US History--Civil War & Reconstruction--2013

It's been five years since we last studied the Civil War.  Because my kids usually get each subject twice (I have a 5th grader and a 10th grader right now), I like to have different read-aloud books each time. We discuss the books and movies, then my older kids do other assignments and tests as well.  I typically use the same resources for extra high school work each time (eg. the Critical Thinking in US History series) because the younger kids don't use it.

• Across Five Aprils by Irene Hunt.  This book is a masterpiece--and a tear-jerker. It covers all of the major battles of the war because the main characters--a young boy and his sister--devour the newspapers trying to find news of their brothers and friends serving in both armies.
• Harriet Tubman by George Sullivan.  It is part of Scholastic's "In Their Own Words" series, and uses as many primary sources as possible.
• Stonewall by Jean Fritz
• Gettysburg video.  This is the film version of my all-time favorite Killer Angels.  It is heart-wrenching.
• The Eyes and Ears of the Civil War by G. Allen Foster.  This is a fun book that talks about information gathering during the war:  the telegraph, spies (including women!), hot-air balloons, and others.  You can pick and choose chapters, or read the whole thing.
• Lincoln--A Photobiography.  I chose this book because I am emphasizing the question of what we were fighting for--states' rights or slavery.  This book includes a lot of Lincoln's thinking on both topics.
• The Civil War: an Illustrated History by Catherine Clinton.This book is an "encyclopedia" of the war, with short articles on many people and events.  It was good for filling in gaps not covered in our read-alouds.
• A History of US--Book 6, chapter 29, "Mr. McLean's Parlor" about the surrender at Appomattox Courthouse.
• Article from Meridian Magazine titled "Joseph Smith, Abraham Lincoln, and the Call for Repentance" about reasons for the war.
• Critical Thinking in US History, Reconstruction (volume 3, chapters 5-9 about the Reconstruction) for my high school student.  This series teaches logic and reasoning using historical writings about the time period.
• Shades of Gray by Carolyn Reeder.  This book gives a picture of the devastation and hard feelings in the South after the war.

We added many people and events to our century books.  This year I purchased line drawings of timeline figures from Home School in the Woods.  My 5th grader really enjoyed this because he usually just draws stick figures!

I'm always tempted to cover every battle of the war.  I have to remind myself that it's more important for my kids to become acquainted with and to think about a few of the relevant people and ideas.  They'll remember those, but they probably wouldn't remem-ber the textbook version. :)

Local History & Geography--Waldorf Grade 4

Fourth grade focuses on the LAND--the physical features rather than the human-made creations--which shape our history.  Thus, this outline is specific to Enumclaw, Washington, but I hope you can extrapolate to your own area.
From the title, you might think this is a social studies unit.  However, I included lots of science too.  (This was more than a one-month block as a result.) Unlike the usual "whole to parts," which goes from the big picture to the small detail, I started from local and went to state-wide.
I did these activities with my fourth grader and my ninth grader (who was earning a Washington state history credit).  We had no problems adapting our activities for both ages.

Week One:

• Climb Mount Peak, a local "big hill" from which you can see our town. Note where there are rivers (even if we can't quite see them), high places, low places, etc.
• Paint a very general map of our area, just with the basic physical features but still no roads or buildings.  D included Mount Rainier, the Cascade range, the White River, the Green River, and the location of the city of Enumclaw.
• Visit Mount Rainier National Park.
• Spend a day or two learning about glaciers and how they made the canyons and rivers of our area.  We read a book one day (mostly a lot of vocabulary).  On day two, we labeled a map with the names of the major glaciers on Mount Rainier (and what rivers flow from them) and had a test on the glacier vocabulary.
• Learn how glaciers formed the rest of our state (the coulees, Dry Falls, etc.).  Memorize the major geologic regions of Washington, and make a map of them.

Week Two:

• Discuss Mount Rainier--past eruptions, the lahar (ancient mudflow) on which Enumclaw is built, what it looks like in the crater.  (I used Discovering Mount Rainier by Dog-Eared Publications.)
• Watch a video about the eruption of Mount Saint Helens (2 hours away from us).
• Study the line of volcanoes--part of the Ring of Fire--stretching from northern California to southern British Columbia.  What makes a volcano?  Memorize the volcanoes of the Cascade range and identify them on a map.  (I used Cascade Volcanoes: a Discovery Book by David Purcell.)
• Define and learn about watersheds and the water cycle.  (I used Beginning in the Watershed--Grade 4 from the For Sea Curriculum. I highly recommend this curriculum!)  We discussed our "ecological address" in the watershed, and determined we are part of the White River watershed, coming (mostly) off the Emmons Glacier on Mount Rainier.  Our house is almost on the dividing line between two major watersheds, so this was a tricky question :)
• Go to the White River (we chose Federation Forest State Park) to sample aquatic insect larvae and determine the health of our watershed.  (This activity was also from Beginning in the Watershed.)  There were an amazing number of insect larvae!  This also turned out to be a perfect segue into future parts of our unit.  We found hundreds of dead salmon--those which had already spawned--along the river banks.  (We smelled them before we saw them!)  And we were able to hike part of the Naches trail which many early settlers followed on their way to our region.

Weeks Three and Four:

• Learn the seven species of salmon and trout that live in the waters of the Pacific Northwest.  (This activity was called "Name That Salmon" from Our Home: the Estuaries--a high school curriculum from For Sea. This whole salmon study was a combination of activities from the 4th grade and high school For Sea books.)  We cut out and colored pictures of the various species, and identified which we had seen at Federation Forest.
• Tell the story of the life cycle of a Chinook salmon who was born in Red Fish Lake in Idaho.  (Our family had a personal experience with this, having visited the lake one year when only one salmon had returned!  Thankfully, the numbers are now increasing.)
• Visit two different salmon hatcheries--one in Issaquah and one in Orting.  We were able to tell the differences between the different species we saw :) and to see live salmon, dead salmon, and salmon eggs.
• Discuss possible causes for the decline of salmon populations in the Northwest.
• Read about research exploring how salmon find their way back to their spawning stream.
• Learn about aquaculture and the three methods for raising salmon.
• Explore how natural selection changes genetic diversity and how hatcheries alter the salmon gene pool. We actually made models of fish with certain genes, then used scenarios from Our Home: the Estuaries. Interesting stuff!
• Tell Native American stories about the salmon.  We enjoyed reading stories about Raven and Eagle as well.
• Make a diorama of Native American salmon fishing.
• Role-play the meeting of different cultures with different values.
• Analyze how the Boldt Decision (allocating fish in Pacific Northwest waters) has affected native and non-native fishermen.  We watched a video about this, then discussed it.

Weeks Five and Six:

• Draw a map of our neighborhood.  (Here we finally got to buildings!)  N drew a map that extended to downtown as well.
• Read selections from In the Shadow of the Mountain and Settlers of Enumclaw--local histories of our town.
• Read aloud the book Sweetbriar Autumn.  N had been reading the prequel Sweetbriar, which introduces the first settlers of Seattle.  Sweetbriar Autumn is the fourth book in the series and talks about the Indian Wars which began in our White River valley.  The names and locations were very familiar!

D and N at Fort Nisqually (in Point Defiance Park)

More:  From here, we went on to study our state history--explorers, fur trappers, missionaries, Oregon trail, current events....  We learned a little about state government (N studied it in more detail), and memorized our state symbols--bird, tree, flower, etc.  We visited several other historic sites and museums.

We also expanded our study of the land--out to the estuaries and to the Pacific Ocean.  (Here we used the For Sea curriculum Life in the Estuary--Grade 3 as well as the previously mentioned high school-level Our Home: the Estuaries.)  We ended with a field trip to the Nisqually Delta estuary and wildlife refuge.  

Washington History

I have an all-time favorite book for Washington state history, but I hesitate to put it on my "Favorite Read-Alouds" list because most of you aren't from Washington.  Maybe I'll just post it here as an example of great writing :)
I will say that I had to beg, borrow, and steal (not quite) to get a used copy of this book in pre-internet days.  Now they have it on Amazon, and there is a book about Oregon by the same author.
Without further ado, here is an excerpt from the natural history chapter--called "Ice, Lava, and a Space Needle" of Washington Times and Trails by Joan and Gene Olson:

"From the Proterozoic, let's slide as gracefully as possible into the Paleozoic.  (Be thankful; it's easier to spell.)  The great sea had begun to fill up with silt during many periods of drying out and flooding.  If descendants of Proterozoic Washingtonian still occupied the family homestead in the Blue Mountains, they might well have found that their ocean view had disappeared (resulting, no doubt, in a dismal drop in real estate values).
"Should we now skip lightly into the Mesozoic?  This era, by itself, might well have lasted for one hundred million years.  Time enough, at any rate, for Washington real estate to assume still different positions, such as standing on end.  It was during the Mesozoic era that the land suffered ups and downs and took on the highly unlikely, though interesting, shape it holds today.  Toward the end of the period, hot rocks thrust their scalding way through the earth's crust and began to form the mountains now called Olympics and Cascades.  The Mesozoic was the age of reptiles; dinosaurs were cocks of the walk.
"But if the reptiles thought the Mesozoic was interesting, they should have seen the Cenozoic....
"The lava cooled, the lakes and rivers were formed and rich soils were laid down in the valleys.  But don't think for a minute that the excitement was over; never a dull eon; there was still to come the Quaternary period of the Cenozoic era and everyone knows how lively they are."
Never a dull history class!

Shelters and Building Unit--Grade 3

This is D's "Shelters" unit from Fall, 2010
(borrowing heavily, with permission, from Marsha Johnson of Shining Star School)

Week 1--Hebrew Feast of Tabernacles
--Tell story of Sinai and 40 years of wandering.
Sing “Follow the Prophet”—verse about Moses
--Watch YouTube videos of building a Sukkah
Why is it important to the Jews to celebrate this holiday?
--Build our own Sukkah! and have lunch inside.
Draw a picture for Main Lesson Book.

Week 2—How do we live in our region?
--Walk around the neighborhood and look at the homes.
--Draw a picture of our house (MLB).
Look at parts of house: foundation, walls, roof, doors, windows, porches, eaves, rain gutters, siding, trim, chimney, stairs.
What materials were used to build our house?
How does the house look from different sides?
Which window goes with which room?
--Copywork—poem “My House’s Night Song” by Betsy Rosenthal
--Tell Stories of Northwest Native Americans—how they live, what they did, how they found food and shelter.
Choose a story for MLB.
If possible, visit a museum with exhibits of NW tribes.

Week 3—How do people live in other parts of the world?
--Talk over places we have visited. What are the homes like there?
--Copywork—from Come On Over to My House by Theo LeSieg
--Focus on different regions (via library books) and examine:
• Hot dry climates (cool, thick adobe, African kraal, mud-n-daub homes)
• Hot wet climates (homes on stilts, reed walls, roll-up-the-sides house, boat)
• Cold icy climates (igloos, thick felted yurts)
• Snowy mountain climates (pointed roofs with 2nd story “doors”)
• etc.
Draw the homes from these climates—showing proper flora and fauna around.

Week 4—Building a home
--Look at a building in process.
Notice foundations, steel rebar, studs, headers, footings.
Draw construction structures in MLB.
Examine, use, then draw hand tools including hammer, saw, screwdriver, chisel, ruler, square, plane, and drill. Make a simple project with carpentry tools
--Make a foundation of stone or bricks. (We made a raised garden bed.)
--Build a miniature dwelling and report on it.

Ancient Greece, 2010

My girls had a great time making a Power Point presentation at the end of their unit on Ancient Greece. I have tried several things, but have not been able to put the Power Point on this blog! So I’ll just try to outline what we did.

Week 1

*The art and ideas of the Greeks are still all around us today (art, architecture, science, mathematics, government).
--Watch video: Athens and Ancient Greece (overview of Greek geography and what the ruins looked like in ancient times)
--Brainstorm ideas for a list of things we got “From Ancient Greece”
--Watch video: Donald Duck in Mathemagic Land (first part—talking about Greek use of the golden mean in architecture, geometry, music)

--Make a map of Greece, with names of major islands

*The stories of the heroes are considered the beginning of the history of Greece.
--Watch video The Aegean from Time Life's Lost Civilizations series
--Read an overview of Greek gods and goddesses in D’Aulaire's Book of Greek Myths.
--Do crossword puzzle or matching game (Greenleaf Guide to Ancient Greece)

--Read aloud The Golden Fleece: And the Heroes Who Lived Before Achilles by Padraic Colum
vocabulary: protean, arachnid, lyric

Week 2—Trojan War
--Read The Children’s Homer: The Adventures of Odysseus and the Tale of Troy by Padraic Colum

--Make model Trojan horse (while Mom reads).
--Read Aeschelus’ play Electra. (This was remarkably short. We took parts and read aloud. This also led to a discussion about Greek drama--masks, chorus, etc.)

Week 3—City States
--read aloud Theras and His Town by Caroline Dale Snedeker. (This is a fictional account of a boy who lives in Athens then moves to Sparta.)

--Watch Ancient Greece from Time Life’s Lost Civilizations series

--read aloud Plutarch’s Lives—Cimon, Pericles
--Report on Lycurgus, Draco, Solon, Pisistratus

--Watch The First Olympics: Athens 1896

--Add people & events to timeline/century books.
vocabulary: trireme, draconian, solon, democracy, hygiene

Week 4--Wars
--Mom tell about the Persian Wars (490-479), using pictures from textbook.

(This included Battle of Marathon, Darius I (522-486), Militiades, Pheidippides, Xerxes I (486-465), Themistocles, Battle of Salamis, Aristides the Just.)
--Read aloud Leonidas, Hero of Thermopolae.

--Mom tell about the Delian League and the Peloponnesian War (431-404)
--Add people & events to timeline/century books.

Week 5

--Read aloud The Last Days of Socrates (selected sections) by Plato.

--Report on philosphers--Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Diogenes
--Read aloud Archimedes and the Door of Science by Jeanne Bendick (and try out some of the math stuff!).

Week 6

--Read aloud Alexander the Great by John Gunther

THEN make a Power Point presentation about all of it!

(L and N did a great job--with music and lots of special effects.)

May Day 2010 at Camlann Village

Our family and several friends traveled to Camlann Village--a living history town from the middle ages--to celebrate May Day.

L and N had to have costumes, of course, including enough hats for all of their friends.

And the MAYPOLE!

Only in homeschool...

What was D singing this morning?

"Hello Salamis, I am a Greek trireme" (to the tune of "Hello Seattle").

We worked on timelines today, and he made a magnificent trireme that was about 400 years long!

Who Was the Pharaoh of the Exodus?

It’s pretty easy to figure out a timeline for the patriarchs of the Bible. Assuming the Fall at about 4000 B.C. , one can easily piece together the details from genealogies given in the Bible. Coordinating secular and sacred history is, however, a little more difficult, but Truth is Truth and everything will fit together when we find it. (See a related post here.)

Ramses II usually gets the nod as the Exodus pharaoh because of several Biblical scriptures stating that Israel sojourned in Egypt for 430 years. But this idea never seemed right to me. Why do we never hear about such a big event in Egyptian history? And why (my husband always asked) didn’t Ramses die in the tenth plague when firstborn sons were killed?

Then one day I read Galatians 3:16-17 which specifies 430 years from the Covenant (before Abraham went to Egypt) to the Law (at the time of the Exodus). That’s more than 200 years different than if you count 430 years from when Joseph went to Egypt. Based on those numbers, I knew the Exodus was during Egypt’s 18th dynasty—the dynasty that drove out the Hyksos pharaohs of Joseph's day. The 18th dynasty not only “knew not Joseph,” but hated him and his associates. I couldn’t pinpoint a specific pharaoh though, because there are so many discrepancies with the dates.

That’s where I left it, but I shared my conclusions with my friend Heidi and she discovered more when she was studying Egypt with her family. Heidi determined that Hatshepsut must have been the pharaoh’s daughter who adopted Moses, and that Thutmoses III was the pharaoh of the Exodus. I’m sure she’s right, and here’s why:

Hatshepsut—a.k.a. “His Majesty herself”—is known as the female pharaoh who locked her young stepson away with the priests while she (who was supposed to rule as his regent) seized power and ruled for 21 years. I hadn’t thought about it before, but it would take a woman with such chutzpah to adopt a Hebrew baby at a time when Egypt was killing all the Hebrew boys. Hatshepsut never had a biological son (only two daughters), but she named her adopted son Moses after her father, mighty Thutmoses I. It makes perfect sense that she was preparing Moses to rule next.

But then Moses left (to Midian). A short time later Thutmoses II (successor to Thutmoses I and husband of Hatshepsut) died. That left Thutmoses III—son of a harem wife and practically a commoner himself—as Pharaoh. Hatshepsut’s young daughter married this half brother, and Hatshepsut was Dowager Queen and regent—for awhile. But she wanted more. Perhaps she was hoping and waiting for Moses’ return. In a bloodless coup d’etat, she seized all power and proclaimed herself Pharaoh of the Two Lands.

By the time Moses did return 40 years later, Hatshepsut was dead. Thutmoses III had been sole Pharaoh for many years and had created a huge empire: setting out every spring to quash rebellions and to conquer new lands. In spite of his might, however, he certainly felt threatened by Moses who was the true heir. Thutmoses III blustered and bullied to hide his insecurity. But it took the tenth plague—where his own firstborn son died and Thutmoses III didn’t—to prove he was an imposter and to shatter his pride. And then the Israelites were gone.

Thutmoses III had no more conquests following the Exodus; after 17 years of empire building, he stayed home. He had to, since his army was at the bottom of the Red Sea. He did, however, have a big temper tantrum and demolished all of the shrines and monuments which Hatshepsut had built. (Many of these had pictures of Hatshepsut with a little boy.) After a long reign, Thutmoses III was followed on the throne by Amenhotep II—his second son.

As great as it is to finally have all the pieces fit together, it’s even better to see how this strengthens Moses’ position as a type for Jesus Christ. I already knew that both were deliverers, both were lawgivers, etc. Both of them escaped death because of kings who killed baby boys. But add to that that both were adopted into royal lines where they should have ruled an earthly kingdom. Both of them had younger brothers who wanted (and tried) to rule in their place. It’s this testimonial to the life of Jesus Christ that is best of all. (And the fact that I can teach it right along with our history.)

Studying Egypt, 2009

I started this unit with things my children already knew about—pyramids and mummies. After about a week, we continued by using the book Pharoahs of Ancient Egypt (by Elizabeth Payne) as our outline. This book discusses some of the more prominent pharaohs and the archeological discoveries related to them. I added a few other things—trade routes in connection with Hatshepsut, Egyptian religion in connection with Akhenaton, Biblical Joseph during the Hyksos’ reign, etc.

One of our books for this unit was The Curse of the Pharoahs by Zahi Hawass (Egypt’s current Director of Antiquities). Hawass has an engaging, instructive style. After reading his book, we started noticing Dr. Hawass everywhere—in our DVDs (not always named, but we recognized his face) and mentioned in other books. Then I started to wonder… it seems that this man has a lot of energy…and ego. One book I read talked about how American researchers were “kicked out” of Egypt because Zahi Hawass didn’t like what they were learning about the Sphinx! I’ve decided this is one of those cases where we learn more than we planned on: not only about Egypt, but about the “politics” of archeology.

Along those same lines, Motel of the Mysteries by David McCauley is a must-read so that you learn not to believe everything the archeologists might say.

I really enjoyed a DVD we happened to find about Nefertiti, wife of Akhenaten (Nefertiti Resurrected). Archeologist Dr. Joann Fletcher believes that a damaged mummy—found in the Valley of the Kings—may be Queen Nefertiti. There is evidence that this woman died from a stab wound, which is consistent with the fact that Nefertiti had enemies in high places. There is also evidence (from the positions of her mummy’s arms) that this woman ruled as pharaoh! Fletcher has theorized that Nefertiti was renamed Smenkhkare, the pharaoh who was Akhenaten’s co-regent and who ruled for three years after Akhenaten’s death. The evidence is compelling!

Another excellent DVD was Discovering Egypt (Video Visits series). The feature title shows mostly modern-day Egypt, but the “Cities of Ancient Egypt” option has computer imaging that turns the ruins into what they may have looked like anciently.

Finally, my favorite part of this block was our foray into archeoastronomy. Robert Bauval has written a series of books about the ancient Egyptians and how their immense knowledge of astronomy guided their building of pyramids and temples. This is FASCINATING! I no longer accept the premise that those pyramids were just a bunch of tombs.

Now I want to visit the land of the Nile :)

Mesopotamia Unit, 2009

This was a challenging unit to put together. All of the books at the library had pretty much the same information, and none of it was very inspiring (or very high-level). Besides the Epic of Gilgamesh, the only literature I could find to read aloud was a short story about the Tower of Babel that I had cut out of Omni magazine ages ago! (It wasn’t totally relevant, but provoked lots of good discussion!)

Finally there was the question of the “whole to parts” approach. What does that look like for ancient history? I decided to begin this unit from an archeologist’s point of view—considering clues to the culture then adding each subsequent discovery to see the big picture. We didn’t study the religion, daily life, education, government, and other aspects of the culture separately, but considered them as we moved along the chronological history of the area. I specifically didn’t include much about Biblical history—except when it intersected that of Sumer, Babylon, and Assyria—because we are already familiar with those stories.

Following are my weekly plans. Throughout the unit each of the kids worked on a flapbook to record what he had studied. And one final note: the Spirit told me I needed to talk about Babylon in the scriptural sense (worldliness), not just in the historical sense. So we spent several days just on that.

Week 1
*Archeologists found one civilization on top of another in the Fertile Crescent.
Trace the clues to the existence of Sumer (ancient stories, clay tablets…).
Learn about discoveries and prominent archeologists (Wolley, Koldeway, Windler, Laird).
Standard of Ur—what are the pictures showing?

Other artifacts: clothing / tools / jewelry / sundials…
Try writing with a stylus in wet clay!

Vocabulary: ziggurat, cuneiform, tel

Tower of Babel
Read aloud “Tower of Babylon” by Ted Chiang (fun!)
Ziggurats related to astronomy and time-keeping

*Mesopotamia is called the “Cradle of Civilization.”
What makes a civilization?
Look at geography of the region

--Make a map of physical places and early cities.
Vocabulary: alluvial, delta, meso-potam-ia (related to the word hippopotamus!)
Babylonia = Shinar (Gen 10:10)—lower end of Tigris & Euphrates valley / city: Babylon
Assyria = Asshur—Tigris valley north of Babylonia / city: Ninevah
Sumer, Akkad, Ur

Week 2
*The Epic of Gilgamesh is Sumerian literature.
Read aloud. (It took about three days.)

*The Sumerians have many gods.
Identify diety—relationships, what they stood for, Sumerian vs.Babylonian names
Vocabulary: polytheism

Week 3
*City-states become empires
Mesopotamian government

Organization of society
Sargon of Akkad—first “empire”
Ur-Nammu—Third Dynasty of Ur
Hammurabi of Babylonia —written laws (Hammurabi’s Code)
Vocabulary: city-state

*Many nations, in turn, control the Fertile Crescent
Assyria (Senacherib), Babylon (Nebuchadnezzar), Persia (Darius)
Add to timeline.
Memorize poem “The Destruction of Sennacherib” by Lord Byron

Week 4
*Babylon has everything the World can offer.
city walls / Euphrates River / Ishtar Gate ….
Seven Wonders of the World—Hanging Gardens
Make watercolor paintings of the hanging gardens

*”Babylon” is the Lord’s symbol for worldliness.
actual city
Rome (Revelation / I Peter 5:13)
The World (D&C 1:16, 35:11, 64:24, 86:3, 133:14)
Sing “Ye Elders of Israel"

Timelines for Ancient History

How do you have your students make timelines when even the experts can’t decide on dates?

Over the years I have compiled my own list of people and events. I started with the Bible (beginning 4000 B.C.) and all the ages of the patriarchs. (That covers an amazing number of years!) From that, I got an approximate date for the Flood (2340 B.C.).

Here’s where things get tricky. The experts think that Mesopotamian culture got going around 3500 B.C. But mud bricks would never have made it through the Flood, so Sumer had to have started after 2340. Remember, though, that Noah’s family didn’t have to start their civilization from nothing. They were already accomplished artisans (they built an ark!), so they had a better head start than the experts suppose.

The Book of Mormon tells us that the Tower of Babel was in 2243 B.C.—a mere 100 years after the Flood. Many archeologists think it was part of Nebuchadnezzar’s great city, but I think that he probably just restored what was left of the original tower.

Egypt is another puzzle. Experts’ dates for the Old Kingdom are all before the Flood. (One book I read, however, indicated that Dynasties One through Three may have been mythological.) Could the pyramids have made it through the Flood? I’m pretty sure there would have been some evidence of water damage to them—so I’m betting that the whole thing started with Ham’s descendents. The Sphinx, however, does have water erosion! It must be much older, and has had the head re-carved several times (which is why it looks out of proportion).

Another Egypt question is the date that Moses led the Israelites out of bondage. I grew up watching The Ten Commandments and thinking it was Ramses that wouldn’t let them go. But the New Testament (Galatians 3:17) indicates that the Exodus was 430 years from the time of the Lord’s covenant with Abraham. That puts it about 1490--the 18th dynasty. (Ramses is the 19th.) I should add that the writers of the LDS Bible Dictionary don't agree with me, and put the Exodus during the reign of Pharoah Manephtah, almost 200 years later and 430 years after Joseph went to Egypt. I'm sticking with my dates though, because I think they make more sense!

My timeline is still being modified slightly, as I read and learn more. I'm sure it's not totally correct, but generally it has worked out well and given us a good idea of how things fit together.

My Four- (or Five- or Six-) Year Plan

(aka "Scope and Sequence")
When all my children were young, our homeschool lessons were totally interest-based. I didn’t really have an over-all plan. As Je got closer to high school, however, I got more organized. I decided to follow my state’s requirements for high school graduation, although homeschoolers don’t earn a state-recognized high school diploma. College entrance requirements tend to match (or exceed) the high school guidelines—so we needed to follow them.

All of my children do math and language arts at their individual levels each year, but our social studies and science we do together. My state requires two years of high school science, but exact courses aren’t specified so we can follow our interests. It’s the social studies requirements that are more detailed, and so I plan my years around those guidelines.

*We spend a year on ancient history (of the Western world)—Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece, Rome.
*Our next year of world history covers mostly the Middle Ages and Renaissance.
*When we have time (depending on who’s in high school and what they still need), we study other parts of the world—the Orient, the Arctic, or Africa, for example
*We begin U.S. history, beginning with exploration of the New World and including a significant unit on the U.S. Constitution.
*Whenever we get to the Westward Expansion, we do a semester of Washington state history. Then we finish U.S. history, up to the present.
And start over!

How to "Build" a Unit Study

When I’m preparing for a new unit, I start by gathering all of my resources. Some of them I own, some I get from the library, some I glean from the internet. If I haven’t read or watched them, I do so (at least skimming through). I make a list of everything I want to use. (If I own something that I decide is not worth using, I get rid of it!)

The challenging part comes next. I spend some time thinking about what are the important ideas of this unit. [I know that’s easier said than done; I always have to find this quiet time in the early morning or late at night.] For instance, here are my ideas for our U.S. history unit about the 1950’s and 60’s:

--Americans are afraid of Communism. (Truman Doctrine, McCarthy, NATO)

--The US and USSR “fight,” but not with guns. (space race, arms race)

--The “Domino Theory” drives the Vietnam War,

--Vietnam is a different kind of war than we have fought before.

--There is conflict on the home front too.

--After Vietnam, America needs to heal.

--Blacks still don’t have equal rights.

--Non-violent protests bring needed changes.

I don’t articulate these ideas to my kids, but the ideas are the focus of our activities. I plan about one read-aloud book each week, along with movies and other short readings. Sometimes we do research, like the project we did with the above unit on learning about PresidentsTruman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon and the part each played in the Vietnam War.

Usually, I have my kids make a Flap Book, Main Lesson Book, or some other project as a way for them to gather and remember what they have learned. I often keep those projects (especially anything 3-D) in an “interest box” which the kids can get out to look at or play with later. For instance, our astronomy interest box has star charts, a model of the sun-earth-moon, our tin-can constellations, and our Flap Books. Our middle ages box has castle models, wind-up knights, costumes, illuminated alphabets, and coloring books. Then the kids can re-visit that unit whenever they want.

I should mention that I don't usually worry about incorporating ALL of the subject areas into my unit study. We usually do some writing as part of our unit and there may be charts or graphs to work with, but we continue to do our separate language arts and math work as well.

US History--Civil War & Reconstruction--2008

My units change every time I cycle through them. (I like to think the units are getting better each time.) For our most recent study of the Civil War, I had students in grades one through ten. Our main assignment was this:

Make a FLAP BOOK with some information about each of the following:

--Slavery

--Abraham Lincoln

--A Civil War battle

--A Confederate leader

--A Union leader

--Reconstruction

Also, add something from at least two other topics—medicine, photography, constitutional issues, famous ships, movie reviews, timeline, or any additional from the list above.

I didn't direct the construction of the Flap Books. We spent most of our “togetherness school” time reading aloud, watching movies, or doing activities. Then the Flap Books were each student’s synthesis of all the information.

Some of our other activities included making a map showing Union & Confederate states, adding to our timelines/century books, contrasting industrial North with agricultural South, memorizing the Gettysburg address, and making a chart of major battles of the war.

There are so many great resources for Civil War times!  This time around I used the following:

• Sojourner Truth:  Ain't I a Woman? by Patricia C. and Fredric McKissak.  
• Runaway to Freedom by Barbara Smucker--about the Underground Railroad.
• Gods and Generals--video version of the book by Jeff Shaara.  This covers the Civil War before Gettysburg, with a lot about Stonewall Jackson.
• Voices from the Civil War by Milton Meltzer.  This author has a series of books on U.S. history using all primary sources.  It's a great resource.
• video:  Robert E. Lee from the History channel.  (We didn't think it was very good, so I'd like to find a different video or book about General Lee.)
• Killer Angels by Michael Shaara.  This historical novel about the battle of Gettysburg is one of my favorites.  It introduces the reader to people on both sides of the war, so you feel that you know them as friends.
• Just a Few Words, Mr. Lincoln by Jean Fritz--about the Gettysburg address
• video:  Shenandoah
• "A Lincoln Preface" by Carl Sandburg (part of his famous Lincoln biography)
• Critical Thinking in US History, volume 3, lesson 6.  This lesson explores corruption in the Reconstruction governments.

I recommend that you find additional books—especially biographies of other people from that era (Clara Barton, Matthew Brady, Frederick Douglass, George Washington Carver, Eli Whitney, etc.)  Let me know what gems you find!

Timelines

I first encountered the idea of timelines in the Konos Character curriculum. (Those books were so appealing, but I could never afford one!) But I could make my own timeline. The only wall in our home that was long enough was on the stairway, so it was a slanted timeline. And the children made the most elaborate people for it. We were learning about medieval Europe at the time, so there were some colorful characters to work with.

Right away I learned something that most timeline makers get wrong: MAKE ALL OF THE CENTURIES THE SAME LENGTH! I figure that the purpose of a timeline is to give us a sense of where people and events are in the grand scheme of things. To show how short a time this century is compared to the whole history of the earth. To show how the years I have lived are only a fraction of the years Methuselah lived. So make the 20th century the same length as the 1st century—even though there is a lot more stuff to fit in.

When I discovered Charlotte Mason, I discovered century books—timelines in a binder. Thus began our tradition that the “little kids” make the timeline on the wall, while the older kids have their own century books (one century per two-page spread). Receiving a century book at age 12 became one of our family’s rites of passage. By that age, the child is old enough to make a beautiful book so that he doesn’t feel the need to “do it over” as his skills increase. And the remaining years before graduation allow him to have at least something on every page.

Occasionally—when we move, or when we need to paint the wall—we get a new timeline and the younger kids get a fresh start. The older ones can keep their century books for as long as they want.