Lepanto Timeline Figures

Some timeline figures (pdf) to go with the Lepanto resources.

Week 15 -- History Cards

Timeline Cards (both in PDF)

Early New World Discoverers
Scientists 1 (the scientists are taken from the first few chapters of The Boy Scientist, an Ambleside recommendation)

The weird borders on the jpgs are just artifacts from Word editing-- they aren't like that on the PDFs.

It is beautiful fall weather outside so the boys have been outside adventuring. I did do morning time but that is about all. I may work a bit with Kieron later... I was planning to have him work with these timeline cards but it took longer to make them than I expected.

Kieron has been doing a brain-game on the computer which includes a math component so there is that for informal learning; also, all the younger boys have gotten a fair bit of use from the whiffle ball on a string that the OT left behind.

Later I'm going to try to rig up some sort of timeline background where he can place the cards.

I can support these by making quizlets, too. I have one timeline quiz up already.

History Planning -- Native Americans

Pictorial plans for the pre-Columbian unit which will take place over the next 3-4 weeks..... see photos below. Advent is starting right after the Thanksgiving break, so the regular history will take a back seat eventually as other things take over.

Another book not pictured here is Favorite North American Legends, which I plan to read aloud to the children over the next three days.

I also have a few coloring books which I haven't dug out yet, and a few of these Draw Write Now books.

Other resources are at the Thanksgiving post and I also found this page of Native American worksheets.

If you remember, I made these History Pages to be used for this study.



These are the contents of a few old-fashioned books, probably too easy for Kieron really and too advanced for the other ones but I thought I'd list them anyway.



California Standards (Native Americans)
California Social Studies Standards correlated with lesson plans


This is a group of books that aren't directly related to the central unit but that I thought might be interesting and somewhat related for springboards for further studies.

Study Guide 1 -- Our Country in Story

Our Country in Story, Pathway to the Atlantic -- Supplement Packet (pdf)

Basically I just found and copied in the poems mentioned in the list (gif on right) and added some information from a couple of online sources.

Here are the simple links in case you are interested and don't want to download the complete text.

Activities:

· Read about The Skeleton in Armor

· Read the poem by Longfellow, and some other Norse poems

· The Norsemen

· Saga of Erik the Red

· Evidence of Viking discovery of New World

· History of St Brendan

Color the maps. Or make a notebook page.

Reading Checklists for History

I made a couple of reading checklists. I am thinking it will be a bit easier to keep track of the things we are reading over a longer time, if I have a checklist filed away in my binder.

For Christ the King, Lord of History (by Anne Carroll) I only used/am using 3 chapters.

Christ the King checklist (pdf)
Usborne "Scientists" (from Book of Discovery) (PDF)

Lepanto Resources

Update: I wrote a study guide for The Blood Red Crescent.

Since I have been reading The Blood Red Crescent to Kieron and Paddy and Aidan, I compiled a few resources on the Battle of Lepanto from online resources.

Here's a Google Doc just listing the links: Lepanto.

Here is a PDF: Lepanto. The packet contains the actual text of the bulk of the resources. Most of them are Baldwin Project tales in public domain. I noticed a couple of typos after the fact, but there it is.

I was going to make an activity sheet or study guide to go along with it, but I didn't have time/couldn't make myself do it since we usually free-wheel for our literature units. Maybe next time, or maybe I will try to reconstruct after the fact --we should finish the book today or Monday, I think. I have some ideas for ways to do this that don't make me feel claustrophobic ;-), but we'll have to see if I can translate the ideas from head to paper.

Here's another neat picture with a Catholic perspective, at Salve Regina. The one above is from the Vatican archives.

More History Pages

Civilization Page (doc)
Meso-American Page (doc)

I made these to use as outlines when we get to pre-explorer America, probably next term.

The docs include maps and some links to further sources.

They are roughly middle-school level -- I based the questions on California standards for 5th and 7th grade.

History Pages

I made some"pages" for use in review, notebooking, etc.

Explorer Page (pdf)
Event Page (pdf)
Famous Person Page (pdf)


They are much the same except for the questions, so I only put the event page up as a gif.

On the gif, the timeline is fixed at 1500-1700 since that's the period we are studying, but the pdfs have blank timelines.

Sean did something a bit like this when I was starting him off writing short research papers. He would use the worksheet for a starter and then pull out the information to write a simple 1-2 paragraph paper. So I thought I would try something that like with Kieron occasionally.

Planning Form for History Theme

This is the Term Topic Checklist (doc) that I just made to try to help me through planning. One thing I have trouble with in using other peoples' planners is that I am often trying to do the planning as I go. This is just the way I operate. I also do a lot of thinking ahead of time.

So, acknowledging this, I divided this one up into Preparation/Action/Conclusion. Preparation is for the "pre-thinking" I seem to have to do. Action is for right before or DURING the actual term. Conclusion is my chance to wrap it up, to list extensions and things we didn't get to, and to reflect on what was learned both in the approach and in the content.

Clear as mud? : ).

I fear it will look overwhelming. I seem to have to walk myself through everything, but not everyone is like me. Anyway, if it looks stressful, then you are probably one of those people who does this all intuitively.

Or like me, one of those people who doesn't really do units. This isn't exactly a unit. It's more like my attempt at integration.

Lene Mahler Jaqua put a "how to" plan a history study over at the Classical Homeschooling Newsletter quite a long time ago -- I used some of her ideas.

More History Wrap-Up -- Year 7

Renaissance Overview (pdf)
This is the semi-complete big picture of the first term's main theme.

I have been thinking about how this term went now that it is almost over and it just occurred to me that what it's evolved into is a sort of Main Lesson format. Except that we've been thin on the output, which is rather typical of me, but I think Kieron would like having some projects to do.... so I'll have to think more about that type of thing next term.

I think it's funny that I didn't "get" the main lesson idea at ALL last year and now I've basically backed into it.



Also, a reading list (pdf). The gif is below. These are mostly books and articles that Kieron read this September -- the ones that aren't checked off are ones that I thought he might still read sometime this year, but that he hasn't read yet.

They are the ones that have to do with history, so it is a bit redundant next to the first one. I have another literature list that is basically his "free reading" -- what he has read in his free time that is NOT Tintin or Choose Your Own Adventure or something like that, worthy as those are.

Renaissance Wrap-Up

I made a simple study guide for All Ye Lands chapter 9 about the Renaissance. It is sort of the spine of what we are studying for history. Renaissance (PDF).

I forgot to include the link to Galileo's letter, which is very good. It is here: Galileo's Letter to the Grand Duchess.

Since we are basically finishing this unit already, hopefully the reading and study guide will be sort of a review and tie-together. I don't plan to make him walk through every question, but I find it easier to interact with him in the narrations /extend the lesson if I've done a bit of background work.

In future I think I'll do the guide BEFORE I start the unit. That way it will be a bit more integrated, and I can add things as I go.

History Correlations

Valerie Malott has a chart aligning Story of the World with Catholic resources Old World and America and Story of the Church.

I'm not doing this period in history this year but thought it might be of interest to some who read this blog. (I have had more viewers at this blog recently, maybe because Rosie linked to me at Well Trained Mind.)

Also, Martha at Yes, They're All Ours made a list of saints books correlated with feast days.

And probably most have seen this, but there are a lot of SOTW-correlated-with-other-resources listed at Paula's Archives.

I love the way blogs and websites allow homeschoolers to share resources.

History

I found a neat site -- a bit like Baldwin Project but devoted to "living history".

Heritage History

I have been wondering:

Does my Ambleside plan for this year fit in with Non Multa Sed Multum? Talking about the History program in the Latin Centered homeschool, Drew Campbell says:

Still other programs divide history into two streams, studying world history and national history simultaneously. This is the method of the acclaimed Core Knowledge Sequence, championed by E. D. Hirsch, Jr., and of some Charlotte Mason-influenced home school programs, such as Ambleside Online. This dual approach is also common in traditionminded European schools.

He goes on to say:

In the previous edition of this book, I recommended a multi-stream approach encompassing classical (ancient), Christian (medieval), and modern historical studies. While I still believe that such an approach can work well and commend it to those who have found it useful, it proved too complicated for most readers, particularly those with larger families.

When I first started homeschooling 14 years ago, I had no theories about how to approach history. I used a conventional Catholic correspondence program and soon knew what I DIDN'T want to do -- repeat American history through boring facts and short, dry sentences and a few pious sentiments.

That was one of the things that attracted me to Kolbe Academy. Kolbe used Greenleaf's Famous Men program and my children and I loved the chronological cycle approach to history and used it for several years.

One of the drawbacks, however, was that we never seemed to get around to very much American history. Thus, the Core Knowledge approach appealed to me. But raising six children, one of them medically fragile, I had enough to do covering the basics without planning and implementing two or more separate history programs. Often, we ended up progressing through World History for seven months of the year and then doing an extended unit on American History in the spring and summer.

Ambleside and later, Mater Amabilis, was a help for me here. These combined the Core Knowledge type sequence with books of literary value. I have been doing it this way for the last couple of years but it has taken time and effort to feel comfortable with the "scattered" effect of so many different courses.

I still am not sure. I get a bit claustrophobic with the "straight chronological cycle" too. And I found that my family would get so wrapped up in the cool ancient/medieval European history (which we loved, and so much good fiction for the middle ages particularly!) that we would tend to skimp on US History.

This wasn't so much so with my second son. He devoured history books during the summer and in his spare time. But my most recent set of kids -- hmm, sometimes I wonder if they could tell me who Abraham Lincoln was. I'm a bit scared to ask.

So I am making sure we focus on US History next year and still have some room to spare for our Plutarch and our Renaissance Europe.

I think it will still fit in with Multum non Multa because I keep an eye on the main thing -- a few books read carefully, the rest there for entertainment and extra context.

Middle School History Chart

A History Planning Outline (doc) partly filled out. This is just for the first year, and right now has only some literature and biography selections.


Year 1: Our Country in Story, History of Mankind

• Term 1: Exploration and Discovery/ Colonial Days
• Term 2: American Revolution, Early Expansion
• Term 3: First westward movements, Civil War

Year 2: Story of the World -- Modern Times

• Term 1: Post Bellum
• Term 2: World Wars
• Term 3: Post World Wars

It will probably change, but I wanted to start listing books and other resources in the proper time periods.

History 7 -- Our Country

I found this Our Country in Story in the Google Books repository. It is intended for Grades 5-6 but I am thinking of using it as a spine for US History for Kieron for these reasons:

• It is Catholic.
• It has only 35 chapters so it would be easy to read just once a week and pull in other resources to deepen the study.
• It has a geographical, exploration-oriented emphasis.
• It is quite nicely written.
  

I've written out a chapter breakdown.

In the future, I'm going to try to add some resource lists and books to read alongside this outline.

History 7 - US and World History

I'm still trying to figure out what I want to do for History. There are several "strands" here:

• Local Focus
• General History
• Biographies
  
• Geography
• Current Events
• Civics
• Living Books
• Research Skills
  

General Objectives:

• Learn key dates and why they are important.
• Have a general mental outline of the world and particularly the United States.
• Connect history to modern events
• Focus on some time periods and geographic areas more intensely
• Learn about the lives of some key people in history.
• Increase civic understanding and participation.
• Increase interest in literature connected with the time period.
• Learn middle school level research skills.
  

I think I am going to have a 2-year course which is basically Age of Discovery - Modern Times. I want to have enough material available to go off on rabbit trails, while keeping it streamlined enough so that I have a sense of the objectives reached and so that there is some coherence in the study. Tall order, eh?

A PDF document with a US History timeline and some maps and standards

Here are a few more links:

• · 100 Milestone Documents
• · Core Documents of American History
• · A great site – American Memory Timeline
• · Here is a whole page of links to look over.
• · Course-Notes for US History
• · Source Book for Educators

Some Books:

• · Main Lesson American History books
• · Rainbow Book of American History
• · Makers of the Americas

Tentative Chronological Plan

1. Age of Exploration
2. Colonial Days
3. Age of Revolution
4. Early Days of the Nation
5. Civil War
6. Pioneers -- Geography and Technology
7. World Wars
8. Modern Times

I have started a very simple page breakdown for Makers of the Americas

Later I will add book lists, more details about what I want to cover, etc. I want to have a large amount of time to focus on California history and on the 20th century (I have Story of the World vol 4 and a Chronicle of the 20th Century for that).

This will get him ready for a high school level current affairs study.

Thinking Aloud

By the way, thanks to you readers who leave comments on this play by play blog of mine. It is always fun to read the responses and to see what others are doing. You probably have noticed that my other blogs are standing mostly deserted. I am really enjoying this detailed log of what we do in a day,.... plus it helps me keep track of things I might not even notice otherwise. Since I'm trying to limit my internet time, that seems to be all the blogging I have time for. Those of you who comment on here, I regularly read your blogs --motivating to read other moms' homeschooling notes.

Now for the overview, since tomorrow is Day 20. I realize that most of what we have been doing all this time is review, really. Certainly we haven't come to any new territory in Math yet. In Latin, however, I am thinking we are getting a bit bogged down by all the half-memorized declensions, and may need to slow down a bit. I have this review sheet which I add to as we come to new parts.

Greek has a lot of review built-in -- it moves sloowwly. And we've barely gotten off the ground yet on Humanities, though Kieron is picking up steam now. Sean is moving more slowly, partly because of his chronic pain issues. I want him to really get the Algebra down well, and the Latin. He is not giving off the discovery-oriented ambience that Kieron is.... probably the difference in ages, plus temperament. Sean has always liked to engage very practically, and if he doesn't get to do that, he rushes through the material and remembers little of it, so I am trying to find a style that suits him and slows him down. Plus he is transitioning into the high school years, which means more of a focus on method and independent work. So anyway, we haven't gotten to full speed with his work yet.

Looking through various resources today, I finally decided to use Discovery of New Worlds by MB Synge for Kieron as a sort of history spine. The other book I'd like to go through slowly during the year, CM -style, is Knights of Art: Stories of the Italian Painters. And finally, Beautiful Stories from Shakespeare (unless I decide it is really too lightweight for his age and go to Lamb's Shakespeare -- but I had intended to use that one for Sean as an intro to reading some of the actual plays). All of these seem to tie together with our movement from the Romans to the Renaissance, and of course they will be expanded with other resources.

The last one is English Literature for Boys and Girls. This may take two years. At Ambleside it's used for middle and early high school but to me it has a youthful tone. Sean read some of it last year but I don't think he will continue it this year.

These are all printed-out books -- not as pretty as real bound books, but less expensive and you can write on them with less guilt. I have a comb binder so with some colored duct tape for the spine I end up with something reasonably solid and readable. Not as nice as a beautiful hardcover, but not too much worse than a mass market paperback.

Kierons' science ---- related to our geography --- biomes, habitats, weather, physical geography, and a variety of projects and field studies and nature drawings-- he enjoys everything along those lines.

I'd like to have Sean's work mesh with this somewhat -- but I truthfully haven't pinned this down yet. For both of them, I want to focus on British literature. There are so many authors who represent literary history in themselves and have also covered history in their retellings and novels. Charlotte Yonge, Rudyard Kipling, Howard Pyle, Charles Kingsley, Sir Walter Scott, Andrew Lang, Roger Lancelyn Green, Padraic Colum, Tolkien (translation of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight), CS Lewis, Ian Serraillier who retold Beowulf which Sean reread last year ----- not to mention the Lambs and E Nesbit -- the list just goes on and on. And that's just the prose, and not even mentioning Shakespeare, and the artists who painted historical or classical or mythological scenes. The poets are a whole other area.

So the literature will be a matter of selection -- so many possibilities.

It's Sean's subject "spines" that are the problem. Maybe an almost high schooler could use primary sources only, and a timeline and historical encyclopedia. But that seems like a lot of work for me to plan, and he mentally discards information when he doesn't see where it's going. So an overview would be helpful. Hmm, still thinking. Since he did a version of Ambleside 8 last year, maybe he can pick up with a Catholicized version of AO -9 this year. ..right now I don't seem to have the perfect solution in all these books we already have around the house. Or maybe compile the House of Education geography resources and biographies and primary sources, and just get by with that.

The older boys focused on Ancient History at this age, and Clare took US History. I wonder why I am reinventing the wheel... but Sean, I think, would get more out of the ancient classics if we waited a year. Still thinking this through... but at least science is set, and the 3Rs.

As for the little ones -- no formal science or history, yet. Religion, literature and music and art and very basic 3Rs. These things also lighten the atmosphere here and seem to make life more interesting for Kieron, too.

Thinking about British Literature.... and History Spine

Sonlight Level 530
and Level 200

Story of Britain -- by Antonia Fraser's daughter (list of AF's books included in that link)

History of the English Speaking Peoples

British Literature -- Faith's sidebar

English Literature -- Catholic Encyclopedia
(there are some articles about English history there, too)

English Literature for Boys and Girls

Studying History for a Middle Schooler

On the principle that I don't usually know what I'm doing until I write it out..

We aren't doing Ancient Greece this year but here is what I wrote out in answer to a question about how people used Famous Men of Greece:

We had the Greenleaf Guide, so we talked about some of the discussion questions and also had a list of supplementary readings. The Mater Amabilis ancient history booklist has some suggestions for further reading. (here too

Also, you can do mapwork and keep a timeline or century book.

There are some ancient Greece activities but they might be a bit young for your 7th grader.... I also used some of the Dover coloring books but this was for younger kids.

some maps here

Basic timeline here

More links here

I hope this isn't throwing too much at you. We usually focused on reading, and discussion or narration, choosing a few topics (like Athens compared to Sparta) to focus on a bit more closely by doing some additional researching.

(Also, adding here that I would google for clipart on the individual characters and events, and I would look for study questions like these ones and probably read some primary sources like an actual Life of Plutarch and possibly a bit of Herodotus).

Roman Theme

It's just a list of ideas right now, so I'm putting it in a Google document:

Beginning Ideas for Roman Theme