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.