Intro to new unit—reviewed plan, projects, schedule, expectations, templates for The American Revolution, Unit 3
We're here! Just about 45 more day so of our first year of homeschool and the final unit for fifth grade: The American Revolution. Our long Spring family trip was wonderful, fun, educational, and relaxing. It was so nice to get a break from our "real" life and just spend time together without the burden of work and appointments and lessons and and and. Sophie enjoyed a much-deserved break from skating, school, dance, and music. She was a kid. And we snuck in some school while we were gone, as you may have noticed from our previous posts. One of the many benefits of homeschooling is the flexibility that school can be anywhere and learning is everywhere! Besides, Sophie and I have worked really hard and she has really proven she can handle the work and challenge of homeschool and she has produced a tremendous amount of good, solid work and during those hard, full weeks of school and skating, knowing that our break south was coming—two weeks "off"—really helped us push through getting all the projects and reviews completed. Once again, I am so proud of her.
Our last unit is 8 weeks long and began this week. Today we spent time introducing the unit, reviewing the 2 major projects, setting expectations, and looking at the schedule. She has also spent time this week reading and learning about the French and Indian War and her presentation is included in the post for day 130.
Unit 3 is simply The American Revolution. As I told Sophie, you can spend the rest of your life learning about the American Revolution and plenty of folks have! It's a monumental, complicated, exciting part of our history that spans the entire east coast and signifies the beginning of not only a country, but a new way of living and believing in the world~ it is truly one of the most significant events in history and it can be overwhelming. And that begets the question all teachers ask themselves: How do you teach something like –fill in the blank: The American Revolution, Shakespeare, Physics, Computer Science, The Civil War… -- to a young student in a small amount of time? What's important? Dates and facts or the people involved or books written or injustices perpetrated? There are so many options, facets, possibilities to consider and one of the most challenging aspects of elementary education is condensing a huge concept into a fun and accessible unit for young students.
Over the next 8 weeks Sophie will complete two major projects. The first is a Power Point Presentation (PPP) of 35-40 slides about the American Revolution. She will use what she has learned to complete a 5 x 5 and use these daily, subject-specific exercises (as well as webquests and book reports) as her information for the presentation. I have designed the presentation in 5 parts of 5 slides each plus her Introduction, Conclusion, and Bibliography slides.
The 5 parts are:
5 Acts
5 People
5 Battles
5 Dates
5 Events
She will be working with a PPP template and will complete 5 5x5s a week according to her PPP plan and list of needed slides. We are using two great books as weekly references for the 5 x 5s, as well as webquests I design or find on-line and other book reports over the next 8 weeks. She will read a chapter a week from The American Revolution for Kids and Cartoon Chronicles of America: Road to Revolution by Stan Mack and Susan Champlain. She also has a great Magic Schoolbus American Revolution Research Guide. She also has two great Dover coloring books about the Revolution and she will color and read one page from either book every day as well.
The second project for this unit is the Midden Farm Almanac. This is her farm school project that she will work on with Gamma and Bo at Midden Farm. She has a really cool Eyewitness Biography book on Ben Franklin, as well as a fantastic resource collection Courtney picked up at the library for her, as well as a few old Farmer's Almanacs to consider. She will read about Franklin and some of Poor Richard's Almanac and work on writing, collecting, and taking notes and photographs around the farm as we move and work from spring to summer~ should be a cool project!
She will also be reading Esther Forbe's fantastic and classic young-adult novel Johnny Tremain with Gamma and Bo at the farm and completing a reading journal entry for each chapter. When the book is done she gets to watch the Disney movie.
For Math we will continue with the Guinness book for 5th grade, which she's almost done with and we were sorry to learn there isn't a 6th grade, so we decided since it was such a great book and she enjoys working with it, that we'd get the 4th grade version and do 2 pages a day for that book. She's also continuing with the 5th grade Sylvan book and when that's done we'll start on 6th grade and she has to complete one page per book a day for 5 days of school a week for the next 8 weeks. For summer math we have a really cool paper airplane book to work with!
Science for the last unit is: Chemistry and she will read one chapter a week, complete a chapter report, and we will do a lab every Friday and complete a lab report every week. The book we're working with is: Amazing Kitchen Chemistry Projects You Can Build Yourself by Cynthia Light Brown. This is definitely going to be the hardest science unit we've had this year and I have to admit, "I don't know much about chemistry…don't know much trigonometry…" but we'll work together and learn! *Which is another cool benefit to homeschooling—I get to learn new stuff too!
We have a busy 8 weeks ahead! We still have to finish filming for her Unit 2: Colonial America project! We're waiting for most of the sites to open back up. She filmed at Jamestown and that was great and we're going to Plymouth again in May and Salem sometime in May too. We have to wait for Old York to fully open but hope to film there the last week of May or first week of June on a weekday. Not sure about Sturbridge but we'll get there and we definitely want to plan another trip to Lexington and Concord soon and maybe a trip to Boston!
Thanks again for our readers and supporters! We have a lot to accomplish but she and I both have been looking forward to this unit and learning about the American Revolution! Keep reading and checking in~
Farm: Reading with Bo Chapter One: Johnny Tremain
Math: 2 pages Guinness, 2 pages Sylvan
Reading Journal Entry
Johnny Tremain by Esther Forbes
Chapter Title or pages read: 20 pages read
- What happened in the chapter?
Johnny Tremain is an apprentice silversmith. He lives with an old silversmith and is an apprentice with two other boys. The girls in the family's names are, Madge, Dorcas, Cilia, and Isannah. Johnny is 14 as well as Cilia. They are supposed to get married to each other someday. John Hancock, the richest man in New England, came to the house of The Laphams (the silversmiths house) and asked Mr. Lapham to repair a pitcher that had been broken, But there was no way to repair it and Mr. Lapham was too old so Johnny had to make a completely new pitcher for Mr. Hancock on his own! When he didn't think it looked right he went to Paul Revere for help on how to fix it. Paul Revere liked Johnny and wanted him for his own apprentice.
- Were there any words you didn't understand? What were they and how did you learn the definition?
Fatigue…… Bo told me the definition: it means you are really tired
- How did the chapter make you feel?
Well I am wondering if Johnny is related to merchant Lyte and why he is allowed to go ask merchant Lyte if he is.
- Was there anything in the chapter that relates to what you're learning elsewhere in the unit?
Yes, Paul Revere and John Hancock were mentioned in this chapter… I am learning about them
- What do you think will happen next?
I think that he will become an apprentice to Paul Revere
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