Early American History continues, slowly but steadily. The schedule has slipped because we've taken some extra time to linger over the interesting events in our country's heritage. But the units have fallen in line with the calendar beautifully. For instance, we studied the Pilgrims and Indians at Thanksgiving and George Washington just before President's Day.
The kids enjoyed sketching half of Gilbert Stuart's George Washington's portrait from Veritas Press Resource pages. We superimposed the sketch upon a Betsy Ross style flag and practiced cutting out 5 point stars with just one snip of the scissors. One of the younger boys used Draw Write Now to design his own version of our first President. Everyone enjoyed tying the art project into history, and I was tickled at how different each child's project turned out. Next we used Picturing America prints to analyze Leutze's Washington Crossing the Delaware. and Grant Wood's Midnight Ride of Paul Revere. Even if you do not have the Picturing America Series, the entire set of lesson plans and collection of prints are available on the EDSITEment website. We were amazed at the size of Leutze's original painting. While we used the series of guiding questions that came with the curriculum, there is an optional link for an audio podcast from a Metropolitan Museum of Art curator. A Branches of Government Activity is scheduled for next week. We will also continue to update the timeline. Everyone is incredibly excited about the upcoming Civil War Re-enactment (so much so that they are trying to rush through the Declaration of Independence and Constitution). I've had to put on the brakes to slow things down a bit so we can absorb the richness of these documents.
The kids enjoyed sketching half of Gilbert Stuart's George Washington's portrait from Veritas Press Resource pages. We superimposed the sketch upon a Betsy Ross style flag and practiced cutting out 5 point stars with just one snip of the scissors. One of the younger boys used Draw Write Now to design his own version of our first President. Everyone enjoyed tying the art project into history, and I was tickled at how different each child's project turned out. Next we used Picturing America prints to analyze Leutze's Washington Crossing the Delaware. and Grant Wood's Midnight Ride of Paul Revere. Even if you do not have the Picturing America Series, the entire set of lesson plans and collection of prints are available on the EDSITEment website. We were amazed at the size of Leutze's original painting. While we used the series of guiding questions that came with the curriculum, there is an optional link for an audio podcast from a Metropolitan Museum of Art curator. A Branches of Government Activity is scheduled for next week. We will also continue to update the timeline. Everyone is incredibly excited about the upcoming Civil War Re-enactment (so much so that they are trying to rush through the Declaration of Independence and Constitution). I've had to put on the brakes to slow things down a bit so we can absorb the richness of these documents. 
And on a totally unrelated note, just for a bit of fun:
A Pirates of the Caribbean wall mural and bulletin board designed by my 13 year old. Another homeschooling perk!