History Through Fiction

Seems backwards, right?

 

Fiction is fiction. History is the story of what happened in the past. The two should not cross.

Yet, every homeschool teacher will tell you as they look at curriculums like Sonlight, My Father’s World, Beautiful Feet, Winter Promise, and so many others that their children learned history best by reading fictional books about historical happenings.

Can you teach history using fiction? I would say the answer is a resounding “YES!”

This year I am teaching a supplemental class learning history through fiction. We are concentrating on American history. I find myself as I am wrapped up in the planning, more and more excited about the books we have to read, and wishing there was more time in the year.

I was thinking, if my voice was not so annoying and pipsqueaky like, that I would love to visit and talk on something like a You Tube channel about my favorite books. However, I am sure my voice would so annoy people, that I thought maybe instead that a series of photos, reviews and maybe short clips would be better.

Which would you rather see?

Homeschooling. Getting started?

I was chatting with a friend today about getting started with homeschooling.

I was thinking of all the things that we tell people that want to start with homeschooling. You know, you start with the basics. The laws. The requirements. The curriculum.

What you don’t tell them is that often when you are 14 years into the journey or so, you sometimes feel like you are still just learning how to begin.

I haven’t been homeschooling that long compared to some moms that I know. But, since I am what is called a “Second Generation Homeschooler”, it feels a lot longer. Not only was I homeschooled, but I was an active participant in helping or teaching my siblings as well.

I think one of the best things I can say, is “You will mess up. You will spend all that money on a set of curriculum and sometimes it just does not fit with the way your child learns. Most days will not go as you plan. But the key here is that often you are homeschooling because it was what your child needed. If you are teaching him and educating, (I don’t mean the parents that claim to homeschool and really do nothing), you are doing what they need. It might not look like the pretty picture in your head, as your son is hanging upside down reciting his times tables. But keep it up.”

What is your mantra that you would tell someone that is beginning homeschooling?

Busy, Busy, Busy…

It seems life tends to go in spurts of busy times. For us, this is a very busy time. Generally, in May, I have a chance to breathe and relax. School is mostly over, but not this year. I have been contemplating when I will have time to fit my breakdown in.

It sounds funny, but  really, I just don’t have time to schedule it in.

We have sports that consume the first half of the school year and then the theater consumes the other half. This fulfills our P.E. and Fine Arts credits, which we use for school, but it takes a lot of time and effort. The other time, we fit in all the other subjects, but like this week, they seemed to conflict an awful lot and we were working on learning on the road. I had a son that was sitting and staring at a vocabulary worksheet blankly for almost an hour. He was worn out, tired and just could not think.

We spent today working on catch up and I am not sure if any of it sunk in, but hoping so.

We had a snafu with math with computer glitches earlier in the year, so we are still working away on math and will be hitting it harder and harder in the next while. In the last calendar year, so far, we have had three deaths in the family, or near family. We may have a fourth soon and it is hard to emotionally prepare.

This was one of the scenes from the play we were in…

Pulling towards the end..

We are pulling towards the end of the school year and I do not want this blog to only be book reviews.

I have done a rotten job of being on the computer and being production at all with my blog. Or I can say that I am spending so much time on other things, my snippets of time on the computer are too short to blog appropriately.

 

There is a whole bunch of my last couple weeks smashed together in pictures.

We do school with a lot of other people, as you can see. Homeschooling is totally a life dedicated to isolation. We spend all our days locked in our homes, with our noses in books and never see another human soul. =)

Hope your school days are going as well as ours!

MFW Week 26- ECC

My posts about school sort of have gotten lost is the book review posts and basketball. Blogging about anything other than what had to be done is really not been the priority.

You know, just a few games were played here and there. It has been a blur of action between school mornings, basketball, basketball practice, our homeschool theater club starting practice, which is 7 hours weekly or more, there is not much time for anything

 

else.  Well, other than a little baby cuddling, reading in the sunshine and the sort.

We have been enjoying China and Japan this last while. Gladys Alyward has been a huge success, and we are pushing through “I dared to call Him Father” as well.

We bought a bunch of snacks from the grocery store that were Japanese or Chinese and had fun with that. We didn’t get our Chinese feast, but that is coming!

Life has not been without stress lately. I am learning more and more about property management. My oldest son got his permit and is learning to drive. We are working to catch up on all the work he is behind on from a busy month of basketball in January. We also battled Influenza A, and thankfully my youngest son and I were protected so far despite nursing the older three that were very sick.

This week while reading about Oceans in ECC, we pulled out a book about the Titanic. We read that as a book basket book and then discussed the replica that was recently built and if anyone will want to sail on it.

It has been a week for wins in school. Life may be hard elsewhere, but we persevere. We had an opportunity to have some discussions this week on topics such as politics, domestic violence, and safety in other areas. It seems it never is boring discussion here.

I am so thankful for MFW bringing up hard topics to discuss with many view points presented.

Prayers that Changed History by Tricia Goyer

 

Reviewed by Martha Artyomenko

Book Description

Twenty-five stories of historical figures who prayed to God and as a result, history was changed.

One prayer can change everything.

Martin Luther. Sojourner Truth. Helen Keller. St. Patrick. We read their stories, and of other people like them, in history books, and hear about the amazing things they did to change the world. But one part of the story is often left out: Each one of them wouldn’t have accomplished what they did without prayer.

In this book from bestselling author Tricia Goyer, the stories of twenty-five notable people are presented along with the major prayer that changed their lives and changed history. Following each historical example is a biblical story that ties to that person’s life and actions, as well as ways you can use the power of prayer in your life as well. Because God isn’t done changing the world yet, and he would love to use you to make history.

My Review:

As I read through this lovely little book over the past while, I was impressed at how each story, it brought it back to prayer. Each person depicted in this book may not have been the world’s greatest person. Some of them may have truly done other things that we do not extoll, but their prayers, we can always praise.

Each story has daily life applications that can be used in your homeschool, daily devotions or just family time of discussion. You will read about the person, a biblical person, and life applications and questions.

I found myself wishing this book was included and scheduled in many of the yearly cycles of My Father’s World as it will go perfectly with it. There is much to learn in this little book!

 

 

To Purchase a copy, you can find it available here!
Prayers that Changed History

Submarines, Secrets and a Daring Rescue By Robert J. Skead

 

 

 

Reviewed by Martha Artyomenko

Book Description:

A Revolutionary War action-thriller filled with spies and heroes, targeted to boys and girls 8-12. In this second book in the American Revolutionary War Adventure series, twins Ambrose and John Clark find themselves volunteering for another mission to help the newly forming United States of America. Inspired by their success in delivering a secret message to General George Washington himself, the boys step up to help transport much-needed gunpowder to the patriots and end up in an even more dangerous situation, manning one of the first submarines and then, later, attempting a prison break to rescue their older brother, Berty

Written by Robert Skead with the help of his father, the main character is based on their ancestor who fought in the American Revolution as part of the Connecticut militia. Though historical fiction, the events that occurred with George Washington in New Jersey regarding the war effort are true.

My Review:

While I was not the intended audience for this book, I found this read a fun learning experience. I will be adding this book to my school year on the Revolutionary war topic. This exciting adventure story about a set of twins also explores the early history of submarines as far back as the Revolutionary war. There is plenty of historical info included in this book for you to explore further from a school teacher, perspective. These boys are working with their father and older brother and there is much respect demonstrated throughout the book.

This book was given to me for review by BookLook bloggers. The opinions contained herein are my own.

You can purchase this book where books are sold, or Amazon carries it! The ebook is $3.99 and Hardcover is $10.91 Submarines, Secrets and A daring Rescue 

 

MFW ECC- Weeks 16&17

We did a lot of reading on Germany… Europe and did some Youtube videos as well.

As you can see, our week was full of a lot of basketball.

Our 7th/8th team won the Championship, which was exciting for them!

We have been working through this busy season, pushing along with school. We had finished George Mueller early, so this week, I found a great documentary on him. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dCTJPZqcf8o

The subtitles are in Spanish, but it was really good.

This was another one on Germany that was good.

For science, I found this on Rivers and Lakes.

 

This was the whole movie of “God’s Outlaw” about William Tyndale.

I also found for older children, this history of the Inquisition, which with studying Germany was important. http://www.ironmaidencommentary.com/?url=album10_xfactor%2Finquisition&lang=eng&link=albums

There was also this one on Martin Luther…

So, learning looked a little different this week, but we got a lot done. I hope these links helped you a bit.

MFW- ECC, AHL, etc Week 4

School?

The week was off with a start and serious faces. Tuesday was the local homeschool kickoff. We hurried through our daily work to go and help out there. My class on succeeding with your children struggle, went well, I believe.

 Practicing the first steps of cursive on the iPad. We have been having trouble with it on paper.

Sorting legos is always a chore, but listening to audio stories while sorting makes it better and gets school done as well.  We have been listening to Swiss Family Robinson, Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand (for the older ones), I am going to be doing more from this book next week, but reading aloud. “Prayers that Changed History”

Here are some of our leaf collections that they found for science this week.

 Who says you can’t do math on the go? Algebra 2, on the way to the doctor and back. 100% on that lesson!

For our “American” dinner, we went with Venison Steaks, corn on the cob, homemade macaroni and cheese, Iced tea and peach crisp. The one nice thing about doing ECC, is having themed weeks of meals all planned out for me. I am planning on doing some freezer meals, and looking ahead for the weeks to correspond.

We have been also encouraging working on practice SAT tests and writing classes will start up this week.

MFW- ECC, AHL… Weeks 2-3

School takes many different forms.

We do a lot of bookwork. But we also realized that hard work and exercise help with school.

This includes painting the storage shed.

As well as picking plums for jam.

Balancing on the roof without spilling the paint, really takes skill. He had fun with it though! He has been working to earn money to go to Parkour classes and this fit the bill!

Our “Global Art” Hands around the world paper dolls. There were a lot of laughs while doing that one, but we got it done!

Monopoly Game with friends!

Our very sorry, around the world cake from the end of Week 2.

We find that working on the floor helps with some grounding and paying attention. It does not always work, but this time, he was working away.

Labeling all the states names

Book Basket reading time!

 School? Really? Again?

L. has been writing a daily newspaper for his writing assignments until Language arts co-op classes start next week. It needs some work, but is cute!

It is easy to see pictures and think that things always go smoothly. We finished our third week of school and have had days where I want to throw my hands up and wonder if they learned anything. It helps me to take pictures and see that we did actually work.  On one of the days last week, we were struggling to find cohesiveness. After reading the D.L Moody story about the Great Chicago Fire in Hero Tales, we ended up watching a few videos and learned more.

We had a great talk about some of the history of Chicago.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KhiRFATge4c

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a3Q3wwRAGiw

Chicago World Expo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eBpBl1Nqjyc

It is helpful to learn to investigate more into history as we are in this unit and figure out how they learn while we are reading.

On the harder days, I realize that my goals are to help them to learn. It doesn’t always mean it looks conventional. I just need to work to get that knowledge into them.

We were working on AHL- my son is reading through Job as well as all the other assignments. Our writing looks a little different, but things are going smoothly.

This is the first year they are all using Teaching Textbooks and I have to say that is my favorite part of school so far. I stay highly involved so to make it work. Many people complain about it, but most of the time, it is often because it is not used in the way it was intended with an involved teacher and math drills. At least, I hope I am right about that! They seem to be learning!

We also did a little “Beginning of school celebration” by letting the boys go to a nearby amusement park with their cousins and relatives. My oldest son went on his first college visit as well, checking out a college in Seattle.

Another lesson we learned in the last few weeks was about air quality. This was a picture of one of the smoke filled days during that time. That is not fog.

Thankfully, it finally decided to rain and drive the smoke away, keeping the fires at bay. We hope it stays that way.