Homeschool Review: Louisiana Purchase

Our lives…

Our lives in general are pretty crazy these days. We received military orders last week to move to South Carolina… IN FIVE WEEKS! We are very excited about the move because we love SC, we will have good friends there, and hubby gets out of Alaska before the darkness sets in. It is just a very tight time frame and that isn’t fun.

Believe it or not, that is not the crazy part. The crazy creeps in with the fact that this school hubby is attending is only 6 months. We will be relocating again next June. That means that we have a nearly 2 month gap in the middle of our school year with no summer to handle the overflow. So we are pushing a couple days’ worth of lessons into one and we are deleting the unnecessary parts. Some of my more relaxed counter parts would say “Why stress over it? If the work doesn’t get done, just let it go.” While I would love to do that, the fact is that I have to play the straight arrow and make sure all boxes get checked because I don’t have the freedoms that some have to do this. We move around the country and many of the states in our Union have some very strict laws concerning homeschooling. Depending on where we fall, I sometimes have to show very strict record keeping charts and portfolios of school work ready to prove their educational paths. I don’t have the luxury to make my homeschooling whatever I choose for it to be. Because of this, we have to get the work done.

Our homeschool week…

History

This week we have been finishing up with Napoleon, John Adams, and Thomas Jefferson in regards to the Louisiana Purchase.

I learned several interesting, fun facts this week:

• Jefferson was able to purchase the Louisiana tract from France for 3 cents an acre. I can’t even fathom that small amount!
• The Louisiana Purchase doubled the land holdings of the new United States
• Adams and Jefferson hated each other
• Jefferson quite President Washington’s cabinet over his disagreements with Adams and Alexander Hamilton
• Jefferson’s plan for America was to be an extended farming nation. The land should have been dotted with self-sustaining farms, from sea to shining sea.
• Adam’s last words were “Alas, Jefferson lives.”
• Both Adams and Jefferson died on the same day, on the 50th anniversary of the singing of the Declaration of Independence.

Activities

I am determined to have the kids write or journal every week this year. We shall see just how long this actually lasts 😉 This week their journal entry was to mimic a letter written from the view point of an explorer accompanying Lewis and Clark. My oldest got pretty creative with his and I can’t tell you how excited I was at his handwriting!!! That is a success story after years of tears and struggle!!

 

My ankle injury from last week kept us from piano, swimming, and the 50% sale at our favorite thrift store 😦 But I am determined to get them to their swim lessons because we will be hitting every hotel pool along the route from Alaska to South Carolina. I want to be much less terrified of my children near water. I have seen some excellent improvements with my boys. My daughter is another story entirely. I just don’t think God made that girl to stay above water 😦

 

Books

Book links are Amazon affiliate links.

• Diary of a Napoleonic Foot Soldier: this book was an excellent resource for first hand experience of an infantryman in Napoleon’s army.
• The New Nation: I can’t tell you how much I enjoy this series by Joy Hakim. She is funny, clever, and teaches history with gusto. Love it!!
• Poetry in English: Anthology, I can’t tell you guys how helpful this book is! I had to buy it for a college class last fall, but I have found so many uses since then. Each poet has a biography and the poets are grouped into chronological order. It is a very useful tool for college and homeschooling!! It was worth the purchase for us, but more economical to rent from Amazon.
• Our Country’s Presidents is an excellent resource for facts on the Presidents of the United States.

Videos

• John Adams and Thomas Jefferson: short video highlighting the presidencies of John Adams and Thomas Jefferson
• Lewis and Clark: this is a 2 part series by Ken Burns. The kids enjoyed it quite a bit, but we had to break these up over several days!
• An excellent, albeit amateur, video concerning the Poetry Devices. Well done and cute.
• The War of 1812 is a Youtube video that is long, but we cut it down into 4 days. I appreciated the inclusion of Canada’s part of this historic battle.

 

All of these links have been added to our History Hunting series in the 1800’s.

Link to share…

~ If you need help teaching pre-algebra to your middle school student, I recently found an app for our iPad that includes lessons, teaching videos, fun quizzes, and such. I love it and hope you can find it helpful! Click on the button below for the review and links.

~ I have taken the 31 Days Blog Challenge for the month of October. For my topic, with it being Breast Cancer Awareness Month, I chose to remember and write about my MIL Patty. If you would like to read about an amazing woman who was imperfect, yet the perfect mother-in-law for me, saint… check out the series “Remembering Patty“.

~ Sadie Robertson (daughter of the Duck Dynasty CEO) is making a name for herself on a YouTube channel. The topic: her faith. That’s right, she is making videos to discuss living a Godly life. I have been impressed so far and I am most thankful that young women appear to have a positive role model in someone who won’t end up twerking herself into history.

[one_half][/one_half]
[one_half_last][/one_half_last]