Next in our WWII studies we came to the Holocaust. Of course, we read about Anne Frank and a diary excerpt and wrote on notebooking pages (younger version). We listened to a speech by Hitler. We watched a short clip of Jews wearing the star of David and then made them to wear ourselves. My oldest did several of these great quizzes which all use primary sources.

If somebody knocks on your door at four in the morning and you see a little eight year old boy alone, shivering in the cold, who was separated from his parents, who didn’t have anything to eat, and he’s begging you to let him come in. Would you open the door…knowing that if you did do that, that you’d lose your life…you and your family would lose their lives…by taking that little boy in? That’s not an easy thing to answer. Or would you shut the door and go to sleep?

- Ernest Drücker

The above quote is from the quiz I linked to. What would you do? We had some great discussions about what the Bible has to say about what our role would be in such a circumstance. When do you obey the government? When are God’s laws greater? Would it be okay to lie to the Nazi police if you were hiding Jews in your home? Should you tell them the truth? The Hiding Place with Corrie Ten Boom is also a good one for discussing those questions. And since I’m naming books, Number the Stars is a great one for kids. I prefer The Hiding Place which is for adults over some of the biographies of her written for youth. I’ve read ones that take away from the miraculous in what happened which bothers me. God’s grace and blessing was on her from start to finish even though she had to walk through the valley of the shadow of death.

We studied the Holocaust for one week and then used this Pearl Harbor lapbook and notebooking pages from Practical Pages. As usual I divided the pages between my kids. Here are pictures of what’s included. This is Nadene’s picture from Practical Pages.

Part 3 will follow. There’s more. Lots and lots more. And I wrote a fragment. But it’s bedtime, so it’s excusable. Goodnight!

First we started with the who and when and where. So we’ve colored maps for axis and allies and labeled maps with the names of the leaders of the countries. We labeled maps with the countries that Germany barreled through. There are coloring pages for the axis and ally leaders as well. I made a little game for my first grader out of the one coloring page. We are also working on timelines. While we have a paper timeline that we add pieces to for each decade we’re going through, I am having my children make a more specific timeline online. It’s kind of fun because you don’t just add dates and names, but you can add text and pictures and click on the different timeline events to see and read more.

I made up notebooking pages about the evacuation of children during the war using this poster. (younger version)

The kids wrote news articles about the Battle of Britain, starting with this organizer. We listened to an air raid siren and listened to a teacher have her class practice putting on gas masks.

My daughter completed this whole packet of worksheets. Each page has a photograph or poster or political cartoon from the period with questions about it. She really enjoyed doing these, of course, history is one of her favorite subjects which always helps.

We learned about women working during the war and about rationing and looked at and made our own rationing posters.

That’s enough for now. I’ll be back with lots more. Stew has been simmering for three hours. It’s time to eat 

I have two littles, a first grader, a fourth grader (all boys), and then my daughter is in sixth grade. I’ve been choosing their reading books from the Robinson and Ambleside book lists. I have used the books in several different ways. My first grader copies sentences from his book, which I often do by copying and pasting a sentence into this handwriting worksheet maker. I sometimes use this to have him write a sentence using something from the sentence. For example, once he copied a sentence with the phrase “worried wife.” Then he had to write a sentence with alliteration. I made a list of family members for him to choose from. He wrote a sentence about “grandma’s gum.” We have also used those sentences he has copied to learn about nouns. The rest of the time he just has to tell me what happened in the chapter. In first grade it’s normal to have to ask questions to get the narration from them. My first grader has been reading books from the Bailey animal books series. He’s only done one “book report.”

My fourth grader made it through the whole Swiss Family Robinson book. I actually put in the curriculum to make a diorama scene from the book, but he asked to pass and my daughter did one instead. I have not made him do full out book reports. He has used a couple of different forms to fill out after reading a book.  One from Jimmie  One I made   He has had to do writing assignments based on his books. He wrote comedy after reading The Peterkin Papers for example. He has had to write a biographical essay and an autobiography. He also has to write descriptive pieces and does lots of creative writing with prompts based on what he’s reading. The Little Princess turned out to be great for vocabulary, so while he is reading that there are lots of vocabulary exercises–puzzles, writing stories using the words, etc. I visit vocabulary and spelling from time to time. They aren’t something we do daily or weekly. I don’t like ruts. I tend to teach in circles. We leave and come back to things.

My sixth grader slogged through Captains Courageous. I used literature questions that I found online for that one. She laughed her way through Penrod. She learned about satire and read Gulliver’s Travels. She just finished Black Beauty and is writing a persuasive essay on animal rights. She has had to write full book reports. For Black Beauty she is reading literary criticism and writing her own opinion. I love using example essays online to teach how to write different forms. There’s a great autobiographical incident example for sixth grade. One of her books is Jack and Jill by Louisa May Alcott. Alcott has such great sentences that I have my daughter copy her sentence structure. We take a sentence. Then break it down. Here’s an example below. I like to put in bold any words I’ve recently introduced. I keep them in the forefront until they become part of the natural vocabulary. This is not an introduction for any of these words.

•  While Jack was hopping gayly about on his crutches, poor Jill was feeling the effects of her second fall, and instead of sitting up, as she hoped to do after six weeks of rest, she was ordered to lie on a board for two hours each day.

1. This is the first sentence of the chapter you read today. Let’s write one like it.
2. First step. Write a dependent clause starting with “while.” Don’t forget to follow it with a comma. Then add an independent clause, one that could stand alone as a sentence. Example: While I was waiting, a dog came up to sniff my shoes.
3. Next, Alcott uses a comma and a conjunction (, and). Let’s skip that part for now.
4. The second part of her sentence starts with another dependent clause (which I believe is specifically called an adverbial phrase, but you don’t need to know that.) That’s followed by an aside, an extra description. Then the sentence is finished with an independent clause.
5. Right now let’s write a dependent clause followed by an independent clause. Don’t forget to separate the two with a comma. And remember this has to go with your first sentence. Example: Until he was satisfied that I wasn’t the source of whatever scent he was chasing, he eagerly circled me.
6. Now, add in a clause after the first comma and make sure to use a comma after it. Alcott added there, “as she hoped to do after six weeks of rest.”  Example: Until he was satisfied that I wasn’t the source of whatever scent he was chasing, as he obviously was after something, he eagerly circled me.
7. Now, we have to combine the two together. Use a comma and a conjunction between the two sentences you just wrote. Example: While I was waiting, a dog came up to sniff my shoes, and until he was satisfied that I wasn’t the source of whatever scent he was chasing, as he obviously was after something, he eagerly circled me.
8. Add a particle adjective and maybe a metaphor or simile. Come on. See what you can do. Example:  While I was waiting, a dog came up to sniff my shoes, and until he was satisfied that I wasn’t the source of whatever scent he was chasing, as he obviously was after something, he eagerly circled me, a frozen statue on the corner of 24th and Main. (I underlined my participle adjective. I added the metaphor of comparing myself to a statue.)
   

This lapbook was completed by three of my kids. It is made from pieces of three different lapbooks that cover electricity and magnetism. In the curriculum I’m building the pieces are divided between the older and younger kids. I divided them further picking out some of the younger kid pieces for my first grader and leaving the others for my fourth grader.

Here are the links to the lapbooks we used. Not all of the pieces are pictured.

Younger electricity lapbook  (there are some links in the file)

Website on electricity

Older (homeschool helper) lapbook

Websites that go with the lapbook

We used this website as well for the older kids

Timeline website

Circuit game younger

Circuit Game older

Magnetism lapbook  It’s made for the Magic School Bus book. We didn’t have the book.

Website for info younger  older

Online games

And a variety of experiments that I don’t have links for. Here’s one.

We drew and built circuits, tested conductors and fooled around. If you have a kid into this, buy a mini hand held fan. Use the motor and fan blades to propel cars and boats.You can get these little motors at Radio Shack.

Here’s a cool video on circuits and human conductors.

It’s all in the curriculum I’m building and I get most of my links from my blog, Links to All Things Free for Homeschoolers.

Like the button I made for the freebies blog? My daughter’s making me artwork for a button for this blog. Coming soon…

The book not only has strong literary elements, it also can lead to great discussions on the Church, what is it, what’s it function, how can we create that today; faith, can we really trust God no matter what, does fate ever lie in our hands, what is our responsibility; choices, one of the characters makes a big choice in the book, why does she make it and how can we make similar choices to die to self daily in order to live for the King.

And of course, I made tons of homeschool materials to go along with the book: lapbook mini books, notebooking pages and worksheets. There is great stuff for language arts and writing. If you have a coop and want to teach the novel, I can help you with lessons for the classes. I have prepared lessons for a formal classroom setting which I don’t have posted anywhere.

I do hope some of you will consider getting the book for a friend this Christmas.

We had our own science fair here at home involving only my children. My son tested his remote control race car on different surfaces and made an Alice video about it. The link will take you to the Alice website. He doesn’t want me to post his project here. My daughter tested different types of vanilla ice cream and made a poster.

She used this online graph maker for her data graph. We’re using another online tool right now for history, an online timeline maker. This is pretty cool. I’m having the kids make one for our study of WWII which is going to last about 2 months. You can add text and pictures to your timeline. We are working on a paper time line as well, but that will just hold the beginning and the end of the war. The online timeline will hold the details.

For English we are in between bigger writing projects, so we’ve been doing short, one- and two-day writing activities. They have written informal and formal letters. I gave my kids a sample business letter. My son had been reading The Peterkin Papers so he has written some funny stories like in the book. I gave both my kids this graphic organizer to organize a story. In the first box goes the character description. The other boxes are for the beginning, middle and end.

And speaking of funny, here is my six year old reading knock, knock jokes in front of the family. Yes, this is school. I make them all read/recite in front of everyone from time to time. (It’s all in the curriculum.) He had been learning about different types of sentences. Ones that end with a period, an exclamation point and a question mark. I realized that knock, knock jokes contain all three! I had him write one and he also read from the page of jokes I linked to.

This year is the first time I’ve taught chemistry. I’ve avoided it until now. It’s been okay though. There are tons of experiments out there and we’re getting it. I finally have a picture of the periodic table lapbook pieces I made. You can click on it to see it bigger. My one son holds them in a lapbook. My daughter doesn’t use the pockets and glues the pieces onto notebooking pages labeled with the group name for that element. My other son uses this wall chart. It doesn’t look exactly like a table, but he’s lined up the periods and groups. My 6 year old just puts them anywhere. You can download the lapbook on the Free Stuff! page.

The best site for learning about the elements is Chem4kids. You can not only learn about but for each one, hear it pronounced and see pictures of where you can find it in your world. For older kids there is a site with videos on each element.

While building my free curriculum, I’ve decided to include a video of each experiment in case you can’t do it yourself for lack of supplies, though all are pretty simple to get. We managed to get hydrogen peroxide from a local hairdresser, when she finally realized what we were asking for, and we made elephant toothpaste

Sorry, that’s all my camera allows for in terms of video. BTW, the videos in the curriculum are not like this. They are better, not my own, and all embedded so your kids are never sent to youtube to see the comments :S

Here’s the video from the curriculum, if you want to learn to make it yourself:

Alright folks, hi, hi, hi, ho it’s off to work I go.

School is going pretty well. There are always things I’m tweaking. I’ve started having each kid tell about what they learned at school that day at the dinner table–basic narration, but helpful. One of my kids told his grandfather we were studying WWII when we were studying WWI.

Narration is always a good thing. Studies show it to be the most effective way to remember something. And if you think about it that makes sense. Instead of just copying the information, say to fill in a worksheet, you are taking in the info and assimilating it enough to be able to recall it and tell it back in your own words.

My son got to 8th grade on Master Math and then he hit a mental road block and said it was too hard. So we played with this interactive algebra equation solver until he could do it in no time at all. I thought we would use this equation balancer, but it wasn’t help for to us.

My daughter has dropped out of Sketch Tuesday. Only made it once! She started some free art lessons though and has homework, so at least she still has a deadline each week. Above is one of her assignments for her lesson.

Right now my kids are working on writing biographical essays. We used hamburgers to help us write the parts of each supporting paragraph. We also read about introductions and transitions. I gave them this proofreading checklist to use with their own essay.

I always try and keep school short so there’s lots of free time for drawing, reading and experimenting. Here’s my oldest son in his free time building the latest contraption.

Here are some of the ones I’ve made.  Birthday  Go Eagles  Bucket  They are pretty easy once you know a bit of what you are doing. Not very sophisticated.

My nine-year-old thinks he’s been there and done that. He’s moved on to making animated movies with Alice. This is supposed to be for teenagers. If you have a computer kid, these are great places to send them to get experience working with programming. They are both free. Scratch is a product of MIT. Alice is from Carnegie Mellon.

Just the other day I found two more ways to play. There’s make your own matching quizzes. It takes only as long as it takes you to type in your info. I need to try the different kinds. I made one quick off the top of my head and realized the quiz doesn’t show all of my input. You have to refresh the quiz and then it randomly chooses from what I entered. You can take a peek at my American Wars quiz.

Then I found another one that makes games for you! It’s called class tools. I have not tried everything on the list, but I quick made a science review with the arcade feature. Just like the other one, it only takes as long as it takes you to type. You enter the questions and answers once and out pop five different games. Wanna play?

A little project on the four forces in flight — my sons made paper airplanes and labeled straws attached to them. Here are a couple of flight websites — Planemath and H.I.P. Pocket Change. These links and many others are on the Links blog and are part of the free curriculum I’m building. Things like the labels on the paper airplane are all included in the free curriculum.

We’re studying WWI for history, so we look at WWI airplanes: video. We of course also did the Wright Brothers. We’ve been using lots of videos from YouTube: cartoon, historical. This isn’t a video but the story of the Wright brothers in cartoon form. And here is an article from 1903 from when they first flew in Kitty Hawk (read it with the zoom feature).

I made up notebooking pages for the other aviators we read about: Amelia Earhart (younger), Amelia Earhart, Bessie Coleman, Charles Lindbergh. (I had my younger kids only do a written page for Amelia Earhart.)

Some nice things I’ve added into the curriculum as I’m writing it are things like: “Write neatly and do your best and give it to your homeschool parent when you are done so she can put it in your portfolio.” I collect about one thing per subject per quarter. It’s nice having it predetermined and to take care of it right away before something can damage their work. I also add in “congratulations” and “way to go” ecards from time to time and polls like “Did you finish all your work today?” or “Did you do your work as unto the Lord?” I try to put something in once a week.

My daughter is trying to participate in Sketch Tuesday. My daughter got this one done on something that glows. Last week she didn’t finish in time. She’s on track not to finish this week either. She keeps starting and then not liking what she did. I think it will be good if she can discipline herself to turn one in each week.

Around the house though she’s doing lots of artwork. She’s decorated all of my light switches with acrylic paint. I love it! I think they’re fabulous and they make me happy. I don’t like much about our apartment, so I love the embellishments!

I have again a child learning his math facts. It’s been a few years since we’ve needed this. You’ve probably heard of or used, Times Attack, right? Well, this is our new favorite way to practice math facts. My son is learning addition, not multiplication, but he loves Times Attack from watching his older brother. It’s about the closest we come to video games, so it’s a big thrill around here. The six-year-old started acting out the game.

The 3-yr-old doing his best ogre face.

He opens the door and comes out as the ogre. He asks us facts and pretends to slime us when we are wrong and gets knocked back when we get one right. Everyone loves to play. We (even my husband and I) take turns as the ogre and ask the questions. Things have gotten a wee bit out of control which is all part of the fun. So my six-year-old and three-year-old don’t know a whole lot of math. They started asking crazy questions like, “What is the ork fraction of negative seven million, four hundred twenty thousand thirds?” Then we answer something crazy and they decide whether or not it’s right.

But apart from the sillies, I get to ask my son all his facts he’s learned so far and he gets to practice them in a way that is fun. In the real game when you get it wrong it tells you the right answer and asks you it over and over again so that’s what I do with my son and he doesn’t get upset and the repetitive drill. He loves it!

Other ways to move while practicing?  Have your child draw the answer in the air.  Have your child clap, stomp, flap, blink or jump the answer (4 times for 4, etc.) There’s any number of ways they can show the answer instead of filling out a worksheet or just saying the answer. Have fun!