Archive for the ‘History’ Category
Teach your child the story of the Erie Canal
Recently we have been studying the book, Paddle to the Sea, a true classic which I will share more about later in a separate post. Today, as Paddle had now made it to Lake Erie, I thought it would be perfect timing to study the building of the Erie Canal. I have to admit that the prompting to study the book The Amazing Impossible Erie Canal by Cheryl Harness was not my own but came from Lauren Hill over at Mama’s Learning Corner. Lauren studied this book with her children and created some FREE worksheets as well as sharing some wonderful You Tube links all of which you can find here. All I had to do was purchase the book as our library did not have it.
The kids learned a lot this morning about how canal locks work and also enjoyed the song in the back of the book sung by Bruce Springstein. (See Lauren’s page.) Did you know that the Erie Canal was the longest canal in the world at 363 miles and had 83 locks! Now we just have to make sure we visit a working lock on our travels somewhere. Can you see a canal boat trip in our future?
Happy studying,
Liz
FREE Study Guides for the Goldtown Adventure Series
I recently came across the Goldtown Adventure Series by Susan K. Marlow. They are set in 1864, just before the end of the Civil War and after the Pony Express came to an end. Although fictional there is a lot of real facts in them. Although written for boys, girls could also enjoy them. Suggested reading age is 8-12. The four books in the series are:
- Badge of Honor
- Tunnel of Gold
- Canyon of Danger
- River of Peril
All four books are available in paperback with the last two in the series out on Kindle.
Jem is a 12 year old boy whose father is the sheriff of Goldtown in California. Times are hard as Jem’s mother has died and so Aunt Rose and her son, Nathan, have come to live with the family. Jem has a younger sister, Ellianna.
Here’s the exciting part though! It was not until we had finished the first book that we learned that there were FREE Study Guides available for each book! They are EXTREMELY well done and very educational.
The truth is, that some FREE study guides are not worth the paper they are printed on but these are exceptional. You can also purchase Lapbooks for each book on Susan’s website but I decided against these as I think Daniel will learn just as much from the Study Guides.
Susan K. Marlow has written two series for girls, the younger one of which I plan on sharing with you tomorrow.
I am SO glad we do not follow a set curriculum as when such great gems as this unexpectedly come along we can take another track and set off on an unplanned learning curve which everyone is excited about! We are going to be studying the Pony Express after doing this but I will share that with you MUCH later 🙂
Happy learning,
Liz
Fun with the Vikings:)
The kids and I had a BLAST with the Vikings so we hope you enjoy them too! First you need to download the FREE book Viking Tales by Jennie Hall on Gutenberg.
We studied this book in sections taking a ‘break’ to study Iceland and Greenland when appropriate. After each section in the Vikings Tales I had the children narrate back to me what had happened. Those narrations are not in the downloads as your children will want to tell you what they learned.
SO for this study you will find 4 FREE downloads on our website:
- Vikings
- Iceland
Due to the size of our Iceland study we have had to put it in two downloads. The first one is Iceland – About Iceland and Glaciers, the second one is Iceland – Food and Wildlife
Another adVENTURE of FREE, fun learning 
Liz
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