Persecution of Homeschoolers

If you homeschool, please watch the below video. Please keep these families in your prayers, and pray that this doesn't happen in our own countries that currently allow homeschooling. I have been praying for the Swedish family for over a year... if you're a praying person, please join me.

Geography Travels: New York

We did our New York unit for 2 weeks in November.  This is the 3rd state that Isaac chose to do in our US Geography studies.  Click HERE for our unit on Missouri and HERE for our Pennsylvania unit.

Week 1

Located New York on a map; found capital, major cities and borders.

Watched these YouTube videos on New York City:

Looked at vintage photos from New York City from the website Photos of Old America.

Began reading All-of-a-Kind Family Downtown, which takes place in New York City.  Isaac read this book daily during our 2-week study.

Listened to “Eastern Border United States Song” from Geography Songs.

New York State Song:

Completed a notebooking page:

Colored the New York flag (from Apples 4 the Teacher)

Using the book Geography from A to Z, we learned about waterfalls, rivers, mountains and islands

Map page from Enchanted Learning

Discussed Norman Rockwell and watched this YouTube video on his artwork:

Using this page from the Norman Rockwell Museum website (teacher resources), Isaac designed his own Rockwell-style cover for the Saturday Evening Post.  I gave him a long list of topics to choose from, and he chose to do a baseball game.

Began our Famous People chart:

Discussed Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island and watched the following YouTube videos:

You can watch another YouTube video clip on Emigrants Landing on Ellis Island—it’s actual “silent” footage.  The embedding is disabled, so click on the link to see it.

Here’s the Statue of Liberty/Ellis Island website:  Statue of Liberty

Isaac’s page on the Statue of Liberty

Read the book Liberty by Lynn Curlee.

Week 2

Discussed US presidents from New York (van Buren, Fillmore, Arthur, Cleveland, T. Roosevelt, F.D. Roosevelt)

YouTube video clips on presidents

Discussed the Empire State Building and watched this YouTube video clip on the construction of the famous skyscraper—this video is very fascinating.  These workers certainly had nerves of steel!

Color sheet on Empire State Building (I got this from the official Empire State Building website, but I can no longer find it.  There were several nice coloring sheets to choose from, but they’re no longer there!  They’ve made changes to the site in the past month apparently.)

Discussed Niagara Falls, using this website:  Niagara Falls Online and watching these videos on YouTube:

Discussed New York composers Aaron Copland and George Gershwin

Click HERE to listen to my favorite Aaron Copland piece on YouTube

Here’s a Gershwin piece on YouTube:

Discussed New York author Washington Irving and Yankees baseball player Lou Gehrig:

YouTube video of Lou Gehrig:

Watched Disney’s The Legend of Sleepy Hollow (originally part of The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad  from 1949).  The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, as you probably know, was written by Washington Irving and takes place in New York.  You can watch it on YouTube HERE (it’s in 5 parts—just follow links).  Preview first to see if it’s too scary for your child.  Isaac loved it!  (Note:  contrary to the title on the YouTube clips, the movie has never been banned.)

Discussed Jonas Salk and watched this YouTube video:

Discussed other parts of New York state, including the Catskills, the Adirondacks, and the Finger Lakes; watched these YouTube videos:

Click on this link for a website and another video on the Adirondacks:  Visit Adirondacks

Read about New York from The Spirit of America, by Charles Mathes.

I highly recommend using the book American Grub: Eats for Kids from all Fifty States by Lynn Kuntz and Jan Fleming.  At the time I planned and did this unit, I had lost the book and couldn’t find it anywhere!  I finally did find it, so hopefully I can use it for our next state unit study.

I’m linking this post to “Geography & History” at Children Grow, Children Explore, Children Learn.

Geography Travels: Pennsylvania

This unit was done a few months ago, so I’m playing catch-up.  I’ve never been to Pennsylvania myself (the Philadelphia airport does not count), but I’d love to visit someday!  Here’s a look at our unit studies:

Week 1

Located Pennsylvania on a map and found capital, major cities, and borders.

Watched this video about Philadelphia:

Isaac began reading The Cabin Faced West, which takes place in Pennsylvania.  He read this book each day throughout our studies.

Listened to “Northern Border United States Song” from Geography Songs.

Using Jolanthe’s Country Factsheet Notebooking Page (Homeschool Creations) as inspiration, I created this form.  However, I later asked her if she’d be willing to make a better form for me.  She did, and you can find Jolanthe’s State Factsheet notebooking pages HERE.

Flag page from Apples 4 the Teacher:

Began Famous People chart (which I made)—We listed these throughout the 2 weeks as we studied them.

Discussed President James Buchanan and watched this video about him:

Read  from Geography from A to Z about: lake, river, and mountains

Map page from Enchanted Learning:

Discussed Mary Cassatt (famous impressionist artist from Pennsylvania) and studied several of her paintings.  (Click on links to see the complete collection of her paintings and to read a short biography.)

Watched this YouTube video of some of Mary Cassatt’s paintings.  There are several paintings of babies and small children without clothing…just to let you know...

Chose Mary Cassatt painting to copy; began working on it.

Discussed Pennsylvania history.

Reviewed “Northern Border United States Song”

Discuss Hershey chocolate and watched this video:

Snack: Hershey chocolate bar (of course)

Finished Mary Cassatt painting (I let him use colored pencils, as we didn’t have the best paint or paper):

Week 2

Discussed Louisa May Alcott.  We meant to watch the movie Little Women.  However, we were back in England by this time and discovered that our dual-player VCR was no longer working.  My Little Women movie is an American (NTSC) VHS tape.  My husband went and bought a used VHS player, but sadly it doesn’t play my NTSC VHS tapes (I have a boxful of them here).  I’m now in the (slow) process of purchasing those particular movies on DVD from Amazon.uk.  I did order Little Women, but it was well after we finished studying Pennsylvania.

Page on the Liberty Bell:

Watched a YouTube video on the Liberty Bell:

Discussed Stephen Foster and watched this video:

Discussed Robert Fulton and watched this video:

Discussed Quakers and Pennsylvania Dutch (Amish and Mennonite)

Discussed Gene Kelly and watched this video:

Discussed George C. Marshall and watched this video:

NOTE: In order to have enough products to add this Amazon carousel to my post, I included the movie Singing in the Rain (which I do have) because it has Gene Kelly in it and also It's a Wonderful Life (which I also have) because it stars Jimmy Stewart, who was also from Pennsylvania (Isaac chose him as his famous person for the notebooking page).

I’m linking this post to “Geography/History” at Children Grow, Children Explore, Children Learn.  Click on that link for more posts about geography and history!

Stay tuned for our travels to New York, Kentucky, and Florida!