Monday, November 26, 2007

Tracing the Trail of Lewis and Clark

After Philadelphia, we took a few weeks off of big, organized activities, but today we were at it again. We're up to the beginning of the 19th century and we've been reading a lot about Lewis and Clark (and their Newfoundland dog, Seamen). So, I thought maybe we could draw a really big map and mark the milestones of their trip.

We started with some maps I found on the Internet, like here and here and here.

Then we laid out three strips of paper that we got from a friend (they were leftover rolls from a printing press) and taped them both to the floor and to each other.

Then, mostly using the first map as a guide, we tried to sketch out a map of North America, and the route that Lewis and Clark took from Saint Louis to Fort Clatsop and back.

I had printed the map at 150%, and so it measured about 4.5 inches high by about 6.5 inches wide. We decided to scale it from 1 inch to 1 foot. So one of the kids drew the East Coast from Maine to Florida (about 6.5 feet high and about 1 foot wide). Meanwhile, two other kids started from the other side, after we measured the span of the continent (more or less).

None of it came out exactly perfect, but in under an hour we had a pretty good map.

Then we used the Timeline from the PBS Lewis and Clark movie as a guide to marking the landmark events along their trip, with each kid reading a couple and then others marking the actual spots (or as close as we could get them) on the map.

Along the way we talked about slavery, and how it didn't seem fair that Clark didn't free his slave, York, even after York had saved his life several times.

We talked about Sacajawea and how Lewis used ground rattlesnake rattles to speed the delivery of her son. And then about how Clark drew graffiti at one spot along the trail (that can still be seen today).

I asked my son afterwards what he thought of the whole thing and he said it was awesome, so I guess it was OK.

Tuesday, November 13, 2007

Visiting Philadelphia

All this talk of the Declaration of Independence and the Continental Congress made me want to go to Philadelphia, so we did! Don't you love homeschooling? :)

We drove down on Friday morning, but unfortunately when we got there, the tickets for Independence Hall were all gone. They are free but there is a limited number of them. So, instead, we went to see the Liberty Bell (I wish you could still touch it), the US Mint (where you can see how they manufacture coins that we really use), the Christ Church Graveyard (where Ben Franklin is buried), Franklin Court (where Ben Franklin's house was and which also houses some buildings that belonged to him, the post office he began, and a museum in his honor), and the First Bank of the US (which is now housing a portrait gallery). We also took a carriage ride where we learned that Dolly Madison made peach ice cream, her husband James was really short, and that Jefferson, not Hancock, was the first signer of the Declaration of Independence. (Hancock signed big, but not first.)

On Saturday morning, I got up early to go get tickets to see Independence Hall. It was lovely being in the city all by myself :) I had forgotten how much I love cities, and Philadelphia in particular. We also found a yummy deli called DiBruno's, with great coffee and delicious pastries (and European candy and chocolate covered pretzels, and artesanal cheese and meats).

After breakfast, we went down to see Independence Hall and the room where they signed the Declaration of Independence, and wrote the Constitution. I liked it a lot. I think the kids did too. Sometimes I'm not sure what inspires them.

Next door, there was the actual copy of the Declaration that John Nixon read to the crowd in Independence Square on July 8, 1776. That was pretty cool.

Our next stop was the Franklin Institute, a great Science museum up on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway (at the end of which sits the gorgeous Philadelphia Museum of Art). It was late by the time we got there, so we started with Electricity... lots of hands-on exhibits to see how electricity works. And then we moved on to the heart, that you can walk through, and see how blood goes through your heart and gets oxygenated. The kids loved it. I think they went through the heart 14 times or so. There were lots of other blood and heart related things to touch and explore. As the museum closed, we went to the Imax theater to see "Dinosaurs Alive!" Sadly, it was disappointing. It was out of focus and didn't really take advantage of the Imax-ness of the theater.

After the museum, we went back to the hotel and then found a great restaurant called the Marathon Grill. It was pretty perfect: nice and loud so we didn't have to shush anyone, and good food that wasn't too normal or too expensive.

Sunday morning we decided to go back to the Franklin Institute. On the way, we found some Black reenactors commemorating Veteran's Day. We talked to them for a few minutes and they told us about a reenactment going on that day about the Revolutionary War. I really wanted to go but everyone else was so geared up to return to the Franklin Institute that that's what we ended up doing. I mostly felt bad that I hadn't thought ahead of time of looking up reenactments... I knew it was Veteran's Day. I should have thought of it. And it was too hard to change plans in the middle.

Anyways, once I made my peace with that, I could see how much the kids were enjoying the museum. In fact, the day flew by and we couldn't leave. We were planning on going by the place where Washington crossed the Delaware, but it was dark by the time we were on the road. So we'll just have to go back :)

Tuesday, November 6, 2007

Bill of Rights Charades

We were talking about the Constitution this week and I really wanted to figure out a game where they could write down the rules for a club or something of that sort, but in the end, I settled on talking about the Bill of Rights.

We sat together in a circle and I asked the kids to tell me some of the freedoms and rights that are guaranteed by the Bill of Rights. We went around in a circle and each kid offered one and then we talked about them. At the same time, I wrote down the name of the right on a piece of paper and set them on the floor in front of them.

We talked a lot about the different rights and how they worked and what limitations they had and why they were important.

Then I folded up the papers and divided the kids into teams. They each chose a right and figured out with their team member how to act it out. When they were ready, they perrformed their skit and the other kids how to guess which right they were portraying.

It worked pretty well. It seemed like the kids liked doing it, and got a better feel for what is and isn't protected.