Missed Yesterday's Post

I am computer-less. Well, that is not exactly true as we have an abundance of computers in our house BUT I do not have mine.

I had to take it to the Geeks at Best Buy to find out what is wrong with it. It randomly freezes. Sometimes it does it like every 15 minutes, sometimes every few hours. I cannot figure out what I am doing different when it decides it wants to freeze. Hopefully the Geeks will solve the problem!

Yesterday for school we continued to learn about the first battles of the Revolutionary War. It is pretty interesting that history accounts almost make it sound as if George Washington was expecting to find a well-trained army regiment.

Instead he found a group of non-disciplined, rag-tag men whose duty was almost over. They only had signed up for a one-year commitment.

We also learned that if the British soldiers had realized how few men Washington had during the months at the beginning of the war, they could have easily conquered the Patriot army!!

Our Art Project

Today we tested our creativity with FIMO clay...

Long Weekend and New Video

We took advantage of the long weekend and did not learn much about the Revoultionary War...

Some things we did do:
*Went to dance class--C. has learned a lot of the dance for this year. It is fast moving so confusing in parts. The recital is May 31st. We are off so everyone will be able to attend!
*M. had is Spanish lesson. He is learning a lot but it is definitely something we need to practice more!
*C. had 2 play dates with friends she does not get to hang out with too often. She really enjoyed that!
*M. went to Cub Scouts and worked on his Pine Wood Derby car.
*C. worked on a girl scout badge for childcare.

All in all a busy weekend! We keep wondering wear our dad is. He went to a HUGE FIRE in Hershey at about 4pm yesterday afternoon and is still there! Guess it was a big one to put out. Dad must be tired!

But the good news is we are on are off-duty time so dad will have two days to recover!

Today...back to the American Revolution. We watched our history channel video to set the stage for this week. We will be focusing on Bunker Hill--where although they Americans lost--they caused huge number of causalities to the British Army. We also learned about the Continental Congress that appointed George Washington in charge. And finally about George Washington's first victory--securing Boston for the Patriots again.

We are excited to learn even more this week about these events!

Lazy Friday

So our Friday did not go at all like I planned.... We were just sitting down to get started on our day, when the doorbell rang. It was the next-door neighbors (who also homeschool) wanting to go sledding.

It has snowed just a little bit Thursday night. In fact, by mid-afternoon it was almost all gone. But the kids had fun for the couple hours they were out there.

At that point, our homeschool time was pretty much over. It was OK because I had covered all our Revolutionary material for this week and our plan was to work on some other things....

That stuff can wait because the snow definitely didn't!!

Tea Party

Today we had a Tea Party and reviewed all the details leading up to that monumental point in history.

Dad thought we should dress up like Indians and dump all our tea in the creek (silly dad!)

M. is working on lyrics to a new song. He wrote one and did pretty well at it. He was inpsired by the Heros we were talking about and is trying to figure out where to start with the next one.

C. is exciting to watch Celebrity Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader? tonight.

Tuesday

Every other Tuesday is our fun day. We have our homeschooling friends over for art class. And after art, usually have a friend to play. So we do not do much other kind of school. We did start practicing our writing. M. wrote about bananas. C. about our puppy.

C.'s picture:


M.'s picture:

The Revolution

We are still working at nailing down the events that started the American Revolution. Today we watched the first part of a dvd series made by the History Channel entitled The Revolution.

We now can list the major events leading up to the conflict:
1. The Stamp Act: King George wanted to make recoup some money lost during the French and Indian War. This tax was on all paper products including playing cards!
2. The Americans were upset about Taxation Without Representation.
3. The English repeal the tax but the Americans think taxation will continue.
4. The Boston Massacre. Some Americans started harassing British troops. It began with throwing snowballs with rocks inside. It ended with the British soldiers killing five Americans. Paul Revere drew a painting that appeared in the local newspapers that made it look as if the British had attacked without provocation.
5. John Hancock ends up defending the British soldiers to ensure they would get a fair trial.
6. The British withdraw their troops from Boston.
7. But then levied a tax on tea. It is just a small tax that would not have imposed a financial burden but for the Americans it was about the principle.
8. The Americans dress like Indians and board a British ship and dumped all the tea off the boat.
9. Britain is mad and revokes Boston's charter and reinstates the troop occupation. The want to confiscate the weapons they know the Americans have been storing.
10. They begin to march towards Concord. Some Sons of Liberty meet them in Lexington. To this day it is not known who fired the first shot. When it was fired, both sides began firing at will.
11. The Americans were able to drive the British back to Boston. But the Revolution had begun.

Haraksan

M. was inspired by a contest in Lego Magazine that to design his own bionicle. This is the creation he came up with. Tomorrow he will work on an essay describing it.

King George III

Today we watched the movie Johnny Tremain....and learned about King George III.

C. was most impressed that King George had 15 children! Other things we learned:
**He was only 12 years old when his father died and he went from being plain, old George, to George, Prince of Wales.
**He became King at age 22 but refused to be crowned until he found a queen. He married 16-year old Princess Charlotte of Mecklenburg
**He wanted to be a good king so he had the following rules:
1. Kings should be thin, so he tried not to eat too much
2. Kings should be moral--so he issued a royal proclamation against the use of bad language.
3. Kings should not break their promises.
4. King should have heirs (hence the 15 children)
5. Kings should be orderly--everything had a place, and a time. He was never late!
6. Kings should be careful with money.
7. Kings should be firm.

It was the last two rules that got him in trouble with the American colonies. England was in debt from the French and Indian War. The King needed to raise money and decided to tax the Americans without asking them. King George III was upset when the Americans revolted against the taxes. All of this led to the start of the Revolutionary War.

If King George had tried a different tactic--simply asking Americans to help--the war might never have started.

Christmas Pic

I thought this pic was so funny! These kids get so excited for Christmas....Just had to share it.

Patrick Henry

Give Me Liberty Or Give Me Death!

Yesterday we learned about Patrick Henry. Here are some of the highlights:
*Born May 29, 1736 and died June 6, 1799 at age 69
*Patrick parents wanted him to be educated but he was more interested in other things. At age 10, he started to be homeschooled!
*Patrick had 17 children!
*Patrick became a lawyer.
*Patrick served as governor of Virginia.
*Patrick was an influention person during the American Revolution
*Patrick helped to start Hampden Sydney College in Virginia
*Patrick fought hard for a Bill of Rights to be added to the US Constitution.

Calculators

I gave the kids some math worksheets to do this morning. I had to check chores around the house. C. had a review sheet. I have been using Math-U-See with her and it is working. It is an interesting curriculum to do math.

M. had been using Time4Learning.com and/or the Pokemon Learning League. He loved Pokemon but pretty much completed the lessons at his level. I asked him if he wanted to do math this time online or in workbook and he chose workbook...

To assess where he is at, I printed a placement test for him to do. When he brought it back, I didn't notice where he would have worked out the answer....So I asked if he used a calculator....

M. was surprised and asked how I knew.....I told him, moms are very smart people:)

and the dog

C. loves the dog. But has found pet ownership a busy job. Puppies like to get into a lot of things....

Pine Wood Derby

M. is so excited to be in cub scouts. He gets to be in his first pine wood derby in two weeks...He was so excited to build his car. It was a fun project to do with dad.

Samuel Adams

Our American Revolution Journey has begun! We discussed how American began as "The Thirteen Colonies" which were all ruled by King George III (who we will read more about soon).

Our main focus was on Samuel Adams. We read about how he was very reluctant to learn to ride a horse. He like to walk and talk to people. He felt you really could not meet as many people when on a horse.

He finally learned when his cousin, John Adams, convinced him that true statesmen needed to ride a horse to looks stately on a statue.

We also learned he was behind many of the mischievous happenings in Boston, such as the famous Boston Tea Party. He believe strongly that American should be independent of Britain well before the people living in America were ready to feel that way. So he did a lot of talking about why independence would be important.

Online Co-op

We will start this semester's journey on Monday. We are spending the next seven weeks learning about the American Revolution. At first, I was a bit aprehensive about this topic but as I started to prepare, I think it will be fun.

Fortunately we live in a place where field trips can be easily incorporated. This weekend, I do have to get to the library for a few additional resources so we will be able to start on Monday with no glitches!