Field Trip 10/10: Log Cabin Village

 We took a field trip today to Log Cabin Village in downtown Fort Worth.

https://www.logcabinvillage.org/

This is a great, simple field trip if you go during the day before traffic kicks in.  It's just a few blocks from the Fort Worth Zoo.  You can check out a free digital pass for up to four people if you have a Fort Worth library card.  Otherwise, there's an entrance fee, but it's not too expensive (like $6-7 a person).

The gift shop has a lot of very inexpensive wooden toys, embroidery kits, crafts, etc.  I bought the 9 year-old a ceramic bird whistle.  You fill it with water, blow into it and it sounds like a bird singing.

This field trip went very well with Sonlight D (US History 1).

Review of Sonlight C with Hands-on History Box

 We are finishing up Sonlight C World History 2 with the Hands-on History Box (five day version).  I can't find a publishing date in the Instructor's Guide, but I purchased the guide in 2023 from Sonlight's website.  This level is meant for ages 8-10 or grades 3-5.  

Things We Liked

• A Child's History of the World - he really enjoyed listening to this book last year and this year
• Eric the Red and Leif the Lucky
• Time Traveler
• Red Sails to Capri
• Sticks Across the Chimney
• Tales of Robin Hood
• Watching the old Kevin Costner/Morgan Freeman movie Robin Hood after reading the book - he loved that movie
• Adventures of Sir Lancelot the Great - this was his favorite book of the year
• Captain Nobody - another favorite - even I liked this book
• With Two Hands
• The Hands-on History Box - he loved the projects in here.  He would get excited every week when there was a project scheduled
• Reading outside - we read a lot of the read-alouds in the driveway when the weather was nice and that was very enjoyable

Things We Had a Hard Time With

• The reading pace - we are never able to keep up with the Instructor's Guide.  It's just too fast.
• Sonlight 2nd Grade Readers - Because I used Sonlight's Language Arts the year before, I tried to use it again this year and was unsuccessful.  My 3rd grader has severe dyslexia and he needs to use a dyslexia-specific reading curriculum.  We switched halfway through the year to Barton Reading, which is a program written specifically for dyslexia.
• The Timeline Book and figures - I like the Timeline, but I can't get him interested in it
• AudioMemory's Geography Songs - This might have something to do with dyslexia, but the songs in this book stressed him out and we had to stop about halfway through

Thoughts on Getting Through World History 2

• It took longer than a school year for us to get through the level.  We spent almost a calendar year on it and that's ok.  They're great books and I don't want to be stressed out while reading them, worrying that we won't catch up to the pace in the Instructor's Guide.
• We skipped a couple of the books after I looked at samples of them and that's ok, too.  He's dealing with dyslexia and after looking at a sample of Strawberry Girl, I knew he would struggle with the language and how it was written (even just listening to it).  I don't think anyone is able to follow the Instructor's Guide exactly and do every single thing written in the schedule.  
• Some of the Hands-on History Box projects were very difficult, like the Wright brothers' glider.  I basically put that entire project together while he watched.  However, it wasn't a waste, because he was at Cub Scouts and the leader asked a question about the Wright brothers and my son was the only scout able to answer, because he remembered the glider.
• Supplements - I used this website a LOT: https://roadstoeverywhere.com/homeschooling/supplementing-sonlight/supplementing-sonlight-core-c/  She lists supplemental activities for each of the Level C books.  For example, when we read Red Sails to Capri, we looked at actual pictures/videos of the Blue Grotto and it makes the book come alive.  My son became interested in the grotto after seeing the pictures and we ended up watching YouTube videos about it and reading about the Roman archeological finds in the grotto.

Overall, this is a very enjoyable curriculum.  I would've loved to do "school" like this when I was a kid.  I have already bought Sonlight D American History 1 for the fall.

Sonlight Hands-on History Box C Review

 We finished Sonlight C's Hands-on History Box.  These projects covered World History 2 topics.  Here's the link to the box: https://www.sonlight.com/hands-on-history-world-history-2

It's currently priced at $68 for the box.  

The projects include:

• An astrolabe
• A Viking treasure box
• Viking Runes
• Signet ring
• Stained glass
• Samurai helmet
• A letterpress
• An Elizabethan theater (Shakespeare)
• The Wright brothers' glider

Everything you need for the projects is included in the box.  It even includes glue and paint.  There is a box full of instructions with pictures and templates for each project.  The guide is very well-written.

My son loved the Hands-on History Box.  Some of his favorites were the Viking Treasure Box, the Stained Glass, the Letterpress and the Samurai Helmet.  He says his favorite project from the box was the Viking Runes.  The box was one of his favorite things we did this year for 3rd grade.  

Things we figured out over the course of the year:

• Almost every project worked better for us with a hot glue gun instead of the glue it came with.  I know hot glue guns are not safe for kids, but I used the hot glue gun and he watched.  The glue dots the kit comes with made sense, safety-wise, though.  
• The projects are too difficult for smaller kids to do themselves.  I helped him with every project.
• The Wright brothers glider needed some serious tweaking.  Instead of using 12 toothpicks to fit the wings together, I glued 3 together into one thick toothpick and used 4 thick supports instead of 12 thin ones.
• The Stained Glass and the Astrolabe are definitely the easiest of the projects.
• They give you a little more of the craft items than you need, so if you lose or break a popsicle stick, it's ok.

Here's some pictures of our projects.  I should have taken more pictures of the projects throughout the school year, but here's what I have:

American Civil War Unit Study (history, literature, art and music)

We are doing mini unit/topical studies throughout US history this year and we are almost finished with our African American History/Frederick Douglass unit study.  Our next study will be on the American Civil War.  This will be our last history unit study until January.

Here is what I planned:

Literature

• Company Aytch: A Classic Memoir of the Civil War

History/Geography

• Battle Lines: A Graphic History of the Civil War
• Trail Guide to US Geography (continued all year)
• Crash Course US History (continued all year)

Art

• Movie: Gone with the Wind (not looking for a historically accurate movie, but I think this movie is important culturally - she's never seen a movie this old before and I think there is a lot of discussion that could go with it
• Video: "Amazing Photographs of Civil War Battlefields"
• Lens of War: Exploring Iconic Photographs of the Civil War

Music

• Video: "Music During the Civil War (Smithsonian)"
• https://www.kennedy-center.org/education/resources-for-educators/classroom-resources/media-and-interactives/media/music/music-of-the-civil-war/

Two additional things we've already done this year that I am counting towards this study:

• We watched the movie Glory 
• We visited the Texas Civil War Museum in Fort Worth, TX

Field Trip to Texas Civil War Museum

https://texascivilwarmuseum.com/

Relatively inexpensive field trip.  $7 adults, $4 children.  It takes about one to two hours to see the museum.  

The museum has a collection of artillery pieces from the civil war, uniforms, muskets, swords, grenades, personal equipment, saddles and personal artifacts that belonged to Generals Ulysses S. Grant, Jeb Stuart and Robert E. Lee.  The museum has several dioramas depicting scenes from civil war battles and models of ships and submarines used during the war.

On their website is a printable document showing civil war sites in Texas: https://texascivilwarmuseum.com/visit-us/current-exhibits

Both the 15 year-old and the 8 year-old really enjoyed the museum.  

History Book by Book (a free resource)

I know about Build Your Library (the curriculum and website), but someone told me about this history booklist project they started and it looks amazing!

http://historybookbybook.com/Main_Page

The booklists are divided into historical periods.  If you click on a time period, it shows you a chart by title, author, reading level, geographic area, etc.

For example, the Vikings chart looks like this:

http://historybookbybook.com/Viking_Booklist

It says there are 961 books in their booklist at this point.

Homeschool Day 4/12

 1st Grader

• Mathusee Alpha
• Reading/Language Arts
• He read a BOB Book to me
• Explode the Code
• He wrote more words into his Funschooling Curious Creatures Journal
• Sonlight B (Bible, history and literature)
• Gymnastics (outsourced)

9th Grader

• English
• Easy Grammar 10th Grade Ultimate Grammar workbook
• Sonlight 230 (Classic Literature)
• We are very much enjoying the audiobook on Youtube of The Screwtape Letters, narrated by John Cleese
• Bible reading
• British History
• Great Tales from English History 
• King Alfred
• We mapped out the kingdoms of Britain around the year 900 AD, also we mapped out the location of the first viking invasions
• Famous Painting Art Cards
• Claude Monet's The Water-Lily Pond
• Close-up at the National Gallery, London
• Gymnastics

The Graduate

• Bible reading
• Life of Fred Statistics
• Norton's Anthology of British Literature (medieval)
• She sat in on our English history lesson
• Gymnastics

Homeschool Day 1/24

 1st Grader

• Math
• Miquon Math Orange
• We went through adding 1's (which was too easy for him)
• Reading
• Ordinary Parents' Guide to Teaching Reading
• Explode the Code
• Elmer and the Dragon (read-aloud)
• Random House Book of Bible Stories
• Ancient Greece and Rome Unit Study
• Located Greece and Italy on the atlas
• Activity: We made play dough maps of Italy, Greece and the Mediterranean
• Read
• You Wouldn't Want to Be a Slave in Ancient Greece
• Usborne Greek Myths
• Nature walk in the afternoon at the park

9th and 11th Graders

• Algebra 1 (9th) and Stewardship (11th)
• English
• The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
• Windows to the World - literary analysis
• Bible
• Individual reading
• Study of Revelation (together)
• Chapter 18
• German (together)
• German Demystified
• Vocabulary 
• Gospel of Matthew in German
• From Youtube's German Picture Bible Matthew chapter 2
• Chemistry
• Notebooking through the Nonmetals
• Characteristics
• Rutherford model of Silicon
• Conductivity, boiling points, melting points, valence electrons, etc
• The Elements - Bromine, Iodine, Silicon, Tellurium
• Voice lesson - outsourced (11th grader)
• Nature walk in the afternoon at the park (9th grader)

Homeschool Day 11/17

 1st Grader

• Miquon Math - third day with this/so far so good
• Reading
• My Father's Dragon (read-aloud)
• Explode the Code
• He read an easy reader from the library 
• First Language Lessons 1
• Bible
• Mary, Mother of Jesus
• Story of the World 1
• Tut's Mummy, Lost and Found

9th and 11th Graders

• Algebra 1 (9th) and Stewardship (11th)
• Steinbeck's The Pearl
• Chemistry - read more of Module 7 and answered the questions
• History through Genealogy Project
• This was wonderful today.  We worked on the Civil War generation.
• Drew the boundaries of the Union states and the Confederate states
• Learned about the Battle of Stone's River
• Looked at an old tintype photograph of one of our ancestors from about 1860-1862.  
• Learned about tintype and early photography.  Looked at the oldest remaining photograph and the oldest photograph with a person in it.
• Shakespearean Theater (11th grader - outsourced)
• SAT Prep (11th grader) - I don't always post about it, but she does Khan Academy SAT prep every morning.  This morning, for the Science thru Reading practice session, she got a perfect score.  So, I was happy.  So far, her highest practice scores are English, Reading and Science.

Homeschool Day 11/4

 1st Grader

• Teach Your Monster to Read (free app) - he's losing interest in this and starting to prefer books
• He wrote a letter to his grandpa and mailed it, complete with Hot Wheels stickers
• Winnie the Pooh (read-aloud)
• Flying Creatures of the Fifth Day
• He played outside
• Math
• He built shapes/structures using https://www.zometool.com

9th and 11th Graders

• Algebra 1 (9th) and Stewardship (11th)
• Physics
• LAB 13: Hooke's Law and the Spring Constant - measuring the relationship between weight on a spring and the amount the spring elongates
• Bible reading
• Genealogy/History Project
• Mapping migration of ancestors
• Counting how many ancestors are present in each generation
• Late 1800s time period
• Reader's Theater (outsourced class - 9th grader)

Homeschool Day 10/28

 1st Grader

• Teach Your Monster to Read (app)
• He wrote a letter to his cat
• Dragonbox's Numbers (app)
• Flying Creatures of the Fifth Day 
• Insects - we caught bugs outside and looked at their bodies
• The Beginner's Bible - we are almost finished

9th and 11th Graders

• Stewardship (11th)
• Kafka's Metamorphosis
• Bible reading
• Genealogy/History Project
• 1900s
• 1910s
• 1920s
• Physics
• LAB - Simple Machines - we went over what the simple machines were and they made a lever system and a pulley
• Reader's Theater (outsourced - 9th)

Homeschool Day 10/27

 1st Grader

• Math
• Added lawn dice
• Telling time (drew clocks on the sidewalk with sidewalk chalk)
• Reading
• Handwriting practice on the sidewalk with sidewalk chalk
• First Language Lessons 1
• Story of the World 1
• School was cut short, because an art project came in the mail today and he was so excited to do it that he couldn't focus on school

9th and 11th Graders

• Algebra 1 (9th) and Stewardship (11th)
• Kafka's Metamorphosis
• Windows to the World Literary Analysis
• Genealogy History Project
• 1930's
• 1940s
• Apologia Chemistry Module 4: Mixtures and Solutions
• Differences between mixtures and pure solutions
• Heterogeneous and Homogeneous Mixtures
• Molecular composition of air

Homeschool Day 10/20

 1st Grader

• Math
• We played store again with dollar bills and coins
• Reading
• He read to me
• Explode the Code
• First Language Lessons 1
• The Beginner's Bible
• Story of the World 1

9th and 11th Graders

• Algebra 1 (9th) and Stewardship (11th)
• Bible reading
• History thru Genealogy Project
• 1970s and 1980s
• Computer Programming
• We tried Code Combat - it's a free game that teaches Python and Javascript
• Apologia Chemistry - Module 3
• Dalton's Atomic Theory
• Ionic and covalent solutions
• LAB - Ionic vs Covalent Solutions using electrical current
• Shakespearean Theater (11th - outsourced class)

Homeschool Day 10/13

 1st Grader

Still very sick.  No school.

9th and 11th Graders

• Algebra 1 (9th) and Stewardship (11th)
• Bible reading (Judges - 9th, Job - 11th)
• English
• Windows to the World Literary Analysis
• Animal Farm (finished reading this today)
• Apologia Chemistry
• Module 2 - converting F to C and back
• Computer Programming/Coding
• We took apart a laptop, identified the parts and removed the hard drive.  This was a GREAT lab.
• History Project 
• Our first day - we are working our way backwards through time, using our family tree as pegs.  Today, we looked at my parents' generation and current events for the 50s.  We ended up spending a ton of time on this and the kids really liked it.

Homeschool Day 10/11 - 3 new subjects + a curriculum change

 1st Grader

• He's very sick today, so he did not do anything.  Mostly watched cartoons and napped.

9th and 11th Graders

• Algebra 1 (9th grader) and Stewardship (11th grader)
• English
• Elements of Style together on the dry erase board
• Animal Farm (read-aloud)
• Written narration of Night
• Bible
• Bible readings
• Apostle Study: Judas
• The 12 Outlaws
• Rose's Book of Bible Charts and Graphs
• Gladys Aylward
• US Government (new subject)
• Research our city government
• What kind of government does our city have?
• Who is the mayor?  Party affiliation?
• How many districts is our city broken into?  Which district are we in?
• Chemistry (curriculum change - we dropped Masterbooks Chemistry and switched to Apologia)
• Module 2: Energy, Heat and Temperature
• LAB 2.1 - Calibrating Your Thermometer

Since we finished World Geography, I've added three new subjects for this term:

1. US Government - my plan is to start with our city and county government and learn work our way into state and federal government.  I'm not using curriculum, just using research-based learning.
2. Economics - we are going to try videos from here: https://mru.org  We are starting with the Microeconomics course.
3. Project-Based History - we are going to work backwards through time using our family tree to study different time periods and events that occurred with each generation...what life was like, etc and how past events relate to current events.

Curriculum change for Chemistry

    We switched from Masterbooks.  We were almost halfway through the course and my kids just weren't learning anything.  The labs were difficult to do at home.  We were halfway through chemistry and had never even boiled anything.  If I use that course again, it would be for middle school.  We switched to Apologia.  It's cumbersome, but I can teach the book myself + the labs are very homeschool-friendly.

Homeschool Day 10/5: Field Trip to Log Cabin Village

 Field Trip to Log Cabin Village, Fort Worth, TX

What a great field trip!  Friendly interpreters in almost every house/building.  They were dressed in 19th century clothing and told the kids about each of the buildings.  There was a blacksmith and a candlemaker there.  My kids got to make candles.  The buildings are very well-maintained and they had a house specifically where the interpreter showed the kids toys from the 1800s and how they worked.  There's a gift shop at the end with candy, toys, postcards, arrowheads, etc.

Entrance is not free, but it was very worth it.  I had a great time (my kids did, too).

The gift shop sold little craft kits and if you scan the QR code on the package, there is a video of one of the interpreters showing you how to put the craft together.

https://www.logcabinvillage.org

Afterwards, we went to Dream Park in downtown Fort Worth along the Trinity River.  

https://dreamparkfw.org

The 6 year-old did not want to leave.

Pictures from Log Cabin Village:

Later that evening, we brought the telescope out into the driveway and looked at Venus, Saturn and Jupiter.  Here is a photo we were able to get of Jupiter and its moons.  (It looked better in person through the lens). That blue thingie??  I have no idea what that is...UFO?  *shrug*