School Summary - Civil Rights, Vietnam War, Interesting Presidents, and War in the Middle East

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Bass' birthday decor; We held his party at a conference room at his workplace.

A Summary of April 11-22

We had a week off for our trip to Washington DC. It was nice. It wasn't a break, but it was nice. :) We got back from that, and I had 2 days to put together a surprise 40th birthday party for Bass. Then 3 days later we had our neighborhood yard sale, which I was in charge of organizing this year. On top of that the kids got sick when we got home, and then I followed suit. That first week back was a little bumpy.
With lots of cold medicine, here's what we did:

Things that were scheduled:

Math

Soprano's math has been going very well. She has been grasping the concepts and working through her lessons with very minimal help from me. That's a huge blessing.

Language Arts (Grammar with Writing and Literature for both; Spelling for Soprano)

Tenor's poetry unit has included analysis of 'The Road Not Taken' and activities based on it. He wrote his own 'stop, look, see, think, go' poem.

Electives:

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

Soprano finished her photography unit study (by Amanda Bennett) and has been reading selections from The Kids' Guide to Digital Photography to finish out the year.

My Father's World 1850 to Modern Times
We started with JFK's assassination which seemed to begin a rather turbulent era with the Civil Rights movement, the Vietnam War, and then Nixon's presidency. But of course, the U.S. wasn't the only place in the world with turmoil... the Middle East was a mess again.

Bible: This year we will be learning (reviewing) basic Christian beliefs and memorizing key Bible passages. We kept working on verses (9-11) from 1 Peter chapter 2.

Copywork sheets: The top verse is copywork; the bottom verse is their memory test.

 

History and Geography: 

Project-wise: We read about each one in the SOTW Activity book. We've done some similar activities in previous years and just didn't have time or much inclination to get these done. We also did the outlines and writing from outlines, timeline pieces, and maps.

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

Other MFW: 

Music:  We have the iPod playing at lunch most days. We started listening to Aaron Copland and completed the lesson on Copland from The Young Scholar's Guide to Composers. For our listening weeks, I have the youngling and padawan fill out one of these printables:

Art: Coloring a sailboat, American Gothic, studying Norman Rockwell, and human suffering in art.

 

The second week of our summary I got a prerecorded call saying that Ted Cruz would be in the area for a rally. I decided it would be a great 'field trip' for us to see the presidential race process in person.

We were so far back, we had to stand the entire time and couldn't really see him or Carly Fiorina at all.

It was very interesting. And a lot loud. :) No matter your political inclinations, I'd encourage you to go see a rally for any of the candidates in person.

Extras:

Web:

You can see them all in my Youtube playlist for weeks 17-34.

Lights and Shadows interactive animation

Voting Rights Act of 1965 infographic

Vietnam War videos

Videos:

The Presidents by the History Channel
Remember the Titans
The Jackie Robinson Story (Disney)

Favorite Books: 

Freedom on the Menu by Carole Weatherford
Grandfather's Dream by Holly Keller
The Lotus Seed by Sherry Garland
Lyndon B Johnson by Mike Venezia
Richard M. Nixon by Mike Venezia
Gerald Ford by Mike Venezia
Norman Rockwell by Mike Venezia
Jimmy Carter by Mike Venezia