Saturday, July 16, 2011

American History, Timeline, & Literature Resources (Weeks 1-6)

Here are resources for American history with corresponding literature selections and crafts that can be used for Weeks 1-6 of Classical Conversations.  There are way more resources here than what you'll have time to do.  Look through it and select one thing - maybe two - for each week.  This will be the last posting for CC resources for a while (and the last of my daily posting frenzy).  Time to focus on the here-and-now instead of what we're planning to do.  Plus, my husband just left for South Korea and has put in a request for us to get back to our nature studies and other adventures here at Half-a-Hundred Acre Wood. 

Timeline

For timeline, review my previous post on supplemental resources.  We have a timeline as a border in our schoolroom area (a.k.a., a garage), where we post pictures of people/events we're studying from our timeline.  We will also be using a "Book of Decades" timeline notebook by Guest Hollow (rather than a "Book of Centuries" notebook).  This timeline is in expanded form (in decades instead of centuries) as you enter the 1700s, which will work better for us as we study American History.  For a cover page, click here.  Be sure to download the Statehood,U.S. President, and American Music Timeline add-ons I mentioned in the previous post on supplemental resources. 

Also check out this great sampler of Timeline Games, which includes timeline event cards from the American Revolution, Civil War, Space Exploration, Astronomy, Lewis & Clark, U.S. Presidents, Statehood, and New York City.

History for all of Cycle 3

For a list of some free history books written in an understandable format for children, go to our previous post Supplementing CC on a Shoestring. There are several history books out there on the public domain as free pdf (or other e-reader format). Because we like to read so much literature, we listen to history books when audio is available. American History Stories Vol 1 & 2 by Mara Pratt are available as free audiobooks at Librivox. As we stated in our previous post, other audio and pdf downloads for use with American History can be found at Project Gutenberg, Google e-books, Librivox or Archive.org. For even more children's literature, visit The Baldwin On-Line Children's Literature Project (also called mainlesson.com), as well as Children's Books On-Line and StoryCove.   
  •  American History Stories Volume 1 by Mara Louise Pratt-Chadwick: pdf  audio downloads
  • American History Stories Volume 2 by Mara Louise Pratt-Chadwick: pdf   audio downloads
  • American History Stories Volume 3 by Mara Louise Pratt-Chadwick: pdf
  • American History Stories Volume 4 by Mara Louise Pratt-Chadwick: pdf
We will also be using Story of the World and A Short History of the United States.  View our History Readings Schedule for these books, along with details and download links.  I will not be listing specific pages below in our week-by-week resources lists, though I have included them for Week 1 just to show you how we will be starting out with them.  If these are not in a style you prefer, you can also find additional free books for American History at Old-Fashioned Education, which also includes suggested reading levels for many of the books listed.
For a listing of elementary-school-level literature for American History, including picture books, go to our American History Literature Resources page. 

For a free American History Curriculum visit The Simple Homeschool's Raising Refounders.  With historical videos, interactive maps, biographies, unit studies, and worksheets (for grades 3-6 AND grades 7-12), this is really the only resource you would need for an introduction to Early American History.  Free registration is required to download the materials, and there exists a download quota (I think it's five per calendar day?).  I have purchased Simple Schooling's Early American History from Vikings to the Civil War, which includes all of these history unit study downloads (and more - 700 pages worth!) for $3.99 at Currclick. (PLEASE NOTE:  Due to the fact that the Raising Refounders materials were transferred and reformatted from older books in the public domain, the Columbus e-book states the year of his birth as 1436.  In fact, some of the historical books used in elementary schools in the early to mid 1900s included his birth anywhere from 1436 to 1451, mainly due to discrepancies in records and uncertainty in when he was actually born.  You can see this for yourself if you do a simple search on American History books on google e-books.  One example is First Book in American History by historians Charles Beard and William Bagley.)


And Homeschoolshare has a VERY COOL lapbook on the U.S. Presidents. They also have free resources for the American Revolution, the Civil War, Native Americans, Westward Expansion, and the Great Depression.

Use this interactive history map as you study American History this year.




Also, visit Libertyskids.com for games and activities, or watch 40 episodes of Liberty's Kids videos on youtube.
Liberty's Kids Website

Schoolhouse Rock has several videos on America.  I'm listing them all here for now, even though some are for future weeks.

There are tons Old Time Radio (OTR) programs: from re-enactments of historical events to the readings of works by various noted authors/poets (such as Edgar Allan Poe). While I'll list a few below, there are many, many more.  You can find Cavalcade of America's OTR programs at Librivox, along wtih the You are There programs.

History for Weeks 1-6
Week 1: Columbus
Last year when we studied the Age of Exploration, we discovered that the living history museum The Nina was in port in Chattanooga.  .  As of this writing, they've not yet updated their schedule for the 2011-2012 school year, but I've confirmed that they will be continuing to travel across the country, as they only take off for maintenance during January and February.  See our previous post for more details about visiting The Nina. 
Last year, we also created a Santa Maria paper toy offered by papertoys.com.  You can download a version in color or this one in black-and-white.  The template needs to be printed on cardstock, and you'll need three toothpicks for the flags.  I would recommend this activity for grades 4 and up.

Our Santa Maria Paper Model
Columbus Crafts:
Reading and/or audio:
  • From The Children's Treasury of Virtues, "Sail On! Sail On!" by Joaquin Miller (pg 148)
  • Listen to:  Columbus by Joaquin Miller on archive.org (or download mp3 here):


Week 2:  Pilgrims

We will be completing A Journey Through Learning's free lapbook/unit study called "Overview of the 17th Century."  Sign up for their newsletter to receive this resource (a $14 value). Click here for a sample. It contains topics such as: The Northwest Passage, Pocahontas, Church of England, Puritans, Mayflower Journey, Life of the Pilgrims, Squanto,Salem Witch Trials, and the 13 colonies.  
Week 3:  Boston Tea Party

For a fun way to discuss the Boston Tea Party, download the 1773 edition of The Boston Tea Party by H.W. McVickar, free on google e-books. It is an illustrated poem that even young children will enjoy! You can also find other versions at archive.org.

We are hoping to also complete the free American Revolution Lapbook (click here for direct link to lapbook download) available on the Just Us blog. This can be completed in conjunction with reading Johnny Tremain by Esther Forbes, which would be a good book to read over a semester; it contains 12 chapters with 4-5 sections in each chapter.
Read or listen to G.A. Henty's True to the Old Flag.   (Click here for audio.  Click here for pdf.)

Practical Pages also offers some lapbook templates for the Boston Tea Party.

For the gamers, Mission US is a free on-line role-playing game that includes history leading up to the Boston Tea Party. An interactive game where you might actually learn something useful? I can't believe it!  Don't forget to download the teacher's resource packet, which includes history information and short biographies.

Week 4:  Declaration of Independence
Week 5:  George Washington
Read or listen to the first 15 chapters of Four Great Americans by James Baldwin - all about Washington's life for young readers.  pdf   |   Audio

Create a lapbook on George Washington available at Lapbook Lessons.  Practical Pages also offers some George Washington lapbook components.  In fact, you may want to visit Nadene's History page for many resources you might use for American History.

Visit Washington's World.  Great Interactive Website!

Watch a 30-minute video about George Washington and The War for Independence (this is split into 9 parts, etch about 2-4 minutes long).
 Be sure to check out Raising Refounders Resources!
Week 6: Lousiana Purchase
 
I hope to post resources for History Weeks 6-12 and Fine Arts - Tin Whistle & Music Theory before the end of August.  In the meantime, if you'd like to work ahead, one of my favorite resources of all time is Homeschoolfreestuff.  You're bound to find freebies for anything you want to study on that website.

I'm working on updating our "Classical Conversations" and "Freebies" pages to make it a little easier to find everything but will be taking a break for several days now.  If you have ideas or resources you want to share, please feel free to comment or email me!  Blessings to you all!

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I post resources that correlate with Classical Conversations not only to benefit other parents, but it also helps me to get organized. If you have landed on this blog post and are looking for:

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11 comments:

  1. Thanks so much for all your work you put into this. And enjoy your nature studies.

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  2. Thank you so much for posting all of your research! You are helping to make this overwhelmed first-time homeschooling mom's life a whole lot calmer! :)

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  3. Thank you so much for a great blog! I'm new to CC this year. I have a 6 year old (1st grade) and a three year old. I'm sharing your blog with my other CC friends. You have so many great references. I look forward to reading your posts, as you go along this year.

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  4. So out of all this great stuff you've posted over the last few weeks, what you actual plan on using during Cycle 3?

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  5. If you must know, we have already started on some things because my oldest is begging to do them. We are building a paper city called "America City" using U.S. landmarks from Papertoys.com. Stephen has already completed Mission U.S. We are doing a My Timeline Notebook with the Presidents and Statehood add-ons, along with events from history sentences. We also really do have geography notebooks we'll be using. We listen to audios quite often, so we will be doing American History Stories (if something applies) and Short History of the U.S. (definitely). We are doing 17th and 18th century lapbooks from A Journey Through Learning (we're starting these this week per Stephen's request). We will also listen to a few of the other audios I've listed. I'm not sure if we will listen to what we've purchased (Sotw) because I really like A Short History of the U.S. We also have almost all of the resources from Raising Refounders already because we purchased the Early American History set. We will read these stories together. And then we have our other readings as well. We'll be doing one craft per week (unless they ask to do more). Because we're starting so early with some of the activities, it really is not as overloaded as it seems. This happened last summer, too. If it's lapbooking or papertoys, Stephen considers it fun and begs to do it. Makes learning so much easier - and better! Latin - we're using Latin's Not So Tough right now, but we may also watch videos. The problem with videos is that we are on satellite internet with a limited download access policy. So, we won't be able to view very much over our connection. If we didn't have a limit, we would do all of the videos. And math - we already use skip counters and games. Really, we are somehow incorporating much of what I've included in these posts (except for all the lapbooks - it's better to just choose one of those at a time...) AND, this is actually a reference I will use when we get back to Cycle 3 in the future. Planning won't take nearly as much effort next time around!

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  6. Brandy, thank you very much for posting such great resources. I know this is alot of work and I am so greatful you share this with the rest of the world. I am a new CC mom. I will be starting this Wed. I have 2 children. 9 and 4 (boy girl). I am following alot of the suggestions you have here. I wanted to ask you specifically about your memory work trifold. What subjects do you put on your memory board. I cant really see them all and was not sure if you added any additional things. I would like to do it exactly like yours. Thanks again for all your help.

    God bless you and your family during this great homeschool journey!

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  7. I'm glad this is useful to you! The way the board is set up THIS YEAR is (it's different than the photo from last year): Across the top I have small page protectors that I slide the Timeline cards into. Then, the next row is: Latin, History Sentence, Geography, Math. Last row is: Bible (you can put verses from John 1:1-7 here or another memory verse that your family would like to study each week - last year we had one verse per week from Ephesians 6:1-24. We only have 7 verses for CC this year.), English Grammar, Science, Fine Arts.

    Be sure to take it easy starting out. Be willing to be flexible to ensure that you are all enjoying the learning process!

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  8. Thank you so much for sharing these resources!

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  9. Hi Brandy,
    I so appreciate you sharing all of your creativity with all of us. Can you tell me about the Santa Maria paper toy and how your boys did with it? I did look it up on the website, however it looks quite complicated to me.
    Thanks and blessings,

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  10. It was challenging! Gary and I had to help Stephen with it. I would say that the project would be good for 4th grade and up if parents help. If not, I would say 7th grade and up... You can read more about our experience with making that paper toy here: http://halfahundredacrewood.blogspot.com/2011/03/paper-castle-paper-theatre-and-other.html It may provide a little additional insight! :)

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  11. Thanks to your inspiration, we have our timeline printed and we will begin it as a summer project beginning with Ancients for next fall, cycle 1.

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