SICK

Cosy quilts and bandaids

I had no idea how fitting it would be to make a quilt for this unit.  Quilts were actually used in the underground railroad as symbols of what houses were safe and some even had symbols that gave the runaway slaves directions!  Who knew!  Quilts were of course made and sold to raise money for the Union troops as well.  I was going to buy some scrapbook paper and make paper quilts, but since I bought only $1 a yard fabric it ended up being cheaper to make the real thing!  Maxwell and Hyrum loved this project, and Maxwell won't sleep with anything else now.

We started taking about the civil war this week, and we focused on Clara Barton.  WHAT A WOMAN!  She's my new hero.  I think studying about her was the perfect way to study the war.  If my boys ever have to go to war, I hope they would be on the nursing side of things and not on the fighting. We learned some basic (very basic) first aid and the boys got their own first aid kit that they put red crosses on.  Hyrums bandaids were gone within seconds.

This week we began learning about magnets.  What kid doesn't love magnets.  This was the first time I had to kind of hold the kids back and say "well, we are going to do that experiment next week"  I know that kind of teaching method is against a lot of homeschooler's ways, but I like order okay! What we DID do was fun anyway.  We spread out tons of different stuff and went "fishing" to find out what was magnetic (did you know that some Canadian coins ARE magnetic?  crazy) We tested the strength of magnets and made things with iron in them magnetic and then pounded them with a hammer and heated them up to get them to loose their magnetism.  I have since then had a good portion of my silverware be able to pick up paperclips....that Maxwell....

During our devotionals, we focus on one apostle a month.  This month is Boyd K Packer.  We learned that he loves to draw and carve birds....so...

Goin' Up a Yonder

We continued to learn about Slavery this week.  We talked about how the only way slaves were able to survive was through Faith in God and music.  We made our own slave jug band.  We made most of it out of trash...literally.  We got our jug (an old glass salad dressing jar) our harmonica (a broken comb with wax paper on it) and our percussion (two spoons and a drum from an oatmeal container) and made beautiful music.  Maxwell actually had trouble with the jug and comb, but he loved decorating his drum.  I taught them an old african american gospel song called "Goin' up a Yonder" about how now matter how hard you have it in life, you'll be with God and have peace when you die.  I imagine the slaves must have sung songs like that.

We also decorated for easter as an activity.  Maxwell got frustrated since ummm I decorated and kind of pretended he was helping.  I usually try to give a general gist of what the project is and then try to let Maxwell (and Hyrum if he's interested) go to it.  I try to hard not to get too controlling or interfere too much, but well, I didn't do that with the decorations this time..oops.

For our field trip we went to the Church history museum (again.)  They seemed to have just as much fun and Maxwell was determined to dance this time since last time he was too shy.

I kind of had a low key week.  I need to get into gear again.

By the way, a really good picture book about slaves is a book called "Henry's Freedom Box" by Ellen Lavine.  It's about a man who mailed himself to the North in a wooden box after his family got sold away from him.  It's a true story and beautifully done.  I think it helped Maxwell really learn about slavery on his level.

Slavery

This month is our slavery/civil war month.  This week we had the Proffitt family staying with us to share the fun.  The Proffitts have done tons of fundraising for modern-day slavery,  and I think they are among the very few children who, when I started teaching them about slavery would say things like "but slavery hasn't ended."  

Well, I was talking about the slavery that was legal in the United States in the South, and as I was reading to them and showing pictures of the passage that Africans were forced to take to come to America, their eyes got as big as saucers.  I was worried it was too intense for my young audience.

Our activity lightened up the mood in a weird way.  We acted out slavery....now don't get the wrong idea.  The kids were giggling and begging to have their turn, so keep that in mind as I explain what we did.  Becky, my sister-in-law, is VERY dramatic and was the perfect slave master.  We put hand cuffs on the kids and put them in a little box and rocked them back and forth to simulate a ship.  They were let out only to be forced to dance so they could be healthy slaves.  We then put them on the selling block, and compared them to dogs, and someone always bought them.

What would a slave simulation be without cotton?  We talked about Harriet Tubman and the underground railroad.  We had them try to pick out seeds from cotton, but when the slave masters weren't looking, they could try to run to Canada (upstairs.)  They all ended up in Canada in the end except Hyrum who ended up in the closet (or his elevator as he called it.)

Another day we read more stories and made corn husk dolls and talked about how things that slaves got from the land were the only things they could play with.

Those Proffitt girls were so creative.  On their own they made home-made drop spindles and made the cotton into yarn and made TONS of dolls that all had their own story.  Family's great.

Also, Hyrum has known his letters for some time, and he was doing it so cute today, I had to film it.