Reposting - Fourth Grade History and Literature - Modern World

Fourth Grade History and Literature

Modern World

 

This is another post that had somehow become lost and was unable to be pulled up via a search of my site.  I am reposting it.　

　

This was based around the SOTW IV spreads. If you need more details on the history books I used as spines, I can provide authors, etc. for those. With this time period, a lot of our reading didn’t really mirror the history subject under study (as it did with earlier time periods). Instead, we read from authors whose writings were basically contemporaneous with the time period we were studying in history.

Week 1

SOTW Ch. 1, Britain’s Empire: Victoria/ Sepoy Mutiny

History:

Read about Victorian England from Barnes and Noble World; Complete Book of World History; How Children Lived; A Child’s Eye View of History.

Read about India under the East India Company from Haywood’s Historical Atlas (19^th Century).

Lit.:

Read from Tom Brown’s School Days, Hughes
At Her Majesty’s Request
Wolves of Willoughby Chase
Watched video of A Little Princess, WB Family Entertainment 
Watched “Kim”, adapted from Rudyard Kipling’s book (Public Media Video w/ Peter O’Toole)

Student reading:

Florence Nightingale, Lucy Lethbridge (Usborne Famous Lives)
Bullseye Step Into Classics: A Little Princess (Frances Hodgson Burnett)
A Drummer Boy’s Battle: Florence Nightingale, Dave and Neta Jackson

SOTW Ch. 2, West Against East: Japan Re-Opens/ Crimean War

History:

Read from Haywood’s Atlas regarding both Japan and Russia
Read from Complete World and Usborne’s Last 500 Years re: Japan
Read excerpts from The Crimean War, Deborah Bachrach
Read from Commodore Perry in the Land of the Shogun, Rhoda Blumberg.

Lit:

Read from Russian Fairy Tales, Marie Ponsot

Student reading:

Salt: A Russian Folktale, Jane Langton
The Month-Brothers: A Slavic Tale, Samuel Marshak
The Magic Goldfish: A Russian Folktale, Aleksandr Pushkin
　

Week 2

SOTW Ch. 3, British Invasions: Great Game/ Wandering through Africa

History:

Haywood Atlas re: Africa

Read more on African Explorers and the scramble for Africa from: Complete World; Last 500 Years; Barnes and Noble World; Exploration and Discovery, Simon Adams.

Read more about areas in Africa Livingstone explored using Mozambique, R. S. James
Read from Botswana, Enchantment of the World, Jason Laure’
Read from Faces re: life in the Kalahari, among the San

Student reading:

Read from Exploring Africa, Hazel Martell and Gerald Wood (re: Stanley, Livingstone, Caillie, Barth, Richardson, Burton, Speke, Grant, etc.)

Buried in Ice: The Mystery of a Lost Arctic Expedition, Owen Beattie, et al
　
SOTW Ch. 4, Resurrection and Rebellion: Italy/ Taiping Rebellion

History:

Read about Italian unification from Barnes and Noble World
Read about the Taiping Rebellion in Complete World History and Last 500 Years　

Lit.:

Rebels of the Heavenly Kingdom, Paterson (I would hold off on this until the teen years in doing it again - or pre-read, at least)

The Life and Times of Giuseppi Verdi, Jim Whiting
　

Week 3

Civil War, SOTW Ch. 5

History:

Read from Barnes and Noble World; Complete World; Last 500 Years.
Read the Civil War section from The U.S. at War, June English and Thomas Jones (Scholastic)
Shattered Dreams: The Story of Mary Todd Lincoln, David R. Collins
Watched “Gods and Generals”, two part movie
The Boys’ War, Jim Murphy 
Looked through Civil War Days, John Bowen
Listened to part of eyewitness account by Frank Haskell of The Battle of Gettysburg
Used Haywood’s Historical Atlas
Read from Petersburg, Bruce Brager (Seiges that Changed the World series)

Read from Brown Paper School U.S. Kids’ History: Book of the American Civil War, Howard Egger-Bovet, et al

Read from The Civil War: Ulysses S. Grant, David King
Read from The Civil War: Abraham Lincoln, Deborah Kops

Lit.:

Rifles for Watie, Harold Keith
The Yearling, film version

Student Reading:

Just a Few Words, Mr. Lincoln, Fritz
The Red Badge of Courage (Great Illus. Classics)
Little Women, Bullseye Step into Classics (adapted by Monica Kulling)
Abraham Lincoln, D’Aulaires
The Value of Respect: The Story of Abraham Lincoln, Ann Donegan Johnson
Yankee Blue or Rebel Gray? The Civil War Adventures of Sam Shaw, Kate Connell
Mr. Lincoln’s Whiskers, Burke Davis

　　
Week 4 continuing Civil War readings from last week…….

Lit:

The Civil War, Marc Frey (pop-up, interactive book)

Student reading:

Bull Run, Paul Fleischman
He also read parts of Frey’s Civil War (above) on his own

The Journal of James Edmond Pease: A Civil War Union Soldier, Virginia, 1863, Jim Murphy (My Name is America series) 

　　
Week 5

SOTW Ch. 6, Two Tries for Freedom: Paraguay/ Canada

History:

Read from Last 500 Years; Barnes and Noble World; Complete World re: struggles of all South America during the 1800’s

Read from Cultures of the World: Paraguay, Leslie Jermyn
Read from Paraguay in Pictures, Lerner Publications
Read from The History of Nations: Canada, Nick Treanor, editor
Read from Canada, Star of the North, Shelley Sateren
Read Canada: Globetrotters’ Club, Janice Hamilton

Lit.:

The Call of the Wild, London 

Student reading:

The Last Safe House, Barbara Greenwood (re: underground railroad into Canada)

SOTW Ch. 7, Two Empires, Three Republics/Kingdom: 2&3/ Second Reich

History:

Read from encyclopedia regarding Napoleon III and Bismarck as our library had no books on either of them……

　
Week 6

SOTW Ch. 8, Becoming Modern: Rails, Zones and Bulbs/ Japan’s Meiji Restoration

History:

Read Across America on an Emigrant Train, Jim Murphy (re: Robert Louis Stevenson - good, but mature theme so you may want to pre-read)

Railroad Fever, Monica Halpern
Women of the Old West, Judith Alter
Read from Full Steam Ahead: The Race to Build a Continental Railroad, Rhoda Blumberg
Recapped historical period with readings from Complete World and Last 500 Years

Lit.:

The Sea Maidens of Japan, Lili Bell (simple)

Student reading:

A Picture Book of Thomas Alva Edison, David Adler
The Journey of Sean Sullivan, William Durbin (Dear America series) 

　
Week 7

SOTW Ch. 9, Two more Empires, 2 Rebellions: Dutch East Indies/ Sick Man of Europe

History:

Haywood’s Atlas re: Ottoman Empire
Listened to part of Krakatoa, Simon Winchester, on tape

Read from Bulgaria in Pictures about the land and its people up through independence in the late 1800’s from the Ottomans (Margaret J. Goldstein)

Lit.:

Read two more Jack London short stories: Brown Wolf and That Spot
White Fang, London

Student reading:

The 21 Balloons, William Pene Du Bois
Secret of the Andes, Ann Nolan Clark
Selections from a Child’s Garden of Verses, Robert Louis Stevenson (Dandelion Library)

SOTW Ch. 10, Canal to East and Very Dry Desert: War of Pacific/ Suez Canal

History:

Read about the Pacific War from Bolivia in Pictures, Lerner Publications　

　
Week 8

SOTW Ch. 11, Far Parts of the World: Iron Outlaw/ Carving up Africa

History:

Read more about Australia from Complete World
This Our Dark Country, The American Settlers of Liberia, Catherine Reef

Watched Wonders of the African World: Black Kingdoms of the Nile and The Swahili Coast, with Henry Louis Gates, Jr.; PBS film

Read from Building the Suez Canal, S. C. Burchell (Horizon Magazine)

Lit.:

The Shadows of the Ghadames, Joelle Stolz

Student Reading:

Captains Courageous, Rudyard Kipling (Great Illus. Classics)
　
SOTW Ch. 12, Unhappy Unions: Ireland’s Troubles/ Boers and British

History:

Read more on Ireland from Complete World
Feed the Children First, Irish Memories of the Great Hunger, editor Mary E. Lyons
Read from Black Potatoes, Susan Bartoletti

Lit.:

Nory Ryan’s Song, Patricia Reilly Giff - book on tape
Maggie’s Door, Giff - book on tape

　
Week 9

SOTW Ch. 13, Old Fashioned Emperor and Red Sultan: Brazil’s Rep/Abdul Hamid the Red

History:

Read from Faces: Armenia, Cobblestone

Read from Armenia: Enchantment of the World, Martin Hintz and from Cultures of the World, Armenia, Sakina Dhilawala

Listened to selection of Armenian music from “Armenia, Armenia”, a Monitor Music of the World CD
Read from Countries of the World, Brazil, Leslie Jermyn

Student reading:

So Say the Little Monkeys, Nancy Van Laan (Brazilian folklore)

SOTW Ch. 14, Two Czars and 2 Emperors: Next to last Czar of Russia/ Ethiopia and Italy

Student reading:

The Lion’s Whiskers and Other Ethiopian Tales, Brent Ashabranner, et al

　
Week 10

SOTW Ch. 15, Small Countries w/ Large Invaders: Korea/ Spanish-American War

History:

Read more about the Spanish-American War from The U.S. at War (Scholastic)

Read more about the war, Presidents, acquisition of countries and related matters (General Dewey, et al) from The Young Reader’s Companion to American History, John Garraty

Read more on Roosevelt from Teddy Roosevelt, Rough Rider, Louis Sabin and from Carry a Big Stick: The Uncommon Heroism of Theodore Roosevelt (life portion only), George Grant

Under the Royal Palms, A Childhood in Cuba, Alma Flor Ada

Lit.:

Typhoon, Joseph Conrad (Reader’s Digest Best Loved Books for Young Readers)　

Student reading:

Black Beauty, Anna Sewell (DK Eyewitness Classics)
Korean Children’s Favorite Stories, Kim So-un
　

Week 11

SOTW Ch. 16, Expansion of the U.S.

History:

Read from Haywood’s Atlas; Last 500 Years; Barnes and Noble World; Complete World.

You Wouldn’t Want to be an American Pioneer, A Wilderness You’d Rather not Tame, Jacqueline Morley

Mr. Marleys’ Main Street Confectionery, a History of Sweets and Treats, John J. Loeper
Daily Life in a Covered Wagon, Paul Erickson
Kids’ Discover: Wright Brothers
Galloping Gertrude: By Motorcar in 1908, John J. Loeper
If You Lived at the Time of the Great San Francisco Earthquake, Ellen Levine

Student reading:

My Name is America: The Journal of Otto Peltonen, A Finnish Immigrant, William Durbin
　
　
Week 12

SOTW Ch. 17, Boxer Rebellion in China / Russo-Japanese WarSOTW Ch. 18, Europe and countries East/ Persia/ Balkans

History:

Read from Last 500 Years; Complete World; Historical Atlas

Read more on the Empress Cixi from Herstory: Women Who Changed the World, editor Ruth Ashby, et al

Read about the Russo-Japanese War battles from The Battle 100: The Stories Behind History’sMost Influential Battles, Michael Lee Lanning

Re: the Balkans, read pertinent portions of 19^th century histories from:

Czech Republic, Joann Milivojevic
Slovenia, Tamra Orr
Croatia, Martin Hintz
Life in War Torn Bosnia, Diane Yancey
Nations in Transition: Bulgaria, Steven Otfinoski

Lit.:

Tales of a Korean Grandmother, Frances Carpenter

Student reading:

Sweet and Sour, Carol Kendall, et al


Week 13

SOTW Ch. 19, China, Vietnam, and France

History:

Read more about this time period from Cultures of the World: Vietnam, Audrey Seah.

Lit.:

Caddie Woodlawn, Carol Brink
Ties that Bind, Ties that Break, Lensey Namioka
Rachel’s Journal, Marissa Moss
In the Face of Danger, Jean Nixon

Student reading:

The Young Collector’s Illustrated Classics: Moby Dick, Herman Melville
Aesop’s Fables, Illustrated Junior Library, Fritz Kredel, illustrator

　
Week 14

SOTW Ch. 20, Mexican Revolution / World War I

History:

Read more about WWI from Haywood’s Historical Atlas of the 20^th Century; Complete World; Last 500 Years; Barnes and Noble World; U.S. at War (Scholastic).

A Soldier’s Life, Andrew Robertshaw
Pioneers of Science: Louis Pasteur, Nina Morgan
Clara Barton, Kathleen Deady
Read about WWI, the Treaty of Versailles, and Wilson’s 14 Points from A Young Reader’s Companion

Read from American Women of Medicine, Russell Roberts, re: Elizabeth Blackwell and Clara Barton and the Red Cross

Listened to Clara Barton: founder of the American Red Cross, Christin Ditchfield

Lit.:

Poem: The Women who Went to the Field, Clara Barton

Student reading:

Elizabeth Blackwell, The First Woman Doctor, Francene Sabin
Louis Pasteur, Carol Greene (Rookie Biography)
Usborne Famous Lives: Winsto Churchill, Katie Daynes
In Flander’s Field, John McCrae (poem)

　
Week 15

SOTW Ch. 21, Russian Revolution / End of World War I

History:

Read more on the Russian Revolution from Haywood’s 20^th Century Atlas; Complete World; Barnes and Noble World; Last 500 Years.

Lit.:

The Wind in the Willows, Kenneth Grahame
The Singing Tree, Kate Seredy

Student reading:

The Great Migration, Jacob Lawrence
Ghost Canoe, Will Hobbs
Escape from the Ice, Shackleton and the Endurance, Connie and Peter Roop
Titanic, Mark Dubowski
Titanic, Victoria Sherrow
Antarctic Adventure, Meredith Hooper

　
Week 16

SOTW Ch. 22, Easter Uprising in Ireland / Home Rule for India

History:

Read more on above topics from Complete World and Barnes and Noble World
Places and People: The Indian Subcontinent, Anita Ganeri
The Panama Canal, Scott Ingram

Lit.:

Daughter of the Mountains, Louise Rankin

Student reading:

Gandhi, Demi

　
Week 17

SOTW Ch. 23, Peace of Versailles/ Rise of StalinSOTW Ch. 24, New King in Egypt / Rise of Fascism in Europe

History:

Read more on Fascism from Last 500 Years; Barnes and Noble World; Complete World.

The Truth About History re: “The Real Reason why the Lusitania Sank”; “The Comical Farce of the Russian Revolution”; “Typhoid Mary: The Cook with the Touch of Death”; “Scott of the Antarctic Should have Lived”; and “In the Deadly Care of Florence Nightingale”

Lit.:

Thornton Burgess: The Adventures of Grandfather Frog 

Student reading:

You Want Women to Vote, Lizzie Stanton? Jean Fritz
Anderson’s Fairy Tales, Illustrator: Arthur Szyk (Illustrated Junior Library)
The Day of Ahmed’s Secret　


Week 18

SOTW Ch. 25, Chinese Revolution and the Long March

History:

Read more from B&N World; Last 500 Years; Complete World
China’s Long March, Fritz

Lit.:

The House of Sixty Fathers, Meindert Dejong

Student reading:

Homesick, Jean Fritz (autobiographical)

　
Week 19

SOTW Ch. 26, U.S. Stock Market Crash and Great Depression

History:

Read more from Last 500 Years; B&N World; Complete World.
Chapter 6 in Making of America
Read from The Great Depression, R. G. Grant

Lit.:

The Amazing Thinking Machine, Dennis Haseley
Esperanza Rising, Pam Munoz Ryan

Student reading:

Bud, not Buddy, Christopher Paul Curtis
Flying Ace: The Story of Amelia Earhart, Angela Bull

　
Week 20

SOTW Ch. 27, Spanish Civil War / Rise of Hitler

Lit.:

My Friend, the Enemy, J. B. Cheaney 

Student reading:

Toro! Toro! Michael Morpugo
Peter Pan, J. M. Barrie (Dandelion)
　

Week 21

SOTW Ch. 28, WWII / Holocaust

History:

Read from Complete World; Last 500 Years; B&N World; 20^th Century Atlas.
Jesse Owens, Champion Athlete, Rick Rennert

Lit.:

Number the Stars, Lois Lowry

Student reading:

Anne Frank: A Life in Hiding, Johanna Hurwitz
Usborne Famous Lives: Adolf Hitler, Katie Daynes
Twenty and Ten, Claire Bishop
　

Week 22

Continuing with WWII

History:

Life in the Hitler Youth, Jennifer Keeley
Hiding from the Nazis, David Adler
Auschwitz, the Story of a Nazi Death Camp, Clive Lawton
Hiroshima, the Story of the First Atom Bomb, Clive Lawton
Read from Nazi Germany: The Face of Tyranny, Ted Gottfried

Lit.:

Anne Frank, Josephine Poole

Student reading:

Hiroshima, Laurence Yep
Mieko and the Fifth Treasure, Eleanor Coerr
Hitler’s Daughter, Jackie French


Week 23

SOTW Ch. 29, End of WWII

History:

Read from Historical Atlas
The United Nations, Ann Armbruster

Watched parts of “Jehovah’s Witnesses Stand Firm Against Nazi Assault” and “Purple
Triangles” (JW’s had to wear these; like the Jewish stars)

Read about WWII soldier from A Soldier’s Life, Andrew Robertshaw

Lit.:

Rhymes and Verses, Collected Poems for Young People, Walter de la Mare

Student reading:

World War II Heroes, Ten True Tales, Allan Zullo
The Gadget, Paul Zindel
　

Week 24

SOTW Ch. 30, Partitioning of India / Palestine

History:

Read from Last 500 Years; Complete World; B&N World; Historical Atlas.
Read from People at Odds: India and Pakistan, Heather Wagner
Read from People at Odds: Israel and the Arab World, Heather Wagner

Lit.:

Habibi, Naomi Shihab Nye (Palestinian-Americans who move back to Israel in about 1970’s)

Student reading:

Neela, Victory Song, Chitra Divakaruni
Memories of Survival, Esther Krinitz, et al

Shin’s Tricycle, Tatsuharu Kodama (this is a “simple” picture book about the very complex subject of the bombing of Hiroshima - it’s hard for me to read it; you should pre-read)
　
　　
Week 25

SOTW Ch. 31, Suez Canal/Crisis / Berlin Wall/Airlift/Iron Curtain

History:

Read from New Perspectives: The Berlin Wall, R. G. Grant
Read from Historical Atlas
Suez Canal, Modern Wonders of the World, Valerie Bodden

Lit.:

Peter Rabbit Stories, Thornton Burgess
The Classic Treasury of Children’s Poetry, Egan, editor

Student reading:

Pinocchio (Dandelion)
Alice in Wonderland (Dandelion)

　
Week 26

SOTW Ch. 32, Africa After WWII / Communist China

History:

Read from Enchantment of the World: Swaziland
Witness to History: Apartheid in South Africa, David Downing

Lit.:

Warriors, Warthogs, and Wisdom, Growing up in Africa, Lyall Watson
Journey to Jo’burg, Beverley Naidoo
Out of Bounds: Seven Stories of Conflict and Hope, Beverly Naidoo

Student reading:

Heidi (Dandelion)
Rookie Biography: Nelson Mandela, Karima Grant
Nelson Mandela and the Quest for Freedom, Brian Feinberg
　
　　
Week 27

SOTW Ch. 33, Korean and Vietnam Wars　

History:

Looked through info. in The U.S. at War (Scholastic).
The Korean War, Carter Smith.
We the People: The Korean War, Andrew Santella.

Student reading:

Reader’s Digest Best Loved Books for Young Readers: Great Cases of Sherlock Holmes, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Spies and Spying, Mike Potter
　

Week 28

SOTW Ch. 34, Argentina under Peron / Freedom for Belgian Congo

History:

Read from Lives of Extraordinary Women, Kathleen Krull, re: Eva Peron
Read about Eva Peron from Herstory, Ruth Ashby and Deborah Ohrn
A Walk through a Rain Forest, David and Mark Jenike (Life in the Ituri Forest of Zaire)

Lit.:

Tuck-me-in-Tales, Margaret MacDonald, read stories from Chile and Argentina
The Barefoot Book of Fairytales, Malachy Doyle, read story from Argentina
Traveling to Tondo, a tale of the Nkundo of Zaire, Verna Aardema
Rickie and Henri, Alan Marks (Jane Goodall Society)
Monkey for Sale, Janna Stanley
Monkey Business, Shirley Climo, read select stories from the Congo region, and others….

Student reading:

The Amelia Bedelia Treasury, Peggy Parish
Tuck Everlasting, Natalie Babbit
　
　　
Week 29

SOTW Ch. 35, Space Race/Cold War/ Cuban Missile Crisis

History:

On the Front Line: Spying and the Cold War, Michael Burgan
The Cuban Missile Crisis, Fred Cook
Cuba: After the Revolution, Bernard Wolf

Lit.:

The Fire-eaters, David Almond (Cuban Missile Crisis, sorta…..)

Student reading:

Horrible Harry Goes to the Moon, Suzy Kline
The Incredible Journey, Sheila Burnford
Footprints on the Moon, Alexandra Siy
I Want to be an Astronaut, Maze Productions

　
Week 30

SOTW Ch. 36, Kennedy Assassination / Civil Rights Movement

History:

Read more from Last 500 Years; B&N World
Chapter 7 of The Making of America
Rosa Parks and the Montgomery Bus Boycott, Teresa Gelsi
If You Lived at the Time of Martin Luther King, Ellen Levine

Read From The Assassination of MLK, Jr., Jacqueline Ching (re: Ray and conspiracy theories; aftermath for movement)

Lit.:

Remember: The Journey to School Integration, Toni Morrison
Linda Brown, You are Not Alone, Joyce Carol Thomas

Student reading:

DK, Free at Last! The Story of Martin Luther King, Jr., Angela Bull
Great African Americans: Martin Luther King, Jr., Man of Peace, Patricia and Fredrick McKissack
Rosa Parks, Muriel Dubois
A Mouse called Wolf, Dick King-Smith
Meet Martin Luther King, Jr., James T. Dekay
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., David A. Adler

　　
Week 31

SOTW Ch. 37, Wars re: Israel / Vietnam War

History:

Read more from Last 500 Years; B&N World; Complete World; Historical Atlas; continued Making of America, Ch. 7.

Read about the Vietnam War from The U.S. at War (Scholastic)
African Americans in the Vietnam War, Diane Canwell and Jon Sutherland
Places and People, Southeast Asia, Anita Ganeri
Voices From the Past, Vietnam War, Kathlyn and Martin Gay
Read from Israel, An Illustrated History, Daniel Schroeter

Lit.:

Water Buffalo Days, Huynh Quang Nhuong

Student reading:

Patrol, An American Soldier in Vietnam, Walter Dean Myers
The Land I Lost: Adventures of a Boy in Vietnam, Huynh Quang Nhuong

　
Week 32

SOTW Ch. 38, End of Cold War Conflicts / Rise of Terrorism

History:

Ch. 8, Making of America
Read from Enchantment of the World, Afghanistan, re: its attempted takeover by Russia and events since
Read Chapter on Brezhnev Era from The Rise and Fall of the Soviet Union, John Matthews
Hamas: Palestinian Terrorists, Maxine Rosaler

Lit.:

The Breadwinner, Deborah Ellis
Parvana’s Journey, Deborah Ellis 

Student reading:

Afghanistan, Bob Italia
Afghanistan, Many Cultures, One World, Barbara Knox

　
Week 33

SOTW Ch. 39, India / Iraq

History:

Read from Cultures of the World: Iraq, Susan Hassig, et al re: independence in 1932; military coups; Iran-Iraq War; Gulf Wars; terrorism and government.

Indira Gandhi, Trevor Fishlock

Student reading:

Great Illustrated Classics: The War of the Worlds, H. G. Wells

　
Week 34

SOTW Ch. 40, Nuclear Power / Chernobyl / Three Mile Island / Reagan

History:

Ronald Reagan: From Silver Screen to Oval Office, Time for Kids, editor Denise Patrick
The Picture Life of Ronald Reagan, Don Lawson
The Chernobyl Catastrophe, Graham Rickard
Read from Last 500 Years; B&N World; Complete World; Historical Atlas.

Student reading:

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Mark Twain, Reader’s Digest Best-loved Books for Young Readers

　
Week 35

SOTW Ch. 41, Cultural Revolution in China / End of Communism in Russia

History:

Read more on Afghani people and culture from Enchantment of the World: Afghanistan
Red Land, Yellow River, Ange Zhang 
Read from Historical Atlas re: end of communism, etc.　

Student reading:

Swiss Family Robinson, Illustrated Junior Library

　
Week 36

SOTW Ch. 42, End of 20^th Century and issues

History:

Read from B&N World; Complete World; Last 500 Years re: end of 20^th century and issues: computer tech, satellites, International Space Station, UN policing of the world, Saddam Hussein, first Gulf War, etc.

Persian Gulf War, Kathlyn and Martin Gay

Meltdown: A Race Against Nuclear Disaster at Three Mile Island, A Reporter’s Story, Wilborn Hampton (includes section on Chernobyl)

Student reading:

Getting to Know the U.S. Presidents: Ronald Reagan, Mike Venezia

　

Week 36, 2012 - Last Week of Homeschooling....

Our homeschooling time came to an end this week.  It is both a sad and exciting time for us all, I think.  Someone in our area scheduled a trip to Salato on Thursday and it has been a favorite trip for us over the years, so I thought it appropriate that we end on that note.  This is a sort of free demonstration area set up at the headquarters of our state fish and wildlife offices.  They have on display lots of native species, both indoors and out, of both plants and animals.  They also have fishing lakes on site that they keep stocked most of the time (although the boys caught nothing on the day we were there - but then they were trying to fish with nothing but corn kernels)....  We attended a birds of prey talk and then toured the facility before fishing in the afternoon.

     


     


    


Our public schools got out on Thursday, and our summer neighborhood swim team started on Friday, so my son elected to finish up some work earlier in the week, and he has continued to finish some odds and ends of reading through this weekend in order to conclude his last day's work.

Here's a look at what we worked on during our last week:

He had his last Algebra II class.  His instructor gave him a list of theorems and a compass to use in geometry next year.  I thought that was very sweet of her!  She gave him a set of problems, along with the answers, that he could work on as he chose.  He finished most of them up last week.  I need to get a more advanced math calculator for him in order for him to finish up the last few over the summer.

He finished up the Spanish workbook that I've used this year as fill-in around his outside class.  It included a lot of vocab and grammar practice work and work in writing complete sentences in Spanish.

He finished up his Latin Grammar I book.

He finished up his review in Vocabulary for the College Bound by taking an online test over chapter 3.  He had been reviewing lists from last year for several weeks.

He finished up work in both his Easy Grammar texts.

He completed some short writing assignments for me related to technology and our use of it now and in the future.  We had already been tying in current events to our history readings for the past several weeks, so this week we looked a lot at how technology is changing our world and speculated about how it will continue to change in future.  Our science and history studies were tied together this week.

The workbook pages I used for these exercises were from a book entitled The Basic Needs of Man, Artman and Grim.



Here is a synopsis of the book from Alibris (although it is out of stock there):

"This book celebrates the progress man has made in the past millenniums as he struggled to meet his basic needs. Students are asked to think about their basic needs as they exist today and as they prepare for an unknown future. As the next millennium passes, will the basic needs of man change or remain the same? Students are asked to think about progress-past, present, and future."           

In our little science class at home, the boys got together one more time and created a different robot.  They chose a version that has spinning parts.  This kit is an old one, but if you can still find it on the Internet, it certainly was a hit at our house!  (I posted a link to it last week.)

My son worked with some micro-planes from a kit, finished up a little flight workbook we got at the USAF Museum, and completed a K'nex kit on bridge building.  He also read Kingfisher's Boats, Ships, Submarines and Other Floating Machines. 

This is a new cover for the micro-planes kit, but it looks like it still includes the same planes....

This is the smallest K'nex bridge kit I can find available at this time.  Our kit was actually put out by Scholastic for K'nex and was even smaller than this, although it looks like it came with a very similar work/info booklet....  I've had it a long time.  If you are building a library of items to use for school work with your children, it's not a bad idea to subscribe to Scholastic circulars for all ages for a while and watch the items that come up for sale each month (I'd subscribe to all grade levels as you never know which circular they may choose for specific sales)....



He continued reading through the daily devotional book we've been using this spring.  I think that he's going to keep it out and continue with it through the summer.

In literature, he completed Huck Finn and read I, Robot, by Isaac Asimov.  We also listened to some of the Martian Chronicles, Ray Bradbury, on CD.

    










For our history topic of the week, the new millennium, we read from Kingfisher and Usborne.  We read excerpts from an Enchantment of the World volume:  Afghanistan, and looked back at the Gulf War using First Facts About American Heroes (re: Schwarzkopf) and the Encyclopedia of the US at War.

My son completed his readings in SOTW and Volume 10 of Hakim's series.

He read I Want to be an Astronaut, Stephanie Maze, and I read from a series entitled Future Files, by Copper Beach Books.  The volumes we covered were Future World and Emergency: Planet Earth. 

     






















He finished up his last day of bowling and they threw a pizza party for all the kids participating.  Each person also received a nice trophy and some other items.

We dropped of his registration info at the private school he will attend and obtained info on soccer, volunteer work, and summer reading so that he can get started on work he needs to do this summer in those areas.

I have begun cleaning out my school room and listing books for sale.  I'm trying to pull together things I want to keep for potential future classes I might teach (at least until I decide what I want to be when I grow up, LOL....)  I am trying to get set for a couple of classes I already have scheduled, and  weekly tutoring in language arts/geography/history for another student.  I will probably be posting some of that info as I move along in my preparations.  I also want to put together a post of online links I used for physical science this year, as there were a ton of them!

Happy summer everyone!

Regena

Week 35 - 2012 - One More Week to Go!

Since we are continuing to wrap up outside classes, as well as work at home, there's not much to report save for our continued reading.  I think that I neglected to mention some of the books we have been reading related to our week 33 study of Australia and Oceania.  I have been reading aloud from Australia, Antarctica, and the Pacific, Kate Darian-Smith; and Hawai'i, Martin Hintz.









           


My son read Islands of the Pacific Rim and Their People, Macdonald.













This week, we have continued with work related to the presidents, civics and government topics.  I used a voting manual I've had around for a while to talk to him about ways that we can inform ourselves about the voting records of candidates before voting for them.  He has been reading through the information about the more recent presidents (from Reagan forward) in Scholastic's Encyclopedia of The Presidents and Their Times, David Rubel.

He read the last chapter in SOTW IV this week, and is reading from chapter 41 to the end of Volume 10 of Hakim.

We covered the period of the 1990's into 2000 this week, focusing on human rights issues.  In addition to reading from our standards:  the Haywood Atlas, Usborne Atlas, Kingfisher Encyclopedia, Remember the Ladies, and Haywood's Atlas of Past Times, I also read Hillary Clinton's speech to the UN Conference on Women from Words That Built a Nation. 

I read aloud a simple, children's version of the universal declaration of human rights adopted by the UN.  It was prepared by Amnesty International.  We discussed at length the good intent of the document and the problems caused by the simplicity of the language when applied to real life situations around the world....

I read a chapter on Bosnia and Kosovo from Freedom on Fire: Human Rights Wars and America's Response, John Shattuck.  It was interesting that General Mladic has been in the news this week and we discussed the lengthy time it has taken to bring some war criminals to justice.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-mladic-trial-20120517,0,6653722.story?track=icymi

On the science front, the boys finished the robot they were building and were so enthralled that they wanted to build another, so I agreed to let them meet again next week in attempt to get another one done.  Here are some pics of their current creation:

My office is currently full of books that I'm going to be selling as soon as we're finished with school and I have time to list them.  Once we conclude, I've got to make another run through the school room to see if I can cull more books.  I'm trying to clear the room enough to put a large table in there so that I can hold classes for homeschoolers there next year.  I feel like I'm swimming in books right now!

Regena

Week 34 - 2012

Back to work!  It's difficult with summer-like weather, public school kids getting inexplicable day-long breaks so near the end of their own school year, and our focus on the changes coming for next year, but work we did....

My son finished the last of the three modules of Videotext that comprise Algebra I work.  This was used over the course of the year as review and drill work for him.  He will continue with his math tutor until the last week of May, where they are working on Algebra II topics.

He is continuing to read through the At Home Devotionals and seems to be enjoying them.  He continues with Huck Finn, as well.

We're continuing to review his vocabulary work with the use of online flashcards and study sets (spelling, matching words to their definitions, testing), and we're finishing up work and review in both his Easy Grammar texts.

His outside literature class and the writing it entails has ended, but he has been doing some writing at home for me related to Cold War topics (and next will be some government related topics). 

He is nearing the end of his work in Latin Grammar I.  I think he has decided to study Latin in high school next year, as well.  If he then decides he doesn't like it, he can always switch back to Spanish and still get in three years of that.

He has one more outside Spanish class, and we're all going to eat at a Cuban restaurant we discovered earlier in the year that we like.  We'll then finish up the year with the workbook I've been using at home for reinforcement.

I believe that his outside geography club will meet next week.  We missed last time because of testing.

In history, we've been studying the time period of the 80's and the end of the Cold War Era (and what that meant for many countries around the world).  We started with readings from some of our usual suspects:  Usborne's atlas, Haywood's atlas, and Remember the Ladies. 

From Words that Built a Nation, I read Reagan's Farewell Address and we talked about his Star Wars initiative.

I read just the end from The Cold War, Taylor, regarding detente through the break-up of the USSR, as well as a bit about spying.  I also read Spies and Spying, Potter, and we discussed.

   

My son read chapters 38 - 40 in Hakim's volume 10, as well as chapters 39 - 41 in Story of the World.  He also finished up his reading in See How They Run and continued with The Presidents.  He's currently completing several worksheets daily related to civics and government topics, as well.  He read through a pamphlet put out by our county government on good neighbor policies and we discussed the covenant for our neighborhood and rules that govern people living together at all levels of society. 

On the science front, he attended his last chemistry lab.  At home, they selected a robot style and worked on building a K'nex motorized robot while I read excerpts from Artificial Intelligence, Philip Margulies, and we discussed.




(This looks like an updated version of the kit we have....)

As an aside, here's a pic of my newly blooming, shade loving clematis, too!

My son continued with his weekly bowling outing on Wednesday.  His youth group was able to use some of the free game coupons they've given him last weekend, as they all went bowling together.  We've also been busy trying to help out some members of our church for the past couple of weeks during what has been a very sad time for all of us.  We're almooooooost to summer....

Regena

Week 33 - 2012

Ahhhhh, trying to catch up after having my father-in-law as company for the past week....  My son visited the last school on our list for shadowing this past week.  He is going back to school next year, so I am shortly out of a job.  I've got to start trying to line up what I'm going to be doing with the rest of my life!  I know that I am going to teach some classes for homeschoolers, but am not sure yet exactly what or exactly where....

Nothing much new to mention for the past week save for some history.  We began reading through the time period of the 1970's, using our Kingfisher encyclopedia, Usborne Atlas, Haywood atlas, Remember the Ladies, and Words that Built a Nation.  We're also looking a little at the geography of Australia and Oceania.

In addition to books we've already been working on, my son began reading and working through some books related to U.S. government:

The Presidents, John Holms, and See How They Run, Goodman and Smith:



(There are updated versions of this available and it has quizzes in the back.)




In science reading at home, he read several books about planes, including Usborne's book on Jets:



Last Sunday evening, a mother duck who had hatched out eggs in our back yard was walking around with her babies.  Evidently she was ready for them to go to the lake but I didn't open the gate for her as it was so late in the day.  She was determined, however, and squeezed them out through a hole.  Four of them didn't make the transition and she left them.  When I dropped my son for his piano lesson on Monday and then returned home, they were chirping loudly.  I caught them, boxed them up, and when I picked up my son, we went down to the lake, found the rest of the brood, and returned them to their family.  I just saw a local paper from later in the week and there was a shot of one of them in there!

(There are 13 in all!)

Soccer went well today.  My son scored four times!  They have lost most of their good players this season, and lost many games, so this was a big deal!

I think that covers the most eventful happenings of the week....  Next week he is doing achievement testing, so I'm letting him off school save for his outside classes and some test prep.  He'll still be finished right alongside the public school kids, so this will work out fine.  I can't believe that my years of homeschooling are so quickly drawing to an end....

Regena