End of the School Year Slide Show

In the state of PA, I am required by law to put together a portfolio to be evaluated by a certified teacher to prove to the local district that my children are receiving a good education. This year, I decided to put together a small slide show for our evaluator in order to give her a better picture of some of the things we do that is often hard to see or understand on paper. This was my first time working with the program, "Movie Maker" and I look forward to learning more and playing around with it. 

Animal Planet Future Stars?

Last Friday we found a toad while doing some yard work. The kids went into immediate action. They found a bucket to put it in, ran and got some gloves so they could handle the frog, and then of course the iPod came out so they could make a video like the stars on Animal Planet. They kept the frog around for an hour or so and then safely released it in the woods in our backyard. We hope we'll get to see our little friend again sometime soon!

I couldn't keep from smiling as I raked and cleaned out flower beds because I am so thankful for how learning naturally happens when you simply allow children the freedom to run, play, and explore the beautiful world God created.

Would you like to enjoy some nature studies? I would encourage you to check out the Handbook of Nature Study. Today they are sharing a special blog carnival all about reptiles and amphibians. 

Father & Son Scripture Memory Challenge

My 11-year-old son just finished up an 8-week scripture memory challenge with his dad. He participated in AWANA through his 2nd grade year, and gave T&T a try as a 3rd grader, but quite frankly he was miserable in that environment. It was too much sitting down, being still and quiet, writing, and studying independently. It was too "schoolish" for him. He probably would have done better if there would have been an adult in there who got his personality, gave him a little extra attention and encouragement, but that wasn't the case. So, my husband decided to let him skip AWANA and stay home with him, while the girls and I continued to participate in AWANA. AWANA is a good fit for our girls and I'm sure it would have been a better fit with the right male leader for our son, but that's okay because the church is not solely responsible for the discipleship of our children. The bulk of the responsibility lays on us as parents and that's why my husband spends time each night reading through books of the Bible with Tyler and does things with him like this recent scripture memory challenge. Tyler was rewarded with a special day out with his dad at the end of the 8 weeks and they are continuing to memorize scripture together even though the initial challenge is over. 

Do you memorize scripture with your children? 

Spring 2013 Piano Recital

On Sunday, April 7th, Kaitlyn had her piano recital and did a lovely job. She played two pieces this year. Her first piece was In an English Country Garden and Here I am to Worship.

Putting on a Play

Kaitlyn wrote another play, but it was hard finding actors for this one because she needed three princesses. It took a lot of begging to convince her brother to play Princess Uglyenna, but he finally agreed and did a hilarious and great job.

I love to see the creativity shine from my children when they do these little projects together. They get writing, speaking, acting, and directing experience all in one. It is always a fun treat for Heath and I to watch these short productions they put on for us.

Do your kids like to put on shows for you?

Drama Class Fun

My youngest daughter recently chose to enroll in a drama class and she had so much fun. For a few weeks she went to class and learned folk songs and folk tales and how to act them out. On the last day of class, they held a special performance. They sang a few folk songs and then acted out three separate folk tales. Lauren played the part of a sleeping momma sheep and she shined! The drama teachers are going to take  a short break while their son plays some soccer this spring, but hope to start up another class very soon and I do believe Lauren will want to enroll again. The day of the performance, I just couldn't take my eyes of my youngest child. She was so happy and her smile never left her face. I love babies and toddlers, but I am also loving this stage of parenting as I watch all three of my children find their interests and talents. So far we have a drummer, a pianist and poet, and now an actress.

Learning About Bats

We are still working our way through Apologia's Flying Creatures of the Fifth Day and are currently learning about bats. It has been a couple years since we enjoyed a "Magic School Bus" book and I thought my youngest daughter would especially enjoy it, so we read through the book in a couple days before we started digging into our Apologia science lessons. I found this free bat coloring page and had the children label the parts of a bat. However, when the children started working on it, they realized it was missing a finger, but they easily drew it on themselves.

What are you studying in your science lessons right now? We are getting very excited about spring and anticipating some fun nature walks and studies very soon!

Poetry Celebration

For the third year in a row, Kaitlyn has won an award for her poetry. For 25 years the Martin Library has hosted this wonderful poetry contest for students in grades 1-12 and they were pleading last night with parents and educators to continue teaching and supporting creativity and the arts. Sadly, many in the room last night know this may be a hard fight as priorities are shifting more and more from reading and writing creative things like poetry in a classroom to reading only things that will prepare students to take tests.

York City's Poet Laureate told a story about asking a room full of small children if they loved to dance, paint, or write and all the little children raise their hands enthusiastically. However, by the time the same group of children reach college, very few will raise their hands because somehow along the way they have stopped dancing, painting, and writing. Why? Is it not "cool" anymore? Were they not encouraged? Did they get so busy that they stopped noticing the beautiful and lovely world they live in?

Each year I leave this poetry celebration thankful for creativity and the power of words to express thoughts, emotions, and beliefs. May we never stop creating and we know that creativity comes in many more forms than just poetry.

Here is Kaitlyn's award-winning poem.

A Brother

A brother is someone you love deep down
But whenever you see him
You just want to frown
A brother is someone who likes to tease you
A brother seems to NEVER please you
This is how a brother expresses his love
In the most annoying way
But if I had to vote for my brother to go or stay
Believe it or not I would vote
STAY
I don't know if I could live if my brother went away

History and Hot Chocolate

History and hot chocolate have been going together a lot around here lately. I'm sure it's the colder temperatures and there's nothing like getting your kids to be still when you give them a yummy treat to enjoy while you read aloud to them.

Our Study of Thomas Edison

We recently wrapped up a short study on Thomas Edison. He was a fascinating man and we all learned so much while reading  "The Story of Thomas Alva Edison" by Margaret Davidson. When we finished the book, the children completed the lovely notebook biography page pictured above. I found the notebooking page over at the Notebooking Fairy's website.

Some things we learned:
He went to school for a very short time. His mother pulled him out because the teacher thought he was "addle brained" so she taught him at home.
"Why" was his favorite word.
He did his first experiment when he was only 4-years-old.
He lost his hearing when he was a boy.
He had a vacation home in Florida.
He was born in Ohio, but lived most of his life in the state of New Jersey.

Boy Bakes Cake and Girl Bakes Cookies

Kaitlyn is usually the baker in our home, but recently Tyler and Lauren tried on their baking hats as well. Lauren wanted to make some pinwheel cookies and Tyler wanted to enter a cake into the men's cake bake off contest at our church's Super Bowl party.

When Lauren showed me the cookie recipe she had chosen I was very hesitant because they looked difficult. Actually they weren't difficult, but they were time consuming since the dough requires a good amount of chilling. She was so pleased with the results and excited to share her cookies with her family.

Since I am a woman, I was not allowed to help Tyler with his cake, but his dad could. Tyler decided to do a chocolate cake and chop up Reese's Peanut Butter cups and add it to the cake batter before baking. He then iced the cake in chocolate frosting and his dad helped him with the white decorator icing and he added some M&M candies over the words. Tyler didn't win a prize, but he was still excited to participate in the men's cake bake off.

How do you get your kids cookin' in the kitchen? Do you have any favorite recipes or websites for kid-friendly recipes?

Natural Learning

I have been overwhelmed lately by the amount of learning my children do on their own. You will not find these moments of learning written down in my homeschool planner, but my children are indeed learning when they are given time to explore their own interests.

Recently, the girls checked out some books about drawing from the library and they have been drawing all sorts of horses and princesses. 

My son reads about military history and nature constantly and we often refer to him as our walking animal encyclopedia. 

There are times when my children look out the window and tell me about the different birds they see at our feeders. 

Learning occurs when the girls spend time with me in the kitchen cooking, baking, and creating. 

I realize learning flows throughout our home naturally and I am beginning to see my children becoming a bit more independent and taking ownership of their learning more and more. I agree with Robert Frost when he said, “I am not a teacher, but an awakener.” Sure, I have taught my children how to read, write, and some math facts, but they have chosen to run with learning on their own - and they have shown me how simply and naturally learning occurs when a teacher transforms into an awakener.

Our Week in Pictures

The past week was an off week for us. It started out with me not feeling well on Tuesday, but feeling better on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, and then getting hit with a fever Friday night and all day Saturday. Somehow in the midst of all the yuckiness I was dealing with, we managed to do some fun things and keep the learning rolling as well.

My kids enjoy being in the kitchen with me. The girls made their own pizzas one night and enjoyed decorating the snowman cupcakes to share with their AWANA friends. 

On Tuesday morning (before I started feeling bad) I took Tyler out for breakfast. I always enjoy spending one-on-one time with my kids.

A couple days this week, my girls got out some of my kitchen things to pretend they were on a cooking show. I truly enjoyed watching them play because I was suddenly hit with the realization that there may not be many more years of this type of pretend playing going on in my home. My kids are growing up too quickly.

I told Tyler I'd take him to visit a pet shop on Tuesday morning, but when we arrived at 9am, they weren't open, so I promised I'd return later in the week and bring his sisters as well. We were able to squeeze this outing in on Thursday afternoon. We also visited Sonic to get happy hour sodas, and a trip to the library as well. It was a fun afternoon.

Kaitlyn got a Kindle for Christmas and she has become a total e-book snob. She sat in the library reading from her Kindle while her brother and sister loaded up on "real" books.

Even though I did spend the majority of the week not feeling 100%, we did manage to get in some reading, writing, and math everyday. The kids piled in bed with me while I read our history lessons. I am very thankful for how homeschooling can be flexible to meet our needs at any given moment. I sit here late on a Sunday afternoon and I haven't even looked at my planner for next week. This is the first time in 48 hours I have felt like sitting up long enough to do much of anything. So, we will start out our Monday morning with our normal chores (there always seems to be more chores on Mondays around here). I will send the children off to do some independent activities while I sit down with my planner and plan (as best I can) our learning for the week.

A Week for Birds and Basketball

We slowed things down quite a bit the month of December, took a nice 11 day Christmas break, eased back into our school routine last week, and this week we did a full 5-day school week. Wowsers! I never thought the week would end. We had a good week, but I remember thinking on Tuesday that it surely had to be Thursday! 

On Monday, all three children were due for a math test. Kaitlyn thought Cody might help her out, and Lauren insisted on taking her test mounted high upon a kitchen bar stool. Tyler and Kaitlyn began their Easy Grammar lessons this week and Lauren also started "English for the Thoughtful Child." Kaitlyn was also excited about starting up with her piano lessons this week, after having a couple weeks off so her teacher could enjoy the holidays. 

This week we wrapped up our science unit, which means we'll be shifting back to our history studies next week. The children thought it was fun to squeeze an egg as hard as they could in the palm of their hand and watch it....wait a minute...they didn't break! God's amazing creation is evident once again. How else could mommy birds incubate their eggs if they broke easily. Well, eggs break easily, but not when pressure is applied evenly.

We love taking our Christmas tree out and propping it up against a lilac bush to give the birdies some cover and protection during the winter months. We made sure our nearby bird feeder was full and we also made homemade bird feeders using toilet paper rolls, peanut butter, and of course, bird seed. So simple and fun!

We had a nice day of sunshine on Thursday, so we got outdoors and played some basketball together. I would just like to share that if you were on my team you won each game. It was kind of chilly out playing, but it was fun to be out in the sunshine and get in a little fun exercise. When we were done, I had the children do some shuffles and walking lunges because I'm mean like that.

How was your week? I'm linking up once again with Collage Friday, hosted by Homegrown Learners. 

Collage Friday ~ First School Days of 2013

We enjoyed an abbreviated school week. I took Monday to do a little cleaning and cooked some special New Year's Eve treats and I rested a lot since I felt a serious cold coming on. My husband had Tuesday off, so we enjoyed a lazy family day, and we set the alarms before going to bed so we could resume a somewhat normal schedule on Wednesday. Doing school Wednesday-Friday was a great way to ease back into the school routine around here. I like to call this method a "slow start." We did a lot of silent reading, finished a read aloud, reviewed and progressed in our math lessons, wrote in our journals, made thank you videos and wrote thank you letters for Christmas gifts. I am actually looking forward to spending some time laying out our lesson plans for next week as we hit things full force.

I wanted to squeeze in a fun photo collage from Sunday. We got a good amount of snow on Saturday, so my husband decided to pack up all our snow clothes and sleds and take them with us to church on Sunday. As soon as church was over, we changed and went sledding at our church because there are some awesome hills on the property. When we were done, we treated the kids to lunch out (which is a rare Sunday treat). It was a super fun afternoon.

I believe thank you letters are important. If people were kind and thoughtful enough to bless our family, then the respectful and kind thing to do is to write a simple thank you note. For a homeschool mom like me, this is also a sneaky way to get in a little extra writing practice as well. I believe a lot of kids are not being taught letter writing or how to address envelopes anymore because of all the electronic communicating we do. I found a cute little graphic (for free) to download and use on our Christmas thank you letters. Instead of writing thank you letters, we made a few thank you videos to send to our faraway family members. The children had a lot of fun. I'll attach a video at the end of the post if you're interested in seeing how we did it.

My son received books 1-4 of the Cooper Kids Adventure Series for Christmas and he is reading them quickly! One day I had to wait for him to come to the table for math because he HAD to finish the chapter he was reading and I'm fine with that since there was a time I wondered if the boy was ever going to learn to read.

My 10-year-old daughter got a Kindle for Christmas and I snapped a picture of her this morning. The computer was all ready for her to slide over and do her Teaching Textbooks lesson, but like her brother, she HAD to finish the chapter she was reading.

How was your Christmas break (if you took one)? I enjoyed ours very much, but am looking forward to the fresh start January helps give us. I am linking up again this week with Collage Friday hosted by Homegrown Learners. 

Here's a video the children made for some Missouri family who sent them some gifts. We thought it would be fun to make some videos instead of writing letters to some of our family members.

Christmas Thank You Video

Collage Friday

We had a busy, fun, and memory-making week around here. On Sunday the girls sang in our church's annual children's Christmas choir. Kaitlyn also played a piano piece for the prelude and both girls had tiny solos in "How Great Our Joy." Later on Sunday afternoon, Kaitlyn spent some time decorating a cake for our Senior Pastor's birthday and our staff Christmas party at our church. She always has fun coming up with decorating ideas. She still says she wants to own a cakes shop and call it "Kate's Kakes" one day. She is dressed in all red and white in the picture below because it was candy cane night at AWANA and she was ready to go. 

Monday was an "out of the box" school day. We went into the office with my husband, due to the staff Christmas party, but instead of sitting in a room at church to do school work, we decided to go to Starbucks, drink warm drinks and work on spelling, writing, and math. We also made a stop at a local library we like to visit when we are near our church. I shared this with my mother-in-law and she asked me if the employees of Starbucks were okay with us taking up a table to do school work. I don't mean to sound uncaring, but it honestly doesn't bother me to take my home educated children outside of the home Monday-Friday during school hours. I answer questions as they come and make no excuses for why we do things the way we do and usually have very encouraging conversations with people in our community. How about you? Are you comfortable getting out of the house during school hours or do you prefer staying closer to home?

On Monday afternoon, after the staff Christmas party, we took our daughter to her weekly piano lesson and then headed to Hershey, PA. We planned on visiting Chocolate World like we do every year at this time since moving to PA, but they closed at 5:00 and we pulled into the driveway at 5:15! We were all very disappointed and my husband and I felt foolish for not checking the times, but every year we had gone in the evening. However, there is only one week during December when they are open until 9 pm. I guess we scheduled our trip a little too early this year. We saved the night by promising the children to return to Chocolate World when their Grandma and Grandpa come to visit because they wanted to experience Chocolate World too. We ate dinner at Red Robin, visited a cool drive through light display, and then stopped by Bass Pro on our way home. Even though the night started out with disappointment, we still had a lot of fun!

This week in Flying Creatures of the Fifth Day, we read about "Matching and Hatching." The children LOVED this activity you see pictured below. I LOVE the expressions on Tyler and Kaitlyn's faces! We cracked open an egg, dumped out the contents so we could feel the air pocket inside and also peel away the inner membrane. The kids had so much fun, I think we cracked open a half dozen eggs!

This week the older two children read "Christmas in the Trenches" which I intended to read aloud to them, but they found it in the library basket and read it before I realized, which I'm okay with. I learned about this book from Sarah Clarkson's "Read for the Heart." When I read the description of this book, I knew my son would enjoy it because he loves reading all things military. We finished "The House Without A Christmas Tree" this week. This is a sweet story, but I do have to warn you there are at least three curse words. This was a read aloud, so I was able to substitute more appropriate words. Next week we are going to start "The Family Under the Bridge." 

How was your week? I am linking this post up with Collage Friday hosted by Homegrown Learners. It's a fun community where we share about our weeks and share fun photo collages. I encourage you to check it out. You will be sure to find ideas and encouragement.

Slowing Down in December

This week I made the decision to slow things down a little more. I was starting to get grouchy and overwhelmed with trying to add in some new things to our school routine on top of trying to add in fun holiday activities. A good friend of mine shared how they virtually took the entire month of December off and simply enjoyed preparing for Christmas and making memories. By midweek I was a different woman and I'm sure my children appreciated having a more relaxed momma. 

This week the children and I enjoyed reading about all the different types of nests birds have. The picture below on the left, you can see the children working on notebook pages for our science notebook. We are having  unseasonably warm temperatures, so we are going to go on a nature walk soon and see if we can spot any abandoned nests in our back woods.  The older two children have started to focus a little more on their spelling because I am noticing some struggles in their writing. Can you see the doodling my daughter did on Friday during her test? Do you have a doodler in your family? 

We spent one morning making a lot of these coffee filter snowflakes and strung them up in our kitchen and dining room. They make me smile just about every single time I walk in the room and see them, and I don't know about you, but I'm in my kitchen A LOT! I got the idea from a blog post over at Smockity Frocks. You will find several quick and easy Christmas craft ideas, so you might want to check it out if you need to slow down, relax, and laugh a little more with your children this month.

We also started baking our Christmas cookies this week. We are baking ahead and sticking them in the freezer so they'll be ready when we want to share and when we have Christmas guests. In the picture below you will see mint chocolate chip and pumpkin snickerdoodle cookies. Both of these recipes are great and worth trying if you're looking for some new Christmas cookie recipes.

On Friday, after breakfast and a spelling test, Kaitlyn and I headed out to do some shopping. We enjoyed a little one-on-one time together and it was fun watching her shop for her brother, sister, dad, and our dog using her own birthday money.

This week we started reading "The House Without a Christmas Tree." We are enjoying it so far and the kids think they have the whole plot figured out. Our next read aloud will be "The Family Under the Bridge." I'm enjoying these quick Christmas read alouds this month.

How was your week? Are you doing any fun crafts or reading any great Christmas books together as a family? I'm linking up again this week with Collage Friday, hosted by Homegrown Learners. 

Collage Friday - Snow, Ornaments, and Christmas Books

We enjoyed our five day Thanksgiving break and my goal for these weeks leading up to Christmas is to focus and work hard during our scheduled school days. Of course there will be lots of fun Christmas activities added to our routine and we will enjoy decorating, baking, crafting, caroling, reading, performing, and partying. 

On Tuesday the weathermen were predicting 2-4 inches of snow for our area and my husband and children were beyond excited. However, we only ended up with a light dusting, but the girls went out and made the most of it and enjoyed a solid hour of running, playing, and snowball fighting. 

I shared in my last Collage Friday post that we are taking a break from our history studies and switching to  science for a few weeks. We have never used a block schedule like this before and I am looking forward to testing it out. We are using Flying Creatures of the Fifth Day for our science studies and have been learning about migration. On Tuesday afternoon, after the girls were done playing in the snow, we watched a movie on Netflix called "Birds of Paradise" and it was fun to watch and the children learned a lot about the beautiful birds of New Guinea. I should share that this video is about studying the mating habits of these birds, so if you haven't  had the whole "birds and bees" conversation with your children, you might have some explaining to do. You can see the kids all snug under blankets in the bottom photo drinking warm hot chocolate while we watched the movie together. I love the comfort of learning at home. In photo #1, Lauren is working through her All About Spelling lessons and she is almost done with level 1. In picture #2, Kaitlyn is working while listening to music on her iPod  I see her doing this a lot and it reminds me how fast she is growing up. Lauren is working on a math lesson in photo #3. We are using a math curriculum from Christian Light Publications and I love the daily drills, review, and how new concepts are taught. This curriculum helps me truly see the areas Lauren is doing well in and the areas she needs a little extra help. I honestly wish I had known about this company when my older two children were younger.  However, we started using Teaching Textbooks with them this year and it is working very well.

We went to a local gift shop this week so the children could pick out an ornament. The children each get a new ornament each year and one day when they move out on their own they will take their ornaments with them. We just finished decorating our tree today (Saturday) and it is so fun pulling out all the ornaments because there are so many memories tied to each one. For our read aloud this week, we started and finished "The Best Christmas Pageant Ever" if you have never read this book, you should. I think every person who works with children needs to read this book. It makes you stop and think about how well you are loving the children who are not the easiest to love.

Due to my husband's schedule, we hung out with him at home a couple mornings and then did the bulk of our school work in the afternoon. I am thankful for the flexibility homeschooling provides. I often think about how little the children would see their dad if they weren't educated at home. 

How was your week? Are you reading any fun holiday read alouds or special Advent readings? I'd love to hear any ideas or suggestions.

I am linking up once again with Collage Friday, hosted by Homegrown Learners. Be sure and click over and check it out. 

A Giving Heart

Almost four years ago, I wrote a post called "My Children are Not Cheerful Givers."  I am writing today to give testimony of how God has worked and is working in the hearts of my children since then and I will continually pray for my children to be rich in good deeds, generous, and always willing to share (1 Timothy 6:18). I also pray for my children to develop servant's hearts so they will always serve the Lord wholeheartedly (Ephesians 6:7).

In the picture above, my daughter Kaitlyn is using her own birthday money to pay for items to fill a box for Operation Christmas Child. Her birthday is November 11th and once she counted all her birthday money she asked me if $70 would be enough to fill a box. I assured her it would be MORE than enough.

My other two children are giving more on their own as well. Each year at Christmas time we fill boxes for Operation Christmas Child and purchase items through Gospel for Asia's Christmas catalog. There are also opportunities for the children to give and serve through an annual Feed the Hungry event our church does, and other various missions projects and offerings.

Simply making my children more aware of the needs around them locally and around the globe has helped open their eyes to see true needs and the Lord working on their hearts has prompted them to have a desire to do what they can. I don't want my children to give and serve out of guilt, but rather out of a genuine desire to care for others in need. Helping my children see things from an eternal perspective has also helped them. When they fill a shoe box or send some chickens to a family in Asia, they pray for the person who receives their gift to understand their need for Jesus, accept Him into their lives, and tell others about Him.

How do you teach your children to have the heart of a servant and to be cheerful givers?

Our Civil War Wrap Up

Last week we wrapped up our Civil War studies. Next week will be short due to Thanksgiving. On Monday and Tuesday we will do math lessons and drill, work on some Thanksgiving decorating and cooking, read library books, and simply enjoy some slower days at home together as a family. 

My camera has been shipped off to hopefully be repaired, so I've been taking pictures with Kaitlyn's ipod touch. That is why this post only has one photo collage. On the left you will see Kaitlyn working on a cereal box book report and Lauren working on a language arts project on the right. 

I would like to share in one post a summary of some of the resources we used while studying the Civil War.

Books children read silently
The Story of Harriet Tubman, Freedom Train by Dorothy Sterling
Turn Homeward, Hannalee, by Patricia Beatty
Shades of Gray by Carolyn Reeder

Books we read aloud
William Wilberforce, God's Politician by John Holzmann
Lincoln: A Photobiography by Russell Freedman
Across Five Aprils by Irene Hunt
We also have two books we use as read alouds, which are part of Sonlight's Core E (American History, part 2). The books are: The Landmark History of the American People and The Story of the U.S.A., Book 2.  

Field Trip
We visited the National Civil War Museum in Harrisburg, PA. One of our favorite exhibits was the "Meet Mr. Lincoln" exhibit. You don't even have to visit the library to experience this neat exhibit. You can visit the website and interact with Mr. Lincoln. 

Geography
The children used a U.S. map to identify which states were Union and which were Confederate. I still use, love, and highly recommend Wonder Maps from Bright Ideas Press. 

Writing assignments
William Wilberforce - The children wrote about lessons they learned from Wilberforce and  things they respect about him. They also did a horizontal timeline page on Wilberforce.
Harriet Tubman - The children each wrote a bio poem about Harriet Tubman. I shared about it in this previous blog post. 
Abraham Lincoln - The children wrote reports on Abraham Lincoln.
Narration Pages - The children must do a written narration after they complete their silent reading assignments each day and once the book is finished they also completed a book report. One form the children used a couple times can be found in this FREE download I found at Confessions of a Homeschooler. It is a simple book report and I was fine with that since the children had narrated after each day's reading assignment. I also like this historical novel book report form I found at abcteach.com
Copywork - I found famous quotes by Abraham Lincoln for the children to use for their copywork lessons.

Test
I created a simple Civil War test for the children to take. I wanted this to be an opportunity for the children to practice their studying and test taking skills. This was the first test I have ever given in history because we do so much oral and written narration and I've always known they were learning, but there does come a time when they are going to have to learn how to study and take a test. So, we are implementing that a bit more in our history studies this year. However, the children have experienced tests in math and spelling.

Have you studied the Civil War with your children yet? Our entire family enjoyed this history unit and learned so much. We had amazing discussions on war and morality and I'm blown away by how much my children are maturing in their thinking. After Thanksgiving we will take a break from history to focus on our science lessons for a few weeks. I've never scheduled things in this way and I'm hoping it works well for our family.

Happy Thanksgiving! 

I'm linking up this post with Collage Friday hosted by Homegrown Learners. I hope no one minds that I've only included ONE photo collage.