Skip to main content

Study America Saturday is Back!


Two years ago I started posting all about Dawson's (then 9th grade) studies on American History. I had spent the previous summer creating an American History curriculum for him using the dvd series "America: The Story of Us" and some other resources. It was such a great year!


Well, this year the little kids and I are embarking on a road trip ... Road Trip USA, that is! I purchased the downloadable curriculum from Confessions of a Homeschooler, printed out the massive number of pages (because I needed two student workbooks), and put them in individual binders. I purchased a couple of companion books to go with our study.


As this is our major unit study for the year ... and we WILL complete the entire thing this year ... I have decided to bring back Study America Saturday and will post all about our American History and Geography lessons from the week.


We started our new school year this past Wednesday, and it worked out that we had just enough days to complete Lessons 1-6 of Road Trip: USA, which is basically the introductory material.

Can I just say that we are going to love this study? Eli said, after the second day, "This is the best unit study ever!" My kids are geography and fact freaks, so I know this is going to be great year for us.

The kids learned about the five regions of the United States and completed a worksheet showing which states go where.


Then over the course of the next couple of days we learned about the White House, the U.S. Flag, the Pledge of Allegiance, and the Statue of Liberty. They completed mini-books that we attached to the first divided page in our notebooks.


Most of the material was review as we just did an extensive study on Citizenship at Cub Scouts (and Brynne tags along so she learns, too). But, we did dig deep into studying about the White House.

We went to the official White House website and did an interactive tour of the White House. Then we watched several videos about various aspects of it. We particularly enjoyed the one on the White House Marine sentries, the White House garden, and the beehives at the White House. We could have spent a lot more time on this site. It's really cool.


This next week we start on our journey and will be visiting Connecticut and Delaware.

Something else that may be of interest to you was shared with me by Kate of Delicious as Pie. She informed me that the History Channel has a program called History Classroom that airs on the History Channel every Monday morning at 5 a.m./ 6 central. The schedule for the shows can be found HERE.


There are also study guides to go along with each episode, which I think is majorly cool! You can bet that I will be recording these and printing off the companion materials. On those episodes that are age appropriate for my two, and relevant to our studies, I plan for us to watch them on the Fridays that we do not have Co-op (we only meet twice a month).

So that is what we studied about America this week. If you would like to share something, please leave a comment. You can even leave a link to a blog post you might have that contains information about your American History studies.



Comments

  1. I look forward to reading about your studies! We are finishing Road Trip USA this year too. The History Channel has a DVD set called The States - we use it each time we get to a new state. Also, Eat Your Way Across the USA is a great book with recipes from all the states. Fun stuff!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you for the tip about "The States". I just ordered it. Can't wait to add it to our studies! I have two resources for recipes for each states that we are using. This week it's crab cakes and apple pie! Yum!

      Delete
  2. Our favorite study 'ever' was Galloping the Globe when my daughter was probably 6 or 7 years old. I hope you have a wonderful time with the states!

    I hope to have a link to add to your studies next week as we really dig into American History starting with Jamestown!

    ReplyDelete
  3. How fun! We're studying 1865-the Present this year and as a big bonus we're heading to Washington DC for an educational vacation in April. Your kids are getting so big! Sounds like everyone is doing great. Can't wait to follow your homeschool adventures this year.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I just purchased this last night! Thanks for the review and letting us know about it.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

We all know that in this crazy world of homeschooling, we need all the (adult) support we can get. Please leave a comment if you so wish!

Popular posts from this blog

ABCya

Eli's reading resource teacher shared a website with me yesterday that I would like to pass along. It's called ABCya . There are separate educational sections with fantastic games for ages kindergarten through 5th grade. I browsed the 2nd grade level, and it includes age-appropriate games about Letters, Numbers, Shapes, Geometry, Patterns, Mouse Manipulation, Art and Holiday games. There are lots and lots of fun and creative games for children to play. They are fun, but oh, so educational. Eli's favorite, in his short time playing it, was Create a Car . A lot of the games also have Apps available for purchase (99 cents for most of them) for the iPad and iPhone. I have been looking for another free website for games similar to Starfall , for some time. I think I have found it. I can feel confident having Eli and Brynne play these games.

A Thomas Jefferson Education "This Week in History" ~ Schoolhouse Review

Talk about a GOLD MINE! A Thomas Jefferson Education's This Week in History by Rachel DeMille is her "labor of love" ... and I absolutely LOVE it! " This Week in History is a daily resource that brings your home school or classroom to life." For just $9.99 per month, you can log onto TJEd.com and click the "This Week in History" link to obtain many, many, many resources tied to specific events that occurred in the upcoming week in history. Or even better, you can receive the summaries and links to ALL resources right in your email Inbox each week! It doesn't get any easier than that! What does this really look like in real life? Each week, I receive an email from Rachel DeMille that sets out each date of the coming week. Under the date, there are listed anywhere from one to several events that occurred in history on that date. THEN there are ALL kinds of things to do related to that event, such as books to read, websites to visit, ac

Cells ~ It's What's for Dinner

Dawson made edible cells on Friday. He made an animal cell pizza ... and a plant cell chocolate chip cookie ... He reviewed what he's learned about cells the past two weeks, and I had dinner made by someone else. Win, win!! I am linking up at Science Sunday at Adventures in Mommydom.