Betsy Ross

We are rowing "Betsy Ross: Designer of our Flag" by Ann Weil this month. The boys ask me every day to read "just one more chapter."

We made corn husk dolls- we had to use raffia, since I didn't plan far enough ahead to be able to find sufficient corn husks, but I thought they came out pretty good any way... I gave mine to dd and she loves it.

We also started some Amish Friendship Bread, but that won't be ready until our unit is over, so we made a loaf of bread so we could see yeast at work... (side note- our Amish Friendship bread was moldy after the two days of "do nothing"- I was really disappointed)...

We were fortunate enough to find a replica of the Liberty Bell to visit! And we were able to take a virtual tour of Mrs. Ross's house in Philadelphia.

Learning about the Vernal and Autumnal Equinoxes as well as the Summer & Winter Solstices turned out to be quite enlightening!

Well, after a week off for a mini vacation, then another week off from being sick, we are back to Betsy Ross... I had almost forgotten where we'd left off, but the boys sure hadn't... Dad did a cool mini experiment to show them how heat rises- he held a piece of tissue over a burning candle, and the heat pushed the tissue up (sort of made it wave). Then to demonstrate how oil helps prevent friction, he had them rub their hands very fast, and of course they heated up. Next, he coated their hands with a little cooking oil, to show how it is harder to make them heat up. They loved this!

Here is a little play we did radio-show style-

We got our play from "Heroes in American History" by Scholastic.

We wrapped up Betsy Ross and moved onto a brief outline of the Revolutionary War. The boys made Super Pop Up reports to show what they had learned. They covered the Boston Tea Party, Paul Revere's Ride, and Washington Crossing the Delaware, as well as some of the period costumes. I thought they did a great job. Here are a couple of pictures of theirs:

Homer Price

Wow! This book was so much fun!! My boys loved the antics of the people in Centerburg, and so did I!

First, we studied pulleys. We learned how pulleys help us by trying to lift one another up just using our own strength (the kids, not me!) We found that it was a lot easier using a pulley!
Then we built model pulleys out of Tinker Toys....

We also built an AM radio, just like Homer did (well, ours was different- we used SNAP CIRCUITS which are just AWESOME!!)

When Homer Price talked about the "Super Duper," we drew our own cartoon cats-

and created our monograms using software-- they came out pretty cool!

The third chapter was entitled "Doughnuts" and guess what! DD & I made chocolate iced donuts for breakfast!

After lunch, we went to Krispy Kreme and watched them make donuts with all their "labor-saving devices"!! The best part was eating them!

We even made sandwich boards like Mr. Gabby...

Finally, we learned about Habitat for Humanity, and how we should help our neighbors... We read The President Builds a House by Tom Shachtman. DS#2 thinks it would be cool to work on one of their houses some day...

Thomas Edison

This fall, we read "Childhood of Famous Americans: Thomas A. Edison Young Inventor" and used Beyond FIAR Volume I. We had a great time learning about Thomas Edison's life and inventions!

When we read how he and his friend used a telegraph to communicate, we built and used one ourselves. We found instructions here.

When we learned how, as a teenager, Thomas Edison began printing and selling his own newspaper, we took a tour of the local newspaper.

We also tried our own block printing, learned about the Periodic Table of Elements, made our own flip books and are working on making our own "motion picture" about the birth of Jesus.

The Boxcar Children

To start off our school year, we read "The Boxcar Children" by Gertrude Chandler Warner....


We made Dr. Moore's Favorite Brown Cookies.... We found the recipe for these (and many other treats) in The Boxcar Children Cookbook.
They were delicious!

Some of our other creations:

DS#1 Diorama of The Boxcar Children

DS#2 "A Boxcar Family Portrait "

Finally, as a culmination of our unit study, we took a ride on a Vintage Train from the 1950s.