Rockin' Thru History

At our recent Homeschool Group meeting we had the pleasure of meeting and listening to the teacher, musician, songwriter and homeschooling dad: Damien Drago! We were treated to a live performance of his Rockin' Thru History songs.

picture credit: Rockin Thru History

His current songs are all inspired by The Revolutionary War. The songs start off with Powder Your Wig (just the name makes me giggle) and the last song is Five Fantastic Fabulous Founding Fathers. Each song is fun and educational.

The reason he created each of these special songs was to teach kids about History in a interesting way!

He has a great website called Rockin Thru History. On his website you can listen and purchase his songs. There are lyrics for his songs, resources and even more material you will find very helpful.

At our live performance we were treated to some of his new songs, which he is currently working on. These new songs are inspired by the Civil War. So be on the lookout for even more fun and  make sure you take some time to check Damien Drago out at www.rockinthruhistory.com.

This post is linked up to:

found at Hip Homeschool Moms.

Around the World-Australia


For our 200th post I am going to take you on a trip to Australia! Not for real, but you can pretend like we did! Sit back and enjoy our journey to the Land Down Under!
We have been studying American History and Geography for the past couple of years, so we are ready for the World! I'm not sure how we are going to go about studying all of the continents, but we started with Australia. It is Pie Pie's favorite and small one, so it worked out quite well.

source
 

I bought each of the girls an artist notebook which has in it, wonderful blank pages. The girls can draw, write or paste pictures in them. They will be our Geography and History workbooks for the year.

I started out by looking up Australia on the Internet. I found a great and free lapbook at Homeschool Share. Then I went to the library and looked up videos and DVDs. Some of the DVDs we found were:

 Families of Australia,

The Barrier Reef and Northeast Australia,

and Australia-Destination.

 We really enjoyed the Families of Australia because the girls got to see how kids lived in a different part of the world.
We found a lot of wonderful books at our local library too.

The books we used in our study were:

 Wonderful Animals of Australia by National Geographic,

Look What Came from Australia by Ken Davis,

Endangered Animals of Australia by Marie Allgor,

 Welcome to My Country: Australia by Peter North and Susan McKay,

 Koalas by Susan Louise Kra,

 Emus by Julie Murray,

and Foods of Australia by Barbara Sheen.

The girls also drew lots of pictures of animals in their notebooks of all of their favorite animals in Australia!

We finished up our study with an Australian feast!

We started our meal with Damper. This is a bread usually made over a fire. Bread is not one of my specialties. It was very sticky so I added a lot of flour which made the bread kind of dry. I'm sure it would taste better if you are a better bread maker than me. It was pretty good if it was warmed with lots of butter.

  

For our main meal we made Toad in the Hole. This is a meal with sausages in a bread, egg, and milk mixture. They use lamb sausages, but we used regular ones. It was okay. We added some cheese to the top to make it more tasty. We love cheese!

For dessert we had Lamingtons. These were definitely the highlight of the meal. These are very easy to make, but very messy! All you need is cake, chocolate and coconut. 

 

All of these recipes can be found in Foods of Australia by Barbara Sheen. 

Our next continent is Africa. I have no idea how we are going to break that up to make it easier to learn about. I have a little time to figure that out because we are doing a Science Unit next.  Tornadoes!
I hope you enjoyed our trip to Australia!
There is lots more Princess fun to come here on our blog!

A Month Into the School Year

I was counting how many days we have done for school recently and was happy to notice that we have 25 days finished already! Pie Pie and I like to know how much we have accomplished! I am also pleased with the progress we have made and would like to share some here.

Reading 

Pie Pie and Pants have done a lot of reading. I love reading and will do anything to encourage them to read. They each read enough books for about 36 tickets (5 books per ticket) in the Library Reading Program this Summer. I'm not sure the actual total because I lost track, but that is a lot of books. We have particularly enjoyed reading Carolyn Haywood books.



We are currently reading

These are some of my favorites from when I was little and I am so glad Pie Pie can enjoy them now. Pants and I are reading through the selections in Before Five in a Row. We have, so far, liked all of their choices.

Math

We are currently in our third chapter in Math which should be finished up tomorrow. We are just getting started with some new lessons, but Pie Pie is sailing right through. Pants is still working on counting and writing her numbers. They both like to build with our Math blocks.

History

For History we are currently in the 1800s of American History. We just finished up the Constitution and learned about the Bill of Rights. We are looking forward to the War of 1812  and then we are going to read about the American Girl from that time period, Josephina.

Science

We started off with a couple of different topics. We learned a little about the Ocean and Butterflies. Now we are currently on The Human Body. We are learning a little more about what our body parts do and how to take care of ourselves. Our next topic will be all of the animals that are in Animal Jam. This is their favorite Internet game. Pants is learning about different animals and the Five Senses.

Geography

We just finished up our second Which Way U.S.A. book. This is Pie Pie's favorite subject right now. Whenever I ask her what subject she wants to do, she always says Geography!

Language Arts

We just started our Grammar book this week. We have also been working on Handwriting. I am also hoping to start a Spelling Program very soon! We are going to be starting a Literature unit all about the Roman and Greek gods and goddess.

Bible

We are doing daily devotions and just started AWANA, which  is a Bible Club for kids. Both of the girls participate and it is at our church. They learn about the Bible, play games and get prizes. This is where they recite their Bible Memory Verse for the week.

Pants

Pants has been very fiesty lately so we have been going really easy with Pre-K. We are reading and I have been trying to get her to focus for longer periods of time on a task. She is going to be starting Ballet next week and I think that will be a good physical outlet for her. She loves to draw, color and play.

There's lots of other things going on for us too. We have been busy! I just wanted to give a little update to anyone who likes to read about us!

More to Come!

P.S. I am linkink up with iHomeschool Network's Mother's Journal.

 

"Mommy, We Got a Postcard!"

I promise she is much more excited than this when they arrive!
These are her two favorites because they have Mickey on them!

The time has come for Pie Pie to learn about The United States of America! Now there are many ways to learn about this subject. I, of course, picked a fun way! We asked family and friends to send us postcards from different states. (This was not my idea, but it is a good one!) Everyone has been very helpful and we  have gotten pretty many of them.

The States we have gotten so far are: Mississippi, Colorado, Utah,
Washington, Alaska, West Virignia, Texas, Minnesota, Virginia, Florida,
California, Hawaii, Washington D.C., New Jersey and Massachusetts.

Whenever Pie Pie gets a postcard, she locates the state on a map and colors it in.

We have subscribed to a kid's magazine about the States. It's by Highlight's and called Which Way U.S.A. Every month you get two States.  Each State has an activity book and a map. It provides you with History and Geography all in one kid-friendly package.

My Aunt has also given us a map to put all of the State Quarters in! She gave us the quarters too!

Shhhhhhh!! Don't tell Pie Pie we are learning!  (I'm pretty sure she knows!)
I want to say a special "Thank You!" to anyone and everyone who has helped us with this project! We really appreciate it!