This is the week Treyton has been waiting for!! He has been asking when America was going to be fighting and when we were going to learn about war. (Boys will be boys I guess).
Along with learning about the Revolutionary War we also learned about the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson and because we didn’t fit him in last week, we also touched on Paul Revere and the Boston Tea Party.
Needless to say, it was a very busy week. I had to remind myself over and over again that we are only doing a relaxed overview of American History and that we don’t have to learn everything this time around!!
- The Revolutionary War an Interactive Guide by Elizabeth Raum
- Red, White and Blue by John Herman
- Sarah Witcher’s Story by Elizabeth Yates
- If You Lived at the Time of the American Revolution by Kay Moore
- Paul Revere’s Ride by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
- Awesome illustrations, hard reading for this age.
- The Fourth of July Story by Alice Dalgliesh
- The Story of the U.S. by Marie Hazel
Other Read Alouds:
- Going to Town (My First Little House Books)
- Tip-Tap Pop by Sarah Lynn
- A touching book about a grandfather and granddaughter (Emma) who love to dance together until one day the Grandpa begins to suffer from (what I assume is) Alzheimer's
- Ladybug Girl and Bumblebee Boy by David Soman and Jacky Davis
- Where’s the Party? by Katharine Robey
- A book about bird calls
- The Artist who Painted a Blue Horse by Eric Carle
What Treyton Read this Week:
- Clifford: The Firehouse Dog by Norman Bridwell
- Amelia Bedelia Plays Ball by Peggy Parish
- George Washington the General’s Dog by Frank Murphy
- Brain Freeze (DC Super Friends) by J.E. Bright
American Flag:
We’ve made the American flag before, but this time we made the original stars and stripes, after we read the book “Red, White and Blue” – putting only 13 stars on the flag, we talked about why there were 13 stars and stripes on the original flag, which is the same reason why we only have 13 stripes on our flag today.
Boston Tea Party:
In honor of learning about the Boston Tea Party this week, we decided to have a little “tea party” of our own.
We made some tea, sat down and read a few select pages out of Jean Fritz’s “Then What Happened Paul Revere” (specifically the pages referring to the Boston Tea Party). We talked about the men dressing up to look like Indians, going aboard the ships and dumping over 10,000 pounds of tea into the harbor. Of course Treyton wanted to know why, so we talked about what a tax is, and why the American’s didn’t want to pay it.
This conversation took only a few minutes, but Treyton begged to read more and to talk about it more…. I knew I didn’t want to go into any more detail than I already had, so I just re-read the pages in our book.
Several times since our “tea party” he’s asked “Mom, can we have another Boston Tea Party?”
Make Hasty Pudding
I will be honest, I saw the recipe for hasty pudding and thought “hmmm… maybe we’ll pass on this” it did not look like something that the kids or I would enjoy. But… I decided to go ahead and try it, and guess what?
The kids loved the entire thing, making it (which I knew they would), eating it and talking about it.
We added milk and agave nectar, except for Treyton, who did not add milk, but just the nectar.
They ate the entire pan (except for a little bit I saved for Tim to try later) and Audrey actually cried when it was gone. :)
Lapjournal
Treyton colored two uniform pictures out of our dover coloring book:
one of a British soldier, one of an American soldier. We added these to his lapjournal as well as his narration.
We also included a copy of the Declaration of Independence.
Overall, I felt like we had a pretty productive week, considering we were carrying so much over from week 9, and covering such a big topic.
Treyton loved the war talk, though he doesn’t understand it all and asks lots of questions, questions I can’t always answer.
Next week, we will be learning about President George Washington.
