hike at the Arboretum, but we had car trouble. :-(
  
• Math
• Marly: Math-U-See - Epsilon - Chapters 5-8
  
• Chris: Math-U-See - Delta - Chapter 14, Review for Unit 2 Test, online math drills (see below)
  
• Individual Reading
• Marly: The Story of the World: Vol.2 2-17, Princess Academy, The Seventh Tower, Book of a Thousand Days, Johnathan Livingston Seagull
  
• Chris: The Story of the World: History for the Classical Child: Vol. 1, 1-35 thru 1-37, finished Dragon Rider, started The Silver Chair.
  

Mom's School:

• Reading list - How to Be Totally Miserable: A Self-Hinder Book by John Bytheway, The Screwtape Letters by C. S. Lewis (quite an eyeopener - I recommend this book as a MUST READ!)
• Projects - (1)Drupal theming - see batchelorfamily.org where I converted the theme from this blog to my Drupal website. I know I'm the only excited about it, but that's OK. :-) (2) Prepared our taxes!
  

Free Online Math Drills!
I hate wasting paper on printing math drills. Math-U-See has free online math drills for addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. The website allows the student to drill on specific facts (multiply by 7's) or select a mixture of practice questions. I do not keep grades for drills, only for tests because we focus on mastery, so for me this works out perfectly. It has a timed factor that I love, it tells the student how fast they accomplished the drill, but it does not have a countdown visible to the student. I like this because some students have difficulty with "test anxiety".

Misinterpretations of the Constitution

I took a class from nccs.net earlier this year and it was fantastic. It opened my eyes to many things about our country that I had not known or understood before. This is part of an email I received and I wanted to share it with everyone. I highly recommend taking the time to read The 5000 Year Leap. It helped me to understand just how many of our freedoms we have lost.

Only Two Ways to Interpret the Constitution One of the friends of the Founders in the present Supreme Court is Justice Clarence Thomas. In a recent speech, he said: "Let me put it this way; there are really only two ways to interpret the Constitution--try to discern as best we can what the framers intended or make it up. No matter how ingenious, imaginative or artfully put, unless interpretive methodologies are tied to the original intent of the framers, they have no more basis in the Constitution than the latest football scores." (Wall Street Journal Opinion, October 20, 2008) A look at several of today's issues clearly reveals most of our government programs today are far from the Founders' original intent and as Justice Thomas says, have about as much basis in the Constitution as the latest football scores--the authority is purely made-up. For example: U. S. foreign policy: Founders' intent : Expressed in the Monroe Doctrine wherein the U. S. promised to stay out of the affairs of other nations, particularly those of the eastern hemisphere. Made-up intent: Involve ourselves in the affairs of nearly every nation on earth and try to buy their friendship with money we don't even have. U. S. monetary policy: Founders' intent : Congress to establish and control our money system based on gold and silver standard to prevent manipulation. Made-up intent : Give control of monetary system to private bankers who issue fiat money which lets them make money out of nothing--money on which we then pay them interest. Federalism or vertical separation of powers : Founders' intent : Only limited and carefully defined powers to the federal government. Government concerned with people's lives and property is only at state level or lower. Made-up intent : Allowing Washington to have direct influence and control of local government, which destroys strong local self-government. Horizontal Separation of Power: Founders' intent : The power to make law was given exclusively to the representatives of the people in Congress. Made-up intent : More laws are being made by the executive and judicial departments than are made by congress, which effect millions of people and their property. National Debt: Founders' intent : Debt is a temporary evil and if used must be paid off before the generation that borrowed it leaves the scene. It is immoral to pass debt on to next generation. It amounts to taxation without representation. Made-up intent : Debt is a blessing to America. We can borrow ourselves wealthy. Passing debt onto the next generation allows those to pay the debt who will benefit from the programs paid for by the borrowed money. Income Tax: Founders' intent : The Founders put a prohibition of income tax into the Constitution because its enforcement violates the privacy rights of U.S. citizens. They said there are much better ways to raise revenue. Made-up intent : Unconstitutional programs pushed in the "Progressive Era" became so expensive that new sources of revenue needed to be developed. A tax on incomes began at two percent and is only limited by what politicians can get away with. It is also a vehicle to implement a graduated tax to redistribute wealth. Welfare Programs: Founders' intent : The Founders' scale of fixed responsibility for one's welfare is: self, family, church, community, county, and state. Never was the federal government to be involved in welfare programs. Made-up intent : The federal government has unconstitutionally become the sugar daddy of the American people. One reason the federal government has done this is because the monetary system lets the money managers create money out of nothing. It buys votes and wins elections. Agriculture: Founders' intent : The Founders specifically excluded agriculture from the purview of federal authority saying it is only a local and state function. Made-up intent : Government programs in agriculture have taken away the freedom to fail, a necessary ingredient in the free-market system. The federal government has increased the cost of food by layer upon layer of regulation. Marriage and Domestic Law: Founders' intent : The core unit which determines the strength of any society is the family, therefore governments have the responsibility to foster and protect its integrity. Made-up intent : State and federal judiciaries have injected themselves into the questions of marriage, redefining marriage and endangering the most fundamental building block of society. Thomas Jefferson constantly warned against letting the federal government gradually usurp power over the people. Such bureaucracies bring heavy spending and debt. He said such debt would put the people under such a burden that all they can do is to work long hours in order to survive. Said he: "And to preserve their independence, we must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt. We must make our election between economy and liberty or profusion and servitude . If we run into such debts as that we must be taxed in our meat and in our drink, in our necessaries and our comforts, in our labors and our amusements, for our callings and our creeds, as the people of England are, our people, like them, must come to labor sixteen hours in the twenty-four, [and] give the earnings of fifteen of these to the government for their debts and daily expenses; and the sixteenth being insufficient to afford us bread, we must live, as they now do, on oatmeal and potatoes; have no time to think, no means of calling the mismanagers to account; but be glad to obtain subsistence by hiring ourselves to rivet their chains on the necks of our fellow sufferers.... This is the tendency of all human governments." (The Making of America , page 395) Sadly, with the makeup of our new administration and congress, it looks like we may be far down the road to fulfilling Jefferson's fears. Sincerely, Earl Taylor, Jr. P.S. Our seminars around the country are increasing in number and frequency. Click here to see if one is coming close to you or your friends.

National Center for Constitutional Studies

37777 West Juniper Road
Malta, ID
83342
US

Constitution Day

September 17th is Constitution Day!

We have several things that we use to learn and study about the most influential event in history...the signing of the Constitution of the United States of America. Take a look at these links:

• Constitution Center
• Constitution Day
• National Center for Constitutional Studies

We are going to watch the movie A More Perfect Union produced by Brigham Young University and I use this free Teachers Guide.

Happy Birthday Constitution!

Homeschooling 4 - 5 Kids

Adventures in Homeschooling! My sister-in-law, who also homeschools, is on mandatory bed rest for a few weeks. She is pregnant and there is a hole in the placenta. They lost a baby in August 2007 also. So, she is an at-risk pregnancy in a couple ways right now. I offered to take her kids for the next few weeks to homeschool along with my own. Sam was home because she had her wisdom teeth out (poor baby!) and she schooled right along with us, working on an online world history class and studying for her other classes.

It is easier than I though it would be. I feel comfortable enough in educating the kids that it was easy to find things for everyone to work on and they have a great time!

I used to stress myself out with complicated curriculum, both public online school and curriculum I purchased. Now I've worked to simplify our education by focusing on a good math program, classic reading materials, and the interests of the children in science, history, and PE. My children are becoming more focused on their own education and actually OWNING it, rather than doing it because they were told to. They chose their own reading materials from the classics list and from the racks at the local library. I have some unit studies and lapbooking materials for times when they just need a creative outlet to show what they are learning.

Here are what we are educating our children with right now:

• Teaching Textbooks - Awesome math program!
• Classics list #1 - Thomas Jefferson Education List
  
• Classics list #2 - 1,000 Good Books List (by grades)
  
• Old Testament Lapbook - (history)
  
• Book of Mormon Lapbook
  
• Discover the Scriptures - Book of Mormon & Life of Thomas S. Monson
  
• Science Kits - Electronics Snap Kit, Froguts, Astronomy for Kids, and the Science Channel.
• Kid's personal projects - Chris is working on a website and Gamemaker. Marly is working on knitting, cooking, and crocheting. Sam is sewing her clothes for an upcoming Pioneer Trek reenactment.