America and Canada

The homeschool year has started! (Sorry, it's a long one. I get long-winded when I get going on homeschool stuff!) I feel like we've been going 5th gear, full throttle. We're studying "The World" this year, and each week we are learning about a different country, or groups of countries.

The first week we learned all of the continents. We made a poster of the creation, adding things each day, like light and dark, land and sea, etc.

We started with the United States. I have the kids make a 3x5 card on Fridays that they draw a picture to represent the country we've been learning about and on the back they glue a synopsis that we brainstorm about and I type up. This is what we learned about America:











United States
America is a great nation that enjoys a great degree of freedom. Alexis de Tocqueville, a Frenchman, visited America and said, “America is great because she is good, and if America ever ceases to be good America will cease to be great.”
The Statue of Liberty was a gift from France to America. A model was built first by Auguste Barthorldi, and then the real statue, which took years to make, was built. Her fingernail is the size of a man. French children gave money to help build the Statue. The Statue of Liberty has been a symbol of freedom to those wanting to make a better life and immigrating to America.
George Washington was the first American President. He couldn’t be shot by the arrows of the Indians during the French Indian War. He helped some officers to do their work when their leading Corporal wouldn’t stoop to working with them. He showed that a great leader is a good servant. We also looked at the symbols on the back of the one dollar bill.
American Indians were the first peoples here. They were badly treated and forced from their lands. The Cherokees with their leader, Sequoiah, who made a written language for his people, were made to walk the “Trail of Tears” from Tennessee to Oklahoma. Jim Thorpe was an Indian who became one of the worlds greatest atheletes. We made moccasins and played an Indian running game calledUhe Basho Sho (the crooked path).
Tall tales were fun stories of the American West.
Some American foods are: Chicago Style Pizza, Apple Pie, Baked Alaska, Chicken and Dumplings, and Grits.

The Chicken and Dumplings were more work than I usually put into a meal, and wasn't as tasty as advertised! I had visions of making a gorgeous homemade apple pie, but with all the taking of the big kids to and from school, all the various instrument lessons, the YW activities, scouts, fieldtrips, and errands I picked up a frozen pie from Walmart and that was that! Can't get more American than Walmart frozen pie, right?!

Faith-6 Making moccassins for our doll (we have a doll that we dress for each country)

Jared-8 and his moccassin.

Finished!

Canada came next. Here's what we learned:

Canada
Canada is the 2nd largest country in the world. Someone said, “Canada is like your attic, you forget that it's up there, but when you go, it's like "Oh man, look at all this great stuff!"
The Inuit (sometimes called Eskimos) were the first people in Canada. They lived in igloos. They invented fun cooperative games to pass the time during the long winters and summers where the sun didn’t set. Some games were the toe jump, mouth pull, sealskin skipping, one-foot high kick, and rump-bump!
Samuel de Champlain was a Frenchman looking for a Northwest Passage through the Americas to get to China and India. He sailed down the St. Lawrence River. Kebec was the native word for where the river narrowed. A fort was set up there and it is now present day Quebec. He sailed a bit further and named a mountain “Mount Royal” which is today Montreal. He loved the beauty of Canada and thought France should have a colony there. He made it his life’s work to establish a Canadian colony. When he died there were still only 100 colonists in “New France”.
Henry Hudson was also determined to find a Northwest Passage. He tried multiple times to go up and over the polar regions to find a way to the Pacific. On his final voyage, he and his crew made it through dangerous rapids and into a large body of water which they thought was the pacific. When they realized they weren’t in the Pacific, the crew mutinied and left Hudson, his son, and the sick crew members in a lifeboat in the bay. Henry was never seen again, but some say his ghost still walks the banks of Hudson Bay (named for him) looking for a NW Passage!
The Canadian National Pastime is ice hockey and ice skating.
The Canadian Mounted Police (Mounties) are a famous Canadian icon—today instead of horses, they are often on snow-mobiles.
Some Canadian creatures are the moose, polar bears, beavers, and Canadian geese.
Some Canadian foods are Maple Syrup, and Salmon.

The kids had a great time learning about the explorers then going on their own expeditions and treasure hunts.

This is my "Baked Alaska" Isn't it lovely? I was relieved. You actually bake Ice Cream. I had visions of a big puddle on the bottom of the oven, but here it is with the boys giving it the thumbs up! It was tasty too!

We learned about map-making. It's hard to make acurate flat maps of a round world. We experimented with getting the peal off of an orange (like the surface of the planet) and laying it flat.

We watched a hockey practice as part of our Canadian experience.

We learned all about moose and made paper bag puppets

We also read "If you Give a Moose a Muffin" and baked oatmeal maple muffins and there was actually a kids tape with a dance song called "Doin' the Moose". Good times, eh?