The Bill of Rights is like giving the Constitution an upgrade...

Yes, Miles. The Bill of Rights IS like giving the Constitution an upgrade. I love that kid's brain.


This week we completed a quick unit on the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. Below are the resources we used.


Our Constitution Rocks, by Juliette Turner -  this is a resource we own, and I think it's a pretty great book. I'd like my older kids to read it eventually, but it was too much to get through in one week, so it stayed on the shelf. The story of its creation is pretty great, though.



Shhh!! We're Writing the Constitution by Jean Fritz - another great one by Ms. Fritz. Did you know that the residents of Philadelphia were so concerned about being quiet during the Grand Convention that they covered the cobblestone streets in front of Independence Hall with gravel? I love the fun tidbits of information that Fritz always includes in her work.



...If You Were There When They Signed the Consitution by Elizabeth Levy and Joan Holub - this is another series of books we really enjoy. It's a question/answer style of writing. We read this late in the week and were able to skip over a fair amount that had already been covered in other books. At 70+ pages, this one is long!



We the People: The Story of Our Constitution by Lynn Cheney - Lynn Cheney has written a series of children's books about American history. We've enjoyed them so far. They're a bit wordy, but they're always beautifully illustrated. I did feel like this one didn't do as great a job at explaining the finer points in the legislative branch, but that's hard to do in a children's book.



We the Kids: The Preamble to the Constitution of the United States by David Catrow - I like how this book breaks down the big words, and explains those big ideas. This is short and sweet.



The Bill of Rights (True Books: American History) by Christine Taylor-Butler - a thorough presentation of all of those individual rights that are so important!



Rather than do a big, elaborate poster of the three branches of government, we did a simple one on the white board and called it good. Cameron will be completing a workbook to finish out the year. That will cover his social studies/civics requirement for the year.

Sassafras Science Review - Zoology

Because I love to read reviews before purchasing curricula, I've decided to start reviewing the stuff we love! Hopefully it will help others.

This year we are trying a new science curriculum that I'm really loving. It's called Sassafras Science Adventures, Volume 1. It's an elementary science course that teaches through literature. If you're looking for a super-intense, experiment-based science program for your five-year old, this is not for you (and also, you should slow down). If you're looking for a fun, age-appropriate, engaging science program with lots of hands-on projects, this program IS for you. I originally intended to use this with my 3rd grader, but after day one I realized I wouldn't be able to do that...because the rest of my kids wouldn't ever leave us alone! They were all hooked. So I ditched our plans and went with it. That is, after all, the point of homeschooling.

Sassafras Science is a book about Blaine and Tracy Sassafras, a twin brother and sister who hate science. After a dismal year, they are sent to spend the summer with their crazy Uncle Cecil who happens to be a scientist. He sends them on adventures where they are able to learn about various habits and wildlife. As students, you're encouraged to track what you're learning. You can do that in a simple blank notebook, or you can purchase the SCIDAT logbook. That was totally worth the money, in my opinion. It's great for keeping information organized, and it keeps the kids involved. There is also a separate teacher manual. It provides suggestions for how best to schedule your studies, additional reading material, experiments, activities, etc. I found it really helpful at the very beginning, but haven't used it much since. One activity from the manual that we've really come to love, though, is the habitat poster. As we learn about a habitat, we make a poster and then add the animals as we learn about them. It's my kids' favorite part.

I've read that this curricula is intended to take half of a school year, but I don't know...that would be moving at a pretty fast pace. We are taking the full school year, and it's given us plenty of time to do additional reading and activities without feeling like we're only ever doing science! I have to be careful not to let exciting subjects totally dominate our lives. But maybe that's just me...

We plan to continue on next year with the twins as they take on Anatomy. Cameron will be in sixth-grade, so I'll be adding more meat (pun intended) to his studies to make sure it's rigorous enough, but I think it will be great.

This series is still in production. Volume 3: Botany was published in late 2014, and Volume 4: Earth Science is slated for 2015 (hopefully!).

*This review was for my own purposes, and I am not affiliated with Sassafras Science. I was not compensated in any way for this review.

Revolutionary War unit and book review

We've been having so much fun with some of our units, I've decided to keep track of them here.

Our journey to finding a good history course has been long and annoying. We tried Joy Hakim's The History of US. It's a wonderful series, and one I will use with my kids as they get older. However, it wasn't a good fit for our family at this point, so we abandoned it. In the end, we decided to use a literature-based approach and do our own thing for US history (and probably all history going forward). Along the way, we found some fantastic resources, and had a great time!

Books we loved:
Jean Fritz has written a slew of excellent children's books. We are big fans! We read Where was Patrick Henry on the 29th of May?; Why Don't You Get a Horse, Sam Adams; Sign Here, John Hancock; and George Washington's Breakfast. We own, but didn't get around to What's the Big Idea, Ben Franklin; and And Then What Happened, Paul Revere? We also didn't get into Why Not, Lafayette? because it was a little over the kids' heads.

If you've never heard me say it before, let me say it again: WE LOVE THE WHO WAS... SERIES FROM GROSSET & DUNLAP. We read bios of Paul Revere, Ben Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and George Washington.

As a family, we listened to Johnny Tremain. I somehow escaped childhood without ever reading it. Cameron was originally going to read My Brother Sam is Dead but disliked it and read Give Me Liberty by LM Elliot instead. Miles' assigned personal reading was a Magic Tree House fact tracker book on the American Revolution. Together, the boys read George Washington: Spymaster for a book club we hosted. And we finished up with a few supplemental items from Kids Discover magazine: American Revolution!, and TIME magazine for kids. Kids Discover magazine has free vocabulary cards and lesson guides to go with several of their editions. Cameron used the vocab cards and the boys both completed the worksheets found here: http://www.kidsdiscover.com/free-lesson-plans/ . We found additional worksheets for the girls at education.com.

For the littlest (and biggest) among us, we read several great picture books. When Washington Crossed the Delaware, Let it Begin Here! The Battles of Lexington and Concord, The Scarlet Stocking Spy, Geroge vs. George, and The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere which was beautifully illustrated by Christopher Bing.

Videos:

Liberty's Kids series from PBS, and American Ride from BYUtv were favorites and helped provide a visual reinforcement for what we were reading. We also watched a reenactment video on YouTube. It would have been cooler in real life, but I'm glad we watched it.

Activities/Field trips:
Certainly nothing brought history alive more than our trip north over the summer! Walking the grounds of Valley Forge, PA; Philadelphia; Mount Vernon; and Washington, D.C. was an incredible experience for my kids, and has given us something to refer to when we discuss the events that occurred in those places. (pictures to come...blogger is being super lame at the moment)

This Valley Forge, PA. This was the Continental Army headquarters during the brutal winter of 1777-78. Washington stayed in that house, and the soldiers stayed in small huts. Soldiers had little clothing, little food, and endured sickness. Thomas Paine wrote, "These are the times that try men's souls..." the previous winter, but I can't imagine a time more trying than the winter spent at Valley Forge.

Independence Hall! There's just something cool about walking around a building where Ben Franklin hung out.

Three or four kids ago I never would have dreamed of dragging a baby on a month-long vacation. But this particular baby makes everything easy. She slept on and off all day, only cried when hungry, and never seemed bothered by the heat or her stroller. Dreamy, dreamy baby Emilyn.

The Liberty Bell.

This is the "Declaration House." It's the boarding house where Thomas Jefferson was staying when he penned the Declaration. It's located next to the Free Library of Philadelphia, which, as my sister Alyssa pointed out, is poetic. Did you know our Library of Congress was started by good ole' Tom? A great book about that is Thomas Jefferson Builds a Library.

The tomb of Ben Franklin. It's covered in coins, but I'm not sure why. We couldn't get into the actual cemetery without paying a ridiculous sum, so we stayed outside the bars.

While in Philadelphia, we went to The Friends Meetinhouse - an active Quaker congregation still meets there.

This is an inexplicable cat fountain in the courtyard in front of Betsy's house. My niece thought it looked like a nice cat.

The burial site of Betsy Ross is located right in front of her house. It was a quick visit, and the actress playing Betsy was so snarky with me! I don't think she liked the questions I was asking.

To finish up our unit, we decided to create a picture timeline on our wall. We first time-lined the events. Then, the kids picked one or two battles or events that they wanted to draw, and those were placed on the timeline as well. Cameron - being a big 5th grader this year - was assigned an oral presentation of all the material we studied.

While we enjoyed learning in such depth about this topic, we are all ready to move on. We'll do a brief unit on the Constitution before heading into the Westward Expansion/Native Americans/Pioneers/Gold Rush...

No matter how it tried...

I recently found a poem. I'm in love with this poem. My kids are working on memorizing it.

All the water in the world
No matter how it tried
Could never sink the smallest ship
Unless it got inside.

And all the evil in the world
and every kind of sin
Can never harm a human soul
Unless we let it in.

-Author Unknown

I think this is a powerful message, and especially powerful for children. The world is crazy right now. There are so many things that are out of our control. There is so much sin, hatred, and sadness plaguing the human race. And, if we don't know better, we could feel like it's enough to drown us where we stand.

But we can be untouchable! We can create homes - and even better, HEARTS - where sin isn't permitted. Where we can feel a refuge from the storm, and a safe place to rest our heads regardless of what is happening outside our doors. Heavenly Father has given us the power to do this! It's just up to us to keep the water out of the boat. And, when that water gets in, because that water DOES get in, we can use the Atonement as the bailing bucket.

What a blessing.

From my email...

This is the email exchange we had this morning. I copied it directly from my email, so you'll have to read it from the bottom up.

Yeah. It's been that kind of morning.

There they go milking the system. Perhaps they have already figured out that jail rocks...

Chase

On Wed, Sep 25, 2013 at 9:59 AM, Anna Rawlins <> wrote:

Right? I kept thinking that. In my head I was all, "DON'T MENTION THE UNLIMITED CABLE AND FREE LAW DEGREES!!!!"

 

Also, you know you've left them in solitary for too long when the sad silence becomes enthusiastic play sounds with all the kids in there. Dang it!

From: Chase Rawlins < >
To: Anna Rawlins <>
Sent: Wednesday, September 25, 2013 9:48 AM
Subject: Re: It just got real

Awesome. I'm so glad you are my wife. I love you.

Also, don't let them find out what prison life is really like. I hear it's pretty nice...

Chase

On Wed, Sep 25, 2013 at 9:44 AM, Anna Rawlins <> wrote:

After yet another morning of the kids pitching a fit when I ask them to get out their books and join me at the table, I sent them to bed. Then we had a lovely talk wherein I presented them with two choices: Obedience, with it's freedom and ability to make choices; or disobedience. I told them that in real life when grown-ups choose to disobey the law of the land they are put in jail where they are forced to do hard work and they don't get to make choices. But grown-ups who obey the law get to choose what they do with their life. So I told them that since they had chosen disobedience I would have to treat them like prisoners who disobey the law - after all, they are big kids now, so I might as well treat them like grown-ups. I gave them the list of things they would be cleaning, and informed them there would be no play time and no Webelos for Cameron tonight.

 

Then I told them that because mommies are sometimes nice, they give kids a second chance (but only a second chance...not lots of lots of chances at being nasty). I told them we could start over, and they could think about it. They can choose obedience to the law of the land (in mommy's land, the law is doing schoolwork and chores cheerfully, after which they can enjoy freedom and choices), or they can choose disobedience to the law of the land, with it's resulting imprisonment (chores all day, no free-time and no activities/privileges).

 

They're thinking about it. I'll let you know what they choose.

 

p.s. I really hope they choose disobedience one of these days. I've got quite a list of work to be done, and I think it would be a lovely taste of real life.

The Life and Times...

The last couple of months have been busy! The good busy, fortunately.

So far so good with homeschooling. Cameron is finally getting caught up with math. When we pulled him out we decided to go back and reinforce things he had already covered because it was a really hard subject for him. He's doing really well now and we're all thrilled.

 

Sophia spends most days with her nose in a book now that she's an official reader. She's working ahead of grade level at the moment (she would have started K in the fall) so I'm busy trying to figure out what curriculum to teach her. Miles and Cameron will be doing the Trail Guide to Learning unit study curriculum, but it's only adaptable down to second grade, so I may write my own curriculum to accompany it at the first grade level. We'll see about that...

 

If you study mummies, you should probably take turns wrapping each other up in toilet paper. But feel free to skip the part where you remove the brains and vital organs...

 

Miles' brain continues to amaze me. One of his math assignments instructed him to draw a hat on the second penguin from the right. This is what he came up with. If you can't see, the penguin is wearing a sombrero - with tassels - a waist scarf and saber, and the penguin next to him is clearly impressed, saying "he is cool". And we have stuff like this every day.

 

At the end of March we hit the symphony with our homeschooling friends. Our kids take amazing pictures.

 

When Miles does especially well on xtramath.org he likes me to take a picture to send to daddy.

 

Sometimes when we're bored we take a field trip.

 

In March we headed north for spring break. Our Iowa cousins came for spring break a few years back and we've been dying to return the favor. Chase and I amused ourselves on the journey by taking LOADS of pictures of ourselves. It got kind of ridiculous.

 

Don't you just love the people?

 

We took a day and hit up the National Mississippi River Museum and Aquarium. I will have to come back and upload the rest of the pictures because my phone is being lame and won't let me right now. Boo! At least I have this lovely one of Owen and Gaby and the giant Archimedes Screw. (Incidentally, Cameron learned about Archimedes in his Life of Fred math books and thought it was only mildly cool to see the Screw. I thought it was amazing. C'est la vie.)

 

They had snow! That's the spring break dream for our southern kids.

 

We also celebrated Easter and had a blast at Nana and Grandpa's annual Easter Egg Hunt.

Nana goes all out with the activities. She must be exhausted at the end of these events, but she loves to organize it. She's a pretty fun Nana and her grandkids are wild about her.

I just really wanted to include this picture.

Carry on.

 

 

And I'm still teaching piano five days a week. I have wonderful students, so it's a complete joy.