Hydrangeas and Harmony: School Summary - Abe Lincoln and the Civil War

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A Summary of October 5-16
After a very full "break" week, we got right back to it. This time really getting into a lot of history with the Civil War and the causes for it.

Here's what we did:

Things that were scheduled:

Math

Language Arts (Grammar with Writing and Reading for both; Spelling for Soprano)
Tenor had a worksheet on Renaissance instruments for lit.

Soprano did one on secret signs to mark a trail.

Electives:

Greek and Computer Science (Tenor), American Sign Language, Photography, and Sewing (Soprano)

I finally got Soprano's ASL set-up. She goes along to Tenor's taekwondo class each week and work's on it while she's there. For sewing, she finished her first project: a pillowcase that will be a Christmas gift for Tenor.

My Father's World 1850 to Modern Times
We spent these two weeks mostly on the American Civil War. I think it's probably the saddest war in which the United States has been involved, mostly because it was Americans killing Americans.

Bible: This year we will be learning (reviewing) basic Christian beliefs and memorizing key Bible passages. We learned John 11:25-26 and Ephesians 2:8-9. This year's memory work is so much easier than last year's. lol

History and Geography:

There weren't any hands-on projects that we did for the Civil War. We skipped making hardtack, but they have been working on memorizing either the Gettysburg Address or Oh Captain! My Captain! (They each chose one.)

We ate a plantation style dinner, but not using all the recipes in the book. I bought pre-made fried chicken, made cornbread from a box mix, and skipped the peach ice cream. We tried the sweet potato pie though. A couple thoughts on that: don't try to use whole sweet potatoes. If you do at least peel and dice them first. I tried combining two recipes... the one in the book and one for regular mashed sweet potatoes. It didn't work. The mashed sweet potatoes don't end up with the custardlike consistency you need. Also, if you don't like the taste of molasses, you'll want to decrease the amount called for by quite a bit.

Science:

We're also using the World of Science reading assignments to review what we learned this summer.

Other MFW:

Music: We finished up our study of Stephen Foster by using the Young Scholar's Guide to Composers. I didn't have a lunchtime playlist for Foster because I don't have any of his music other than the MFW CD.

Art: Just continued on with the scheduled lessons.

Extras:

Web:

You can see them all in my Youtube playlist for weeks 1-16.

There's a couple of Jim Weiss CDs that fit this era.
Underground Railroad Game (#1)
Underground Railroad Game (#2)
Civil War Soldier interactive
Civil War Battles animated
Civil War Casualties infographic
Contents of Lincoln's Pockets
Adventure Tales: Civil War
Events of the Civil War - I thought this would be a great site to use to make a CW timeline
Battles of the Civil War infographic
Battlefield info

Videos:

The Presidents by The History Channel
Animated Hero Classics: Abraham Lincoln by Nest Entertainment
Gettysburg
Gods and Generals
Ladies of Liberty by Learning Our History
Little Women by Turner Entertainment
Red Badge of Courage

Shenandoah

Dr. Quinn: Medicine Woman - episode 35 Buffalo Soldiers

Favorite Books:

Aunt Minnie and the Twister (Kansas) by Mary Prigger
S is for Sunflower (Kansas) by Devin Scillian
Abraham Lincoln by Mike Venezia
Andrew Johnson by Mike Venezia
American Girl Addy books

We finished off our whirlwind study of the Civil War with a visit to Gettysburg.