Social Studies - Week 2

As you know, we are using Sonlight Core D in our homeschool. It is the first year of a two year program that focuses on American History. J was somewhat disappointed with her first week. We read a ton of books (yes, I knew Sonlight is reader intensive which I love their books). But J mentioned that she missed the hands-on activities that we were doing towards the end of our last school year.

So, I had to make a last minute change with our program. I cut back on a few of the chapter books which we will read later. And I added the hands-on program of Homeschool in the Woods to our week. We are currently using the New World Explorers to aid in our reading about Columbus and the New World Discovery. What I love about this program is that it includes all of the lesson reading as well as hands-on projects and lap book templates. I do not have to find any extra books or information, if I don't want to.

We are still reading most of the books from the Sonlight program but I am adding a hands on aspect that J loves. I have used New World Explorers before and loved it. I am hoping that J will love it as well.

J began her Explorer unit by reviewing the continents and oceans on a world map. (We learned this last year.) She told me what they were and I wrote them for her on a lap board so she could spell them correctly on the map. She colored the map to add to her notebook.

Since we started reading about Pocahontas, I thought J would enjoy making tipi's. This project was not included in our Explorer unit but it tied in nicely with our readings. She used pictures from some of the books to decorate her tipi's.

She loved the tipi so much, she made three more for her Playmobil's!

I found a rope tying game called Knot So Fast! from a thrift store and it was perfect to try know tying as they did on the ships. J got some what frustrated with the rope tying - it is more of a logic game, working on knots without directions - just pictures. But she was able to master a few of the beginner knots.

We made hard tack - a hard biscuit that the sailors ate on board the ship. These biscuits hardly ever went bad. It is a simple recipe of salt, flour, and water. I added a few cut-up gummies to represent weevils and worms - extra protein for the sailor!

That night, they became limeys - they drank lime juice that they squeezed themselves and ate hardtack. The lime juice was to ward off scurvy. As you can see, they weren't impressed with the lime juice.

She was all excited when I said her craft was going to be a ship-in-a-bottle. Then, she was disappointed that it wasn't a real ship in a bottle! I found this cute craft from Teach A Roo TPT store (link below). It is super cute finished. One thing I changed is that she drew her own ship and Columbus rather than using the print-out ( a little art included).

So, how is that for hands-on? We made hardtack, limeys, a ship-in-a-bottle, tipi's, and learned how to tie knots. All while learning about New World Explorers. We finished lessons 1 thru 3 from Homeschool in the Woods. This is all tying in nicely with the chapter books we are reading currently. I love when things work out!  I can honestly say that she enjoyed this week a whole lot more! I did too.

Links

Teach A Roo - Columbus Day - ship in a bottle freebie craft idea.

That Artist Woman - has the free templates for the tipi's.

Noggins and Nonsense - has a cute idea to make ships in a bottle using a 2-liter bottle, complete with printable ships. We are definitely doing this next week!