Timeline Units 7 through 12

I uploaded a video of the timeline units 7-12 (all that we covered before Christmas) at youtube because it was too big to load here.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KIK_efQ8ZOo&feature=youtu.be

Timeline Unit 17

World War I

The Treaty of Versailles

The Russian Revolution

Our Lady of Fatima

The Great Depression

Pearl Harbor

World War II

Israel Becomes a State

Timeline Unit 16

Reconstruction

Vatican I

The Industrial Revolution

The Victorian Era

St. Therese of Lisieux

Europe Colonizes Africa

Immigrants arrive through Ellis Island

New Inventions

Truth, beauty, and avoiding burnout

"Children not only need a diet of truth to thrive, but they also need to be surrounded by beauty."

As I assess my first full year of homeschooling, I remember what my husband said when we found each other again after the ten year hiatus, "you will be a source through which truth and beauty will flow into my life again." When I have a hard day, I go back and open that journal we used to pass back and forth during our long-distance courtship between Ohio and NYC. 

In homeschooling, I'm starting to see what other mothers have shared about avoiding burnout by using real books rather than just mountains of text books. I like this article about burnout: http://higherupandfurtherin.blogspot.com/2012/09/how-to-recover-from-homeschool-burnout.html

She notes, 

The object of children's literary studies is not to give them precise information as to who wrote what in the reign of whom? - but to give them a sense of the spaciousness of the days, not only of great Elizabeth, but of all those times of which poets, historians and the makers of tales, have left us living pictures. In such ways the children secure, not the sort of information which is of little cultural value, but wide spaces wherein imagination may take those holiday excursions deprived of which life is dreary…” Charlotte Mason, British educator

Wide spaces sound wonderful, but I also like that this co-op and Classically Catholic Memory expose our young children to information they will remember and build upon for years. It's fun to hear what you all use for curriculum - anyone want to share in the comments? 

I have been enamored with the many homeschooling philosophies I have encountered this year, amid the vast curriculum choices.

- Seton

- Kolbe

- Mother of Divine Grace

- Catholic Heritage Curriculum (I use this)

- All About Reading - Spelling

(To name a few...)

The Math options are vast, as well. This book has proven interesting to me in math considerations: 

Knowing and Teaching Elementary Mathematics by Liping Ma

I've found truth and beauty through prayer, really looking deeply into my kids' eyes and listening, reading and writing blogs, watching all of you in all of your beauty, and good books like "Holiness for Housewives," not a new book but one from the 50's, a time for which I am nostalgic. I also love Small Steps for Catholic Mothers by Foss & Bean. What are you all reading right now?

Seeking truth & beauty,

Mrs. K

Timeline Unit 15

The War of 1812 (ASL for fire - like the White House!)

The Battle of Waterloo ends the Napoleonic Wars (ASL for "water" and then "end")

The Trail of Tears

The Alamo, The Republic of Texas, and the Mexican War (ASL for "Texas" and "Mexico")

The Gold Rush

Slavery

Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War

Lee Surrenders to Grant at Appomattox (ASL for "South" and "surrender")

Depression and World War II Reading

 

We had a great time studying the depression around here, mainly because my kids were all captivated by Kit Kittredge.  We watched the movie together, which was surprisingly fun to watch and included a star-studded adult cast.  My kids were particularly interested in the lives of hoboes, and in "hobo code."  The supplementary book Welcome to Kit's World was also a good resource.

We also read and enjoyed Rudy Rides the Rails and Potato, and looked at the pictures in Russell Freedman's Children of the Great Depression.  I remember listening to my Grandparents talk about growing up in the depression as a kid and finding it fascinating, too.

Studying World War II with little ones is challenging.  Much of it is just so horrifying, it is really beyond their scope of understanding.  We read two picture books about organized resistance against the Nazis: The Cats in Krazinsky Square, by Karen Hesse, and The Butterfly, by Patricia Polacco.  Both were good and age appropriate.










The Molly series from American girls talks about life on the home front.  We also read Number the Stars, by Lois Lowry, an excellent story about the successful evacuation of almost the entire Jewish population of Denmark in 1943. 



I also had my 8-year-old read Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes, the story of a young Japanese girl who gets leukemia in the aftermath of the bombing of Hiroshima.  She was very, very sad about the ending!  Still, it is a classic.

What about you, what have you been reading?