School Summary - Louisiana Purchase, Lewis & Clark, and Napoleon

A Summary of March 16-27

Nothing super exciting happened these two weeks. Just plugging away with school.

Here's what we did:

Things that were scheduled:

Math

Language Arts (Grammar, Reading, and Writing; Spelling for Soprano)

Tenor finished his last Progeny Press guide of the year. He really enjoyed "Where the Red Fern Grows." I asked him if he cried at the end. He didn't really want to admit to it but said that it got to him. :)

Electives:

Typing, Greek (Tenor), Spanish (Tenor), Home Ec (Soprano)

My Father's World Exploration to 1850

We put Napoleon on hold, sort of, to tackle some other topics. We talked about the Louisiana Purchase, the Haitian Revolution, and the Industrial Revolution. We had a couple of days talking about Lewis and Clark's expedition. Sacajawea was really key to their travels and survival. Why isn't she a Disney heroine yet? Then we shifted back to Europe and Napoleon's rise to power, his fall, his short rise again, and his eventual exile.

Bible: This year we're doing an in-depth study of the book of James and attempting to memorize the entire book. We've now learned all of chapters 1-4. There are some transition sections that they see to stumble over each time so we'll keep reviewing.

 

Science: Since we did all of our botany work, using AIG's The World of Plants, over the summer, I'll try to give an overview of the experiments and demonstrations that we did. 

These weeks we would have covered the very end of the book -- a quiz, a final test, and lesson 35 which was a wrap-up.

 

History: Our president study this week was focused on Thomas Jefferson. He did a lot for our country during the War for American Independence but he also accomplished quite a bit during his presidency. He wanted to buy New Orleans from the French but ended up doubling the size of the country in one day with his Louisiana Purchase... land for $0.03 per acre! That's some pretty good shopping. We touched on how factories (or mills) drastically changed family life in England. Then we moved on to Lewis and Clark. We read about Napoleon and his determination to conquer Europe. Spoiler: it didn't happen.

Then we had a fun day of my horrible Spanish accent (imagine Antonio Bandares, Shakira, and Sophia Vergara, mixed with sassy Latina) reading about Simon Bolivar and South American Independence.

We continued our state and president study. 

I added in some map work from SOTW (North America and Western Europe; U.S. Territories; Spain and Its Colonies in South America) and MapTrek (Napoleonic Wars). No extra timeline pieces though. 

We skipped the compass activity for sake of time.

 

Other MFW: 

Music: We finished our study of Chopin. We listened to a few of his pieces and read about him in "The Young Scholar's Guide to the Composers." We also did a whirlwind review of Haydn by listening to "The Story of Haydn in Words and Music" and reading "The Young Scholar's Guide to the Composers" and "Meet the Great Composers." For our hymn study, we spent one week on "My Faith Looks Up to Thee" and one week on "Amazing Grace." I'm also adding in an Easter hymn study (When I Survey). We learned two of the hymns from that.

Art: We read about Daumier and had another lesson on blending painting.

Extras:

Web:

You can see them all in my Youtube playlist for weeks 15-34.
Industrial Revolution Video 

Lewis and Clark lapbook (didn't use)

Lewis and Clark Expedition Video

Lewis and Clark Expedition (info about places along their route)

Lewis and Clark Expedition Game

Printable Tree Poster

War of 1812 timeline

 

Videos:

America's Greatest Adventure: Lewis and Clark (Learn Our History)

Explorers of the World: Lewis and Clark (Schlessinger Media)

The Presidents (Thomas Jefferson) (History Channel)

American History for Children: The United States Flag (War of 1812) (Schlessinger Media)

Favorite Books: 

A Visual Dictionary of Native Communities (Plains Indians) by Bobbie Kalman

Johnny Appleseed (Ohio) by Steven Kellogg

Lentil (Ohio) by Robert McCloskey

Warm as Wool (Ohio) by Scott Russell Sanders

Thomas Jefferson by Mike Venezia

Worst of Friends (Thomas Jefferson) by Suzanne Jurmain

Crinkleroot's Guide to Knowing the Trees by Jim Arnosky

Don't Know Much About the Presidents by Kenneth C Davis

Freedom School, Yes! (Mississippi) by Amy Littlesugar

Granddaddy's Gift (Mississippi) by Margaree Mitchell

Uncle Jed's Barbershop (Mississippi) by Margaree Mitchell

M is For Magnolia (Mississippi) by Michael Shoulders

H is For Hoosier (Indiana) by Cynthia Reynolds

Hold the Flag High by Catherine Clinton

James Monroe by Mike Venezia

Petite Rouge (Louisiana) by Mike Artell

The Battle for St. Michaels (War of 1812) by Emily Arnold McCully