Our Journey Westward » 1900′s

Goodbye 20th Century!

Cindy — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 16:20:54 +0000

ALL planned unit studies for the 2009-10 school year are finished! To wrap up the school year by the end of April, we’ll be completing plans and texts for all of our other subjects and adding in a few fun writing, science and art lessons. While the kids work, I’ll begin the process of putting together end of the year portfolios and start reorganizing the school room for next year!

I’m looking forward to spending more concentrated time with Eli and his preschool fun this summer as I start planning for our next school year.

As promised, here are some pictures of the completed Overview of the 20th Century lapbook from A Journey Through Learning.

Below are the books we used to round out the century.

1970′s, 80′s, 90′s to Present

Also, I just posted a review of Legends and Leagues over at The Curriculum Choice. It’s a fun mapping curriculum for early and mid-elementary children that uses a literature book and workbook to teach several map skills.

1950′s and 1960′s

Cindy — Sat, 27 Mar 2010 18:53:13 +0000

I hate to admit that our study of the 50′s and 60′s was a bit more boring than the 20th century thus far. It’s partly because the gusto of school is waning as we see the end in sight, and partly because we covered most of this previously when we vacationed in Alabama last November.

So, besides time lines, continuing our lapbook activities, lots of reading and a documentary or two, we didn’t do anything exciting. We’re lumping together the 70′s, 80′s, 90′s and noteable events of the 21st century as we try to wrap up this last history study of the school year.

1950′s and 60′s Resources

WWII

Cindy — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 14:41:06 +0000

World War II was yet another touching unit in our household. We have grown to love history SO much through the use of living literature, good informational texts and projects. History was something I yawned over year after year in high school and college. I couldn’t imagine EVER liking it! It’s been a refreshing journey full of learning for me as well as my children to learn history in a real and meaningful way.

As with all our 1900′s studies, we continued the notebooking posters for each topic.

We also took a trip to the Cincinnati Museum Center where they house a Cincinnati History Museum, among others. About half of their displays just happened to be on WWII! I couldn’t believe it since we had originally visited it as a link to the Great Depression since the building, Union Terminal, was built during the Depression.

Below is the list of resources that have been in the sidebar. I hope you find them useful! This week we started into a study on the 50′s and 60′s!

WWII Resources

I hope you’ll forgive me for the length of this list. There are SO MANY wonderful books and such that are worth making a part of a WWII study. I just couldn’t help adding them all.

Websites

Kids Connect Links

Very Kid-Friendly Research Links

Mr. Donn’s Links and Lessons

Eclectic Homeschool Links

Easy Fun School Unit

NeoK12 Videos

Cyber Learning World’s Interactive Map

Scholastic’s Projects

The 1920′s and 1930′s

Cindy — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 15:58:41 +0000

The Roaring 20′s led way to the Great Depression of the 30′s. Such a stark difference from one decade to the other.

When we went through our first four-year cycle of history using The Story of the World as our main spine, I have to admit that we glossed over modern American history at the time. For starters, Story of the World Volume 4 was much harder than my children were ready for at the time so it was easy to back off. And, secondly, we were building a new house and getting settled in during that year, which made backing off of history even more enticing.

That being said, this is the “first time through” for a really in-depth look at the 20th century. And, my, oh my, we’re enjoying it! Wonderful books, movies, games, recipes and projects are making this study just fabulous. I’ve been requiring more daily writing from the kids, too, in the form of mini-posters (aka notebooking pages.) These mini-posters are solidifying their learning SO MUCH! Here’s a look at a few of the notebooking pages from the 1920′s and the Great Depression.

We’ve also been keeping a timeline of many important and interesting events for each decade. Before we dive into learning about each decade, I usually have them write out the timeline first, so they have a general picture in their mind of the things we’ll talk about. Each decade’s timeline is made on a different colored piece of cardstock. This happens to be the timeline for the 1930′s.

Below are the resources that have been in the sidebar. Each one of the books/dvd’s was wonderful!

Websites

Mr. Donn’s American History

Education World Lessons

1930′s WebQuest

I’m still working on the WWII resources in the sidebar. We’ve already jumped into the unit, but I’m still in the planning stages, so more resources will be added over the next day or two.

World War I

Cindy — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 16:49:45 +0000

WWI has been richly covered and lots of wonderful projects sit in our notebooks to prove it. The School History site was invaluable for me during this unit!! You can see some of the activities we chose to use from School History below.

This map shows the allies at the beginning of the war.

This is a diagram of trench warfare.

This is a chart of several important points of the war.

And this is a map of the new Europe established after the end of the war.

I bought the game A Journey Through Europe for $1.00 at a curriculum sale last summer. It was a great was to reinforce important places in Europe. I haven’t linked it because I don’t think it’s available anymore, but it would be a good one to keep in the back of your mind as you visit curriculum and yard sales.

Below are the resources that have been in my sidebar. I hope you find them useful!

World War I

I’m kind of bummed that our library has such a limited selection of age-appropriate WWI books. These books and DVD’s got us pretty far, though.

Great Websites

Thanks to Jimmie for making me aware of most of these links!

School History – This is an awesome site where I am finding most of our activities

Mr. Donn’s Lesson Links

Teacher Oz – Links to every aspect of WWI

Art of the First World War

WWI Timeline

Animated Map of the Western Front

Intro to the 1900′s

Cindy — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 19:21:57 +0000

The beginning of our semester long unit about the 20th century is off to a great start! Besides WWI (which we’re going to do next), we have covered the main topics from 1900-1919. For now, I’m only planning one small project per section of the unit. When we get to the end, a big explosion of projects will wrap-up our study. The small project for this part of the unit was to write and present a book report on their assigned reading books. Above, Mahayla is sharing about her book Thimble Summer.

Below are the resources that have been in the sidebar. Through these wonderful books (and other sources) we covered the topics of: what life was like, early flight, early automobiles, women’s sufferage, Industrial Revolution, factory safety, hours and wages, child labor, pollution, orphan trains, John Muir and the Panama Canal. A lapbook from A Journey Through Learning called An Overview of the 20th Century is helping us to document some of the topics we’re covering. I’ll give you a peek into that lapbook when we reach Y2K.

Introduction to the 1900′s