Independance Day Bio: George Washington

Because we finished our Norway unit up a few weeks before our vacation to California, and with the 4th of July right in front of us, we are doing a couple of patriotic units. The first was George Washington, and the second which we are currently still working on, is the United States in general - mostly getting ourselves familiar with the states individually and as a whole.

We read a lot of books about George Washington and made a book of our George Washington activities. One book focused on President Washington's life and experience as a farmer - which actually is all he ever wanted to be. If only the entire nation wasn't dependent on his leadership! Anyway, I thought it was really interesting and this is one of the reason's I love George Washington. He was basically given the country. People asked him to be king after he won the Revolutionary War, but he didn't want to be king. He didn't want to rule. He wanted to be free. Also, George Washington was honorable, respectable, he was polite and sincere. He was deeply religious (despite what "historians" will try to tell you, read his own words and it is obvious he was profoundly religious), he was good and gentle. But he was strict and principled. He was everything the country needed. These were the kind of things I wanted my kids to know about George Washington, so we constantly talked about his goodness and his leadership. Everyday Joshua had to copy one of the "manners" George Washington also copied when he was a boy. I had Joshua copy an easier version to understand, but one that carried the same message. I don't know if there is a person alive who still follows these "rules of conduct," myself included, and I think that is a sad thing.

But it's easier to do activities based on actions than based on manners. George Washington liked to experiment with seeds and soil and manure and stuff, so we experimented with some seeds ourselves - chia seeds from Costco. I was hoping for results more like a chia pet, but oh well. they grew. We experimented with different types of soil - rocks, leaves, grass, paper towels, etc.

our chia grass grew a lot taller than this here - just so you know.

Another book we read talked mostly about President Washington as a surveyor. That was interesting too. We learned that in his youth he surveyed just about everything he could find, even his older half-brother Lawrences's turnip patch. So we surveyed our garden patches too. (another side note, while reading this book about George Washington's youth, I could see that he was educated in the Charlotte Mason method, which makes sense because most people of the time were, but he was also very literate in the classics. I've finally decided on a method or style for homeschooling my children: we're going with a Classical Education and I'm throwing in a little Charlotte Mason too. Kind of fun.)

These are our tomatoes, peppers, canteloupe, watermelon - and recently I added a cucumber plant

In this patch we have acorn squash, butternut squash, crookneck squash, and zuchinni

This is sort of a funny picture to post because it looks like there is nothing there, but in the shade of the walnut tree down there we have lettuce (which we've already all eaten), spinach (which was infested with bugs so much we couldn't eat it so it's all gone to flower) onions, brussel sprouts, cauliflower, broccoli, pumpkins (not the edible kind though, just for decoration), and then we have 6 potato plants, a long row of radishes (I don't like radishes but Derek always wants to grow them and complain about how we don't eat them fast enough) 4 eggplant plants that are hanging on for dear life - although they aren't very visible so maybe I hadn't planted them yet, and I've put in two bush beans and another cucumber since then. Also that little guy all by himself is either a butternut squash or zucchini.

Many of the books had to do with him as a General. We also watched a couple of short videos on Youtube. Dr. Aparagus Spear has some good ones out there, plus the Liberty Kids, which used to be a PDS show have some and they are ok.  The kids thought it was funny to hear the Hessians speak German in the videos. We made three cornered hats and the kids ran around pretending to be General George Washington.

I think this face is hilarious. He wanted his picture taken too, even though he didn't have a three cornered hat.

And it is a little strange, but there aren't many books that talk about George Washington as the 1st President of the United States. It was his role as president that made the job of president what it is today - well, what it is supposed to be today. (don't get me started.) He made sure he didn't take over congress's job and he made sure he didn't take over the supreme courts job. He did the president's job. And not everybody thought was did a great job. Many people got mad at him and started calling him "King George" which I would imagine was a huge slap in the face, considering how hard Washington fought and how devoted he was to the freedom and success of his country. Anyway,  he paved the road for all presidents after him. Progressives have been kind of tearing that road up for about 100 years now, but I guess it is the Last Days and we've all be forewarned. sigh.

Anyway, to learn about his presidency we mostly just learned about THE presidency. We learned that the U.S. Government is made of up three equal branches: Executive (president), Legislative (congress made up of the Senate and the House of Representatives), and Judicial (supreme court). It is really cute to here little Lukas repeat to you "executive."

Here is Joshua's George Washington book.

I found this fun wheel type thing online. You spin it around and it shows the many talents of George: Surveyer, Farmer, Commander, and President.

Our surveying notes

Documenting our seed experiments

A picture of a three cornered hat.

My drawing of the basic set up of the US Government. All held accountable by the U.S. Constitution. We did read a book about the Constitutional Convention but I think that is a little over the heads of my 5 and 4 year old

A 1 dollar bill and a quarter and stamp featuring George Washington

And of course Mount Rushmore and the Washington Monument.

Little Things

 I finally started using my Sun Oven that Derek bought me for my birthday last October. I love it! I wish it fit two more loaves a bread, though. It's really fun and easy to use and my bread turns out better when baked in the sun.

These are the artists...

 ...and these are the loaves of artisan bread. Looks very artsy to me.

 Abigail and I needed to do something girlish. The boys now have their secret code (it's the Viking runes modified a bit to include letters from our alphabet that the futhark - viking alphabet - didn't have) so while we were shopping last week Abigail picked out some nail polish and we had girl time. I actually and really liking having painted toenails! It's kind of fun. But Abigail didn't really understand why I wasn't willing to paint my fingernails purple like hers.

As a kid I ALWAYS wanted a little kiddie pool - or was it a real pool? - so since we have a yard this year and it has been in the 90s, I figured it was time. It was a riot trying to get the pool home in the minivan. I had to put the pool in upside down and on top of all four of the kids heads. We figured out right away what to do with it! Joshua and Lukas have no fear, but Abigail is a little more cautious. :)

Freedom Festival Carillon Concert

Provo City puts on a big celebration for the Fourth of July. And it starts way before July and ends around Veteran's day or something. There are things like essay contests and baby contests, and parades, a colonial reenactment fair (which is really cool and the biggest reenactment this side of the Mississippi!) a race, the Stadium of Fire show at BYU and a bunch of other stuff. This year we went to the Carillon Concert at BYU. We showed up at about ten to 7:00 with some blankets and a pizza and while the kids played in the waterfall, I listened to the music and had a great time. I actually listened to the music while keeping an eye on all the kids running around while standing and trying to rock the baby to sleep. It was really fun. I think I would like to do this every year. The atmosphere was so pleasant. The weather was nice, the music was fun, there were children everywhere playing and families and sweet elderly couples telling me how cute my baby was (I never get tired of that, he he) and it was kind of fun just to be up and outside in the evening past 7:00, which is usually when my poor kids go to bed. We didn't get home tonight until about 9:00 or so but it was nice to not be rushed and just enjoy a fun time together. A Carillon, by the way, is a big bell tower.  Here is the link to the event: http://www.freedomfestival.org/events/carrillon-concert/

Norwegian Lapbooks

Here are the lapbooks we created to document all that we had learned and done regarding our Norway unit. The only things missing are a letter from Norway (we haven't gotten one yet - we only mailed our letter to our cousins maybe a week ago) and photos from the Uncle Ole Picnic, which wasn't happened yet.  I guess there are other things we learned too that couldn't be documented, but oh well.

So, if you've never heard of a lapbook before, here is your introduction. Some people make fantastic lapbooks, but I wanted my kids lapbooks to look like they made them themselves, and not like their mother made them. I think we had success at least in that department. Here they are, with explanations where needed.

Our lapbooks: Mine, Abigail's, and Joshua's

These are the first two pages of mine. I've got a photo of Edvard Munch, Edvard Grieg, a mini book of popular boys and girls names, a little pocket with two paper people wearing the traditional Norwegian costumes (Bunad), and accordion style book that opens up and tells about natural resources in Norway, an empty pocket waiting for a letter from Norway, some fake viking money with viking runes on it, and then two actual pieces of real Norwegian money, and then another pocket which is empty.

The second page of mine has a little book in the shape of a hand and inside it depicts a little Norwegian mythology, and also the fact that it is a mostly Christian nation today, a flag flap book about the flag, some thermometer flaps indicating the average temps in Oslo for each season, a Menu that opens up and shows typical foods for each meal of the day, and then a small booklet with things in it like time difference, landmarks, I put my coloring of "the Scream" by Munch, and other things.

Here is Abigail's first page

And Abigail's second page - she's still pretty young to be doing stuff like this so I just encourage her to do as much as she wants.

Joshua's first page - and here you can see that pocket that was empty on mine, but actually on the kids they are filled with photos of the other things we did. The top photo hear is the kids with the fish they caught.

 There is a pocket between the first and second file folders where they stuck the rest of their stuff associated with Norway that they wanted to keep - they had drawn pictures while listening to "In the Hall of the Mountain King" and "Morning" by Edvard Grieg and so those went in here, plus they painted some of their feelings when we learned about Edvard Munch's "The Scream" so some of those paintings went in this pocket as well.

 Here is the inside of Joshua's little booklet - time difference and a drawing of Vigeland Park in Norway.

The last page was a free writing page to write down their favorite activities or the most interesting facts they learned. Joshua wrote that his favorite thing was his lapbook and he learned about Norway. Not quite as specific as I was looking for, but he's on the right track.

Springville Balloon Fest

As part of Springville's Art City Days Festival they have a Balloon Fest. On Friday and Saturday morning at 6:30 am the trucks pull up at the junior high and the crews start unloading the hot air balloons. They play loud fun music, there are free donuts, free helium balloons, free face painting and tattoos (we never do that part) and as the balloons lift off, some of them throw out candy and balls with numbers on them corresponding to prizes at one of the tables set up. This year Joshua was old enough to run into the mob of children (and sometimes teenagers) to pick the candy up, but even then he only got 2 pieces. Abigail was still too little and she was disappointed she didn't get any candy - even after I reminded her she got 2 donuts. But, then while Joshua was playing with his balloon it popped and he sobbed and sobbed, and then Lukas just decided to let his go and watched it float away, so I guess there was enough disappointment for everyone that day. Just kidding. We had a lot of fun, despite the tears.