Monday, February 16, 2009

Presidents Day the Home School Way

It's President's Day!

To mix things up we decided to read the biography of George Washington.

Shortly into the book I realized there were many hands-on things we could do to make it come more alive.
So after reading that as a lad he would do copy work to perfect his handwriting, we did some too.

Then I busted out the quill pen and ink that I had been saving for just the right time.

Little girl made one with a little feather we had around the house.

My letter to Mr. President, written with the quill and ink.

Did you know George Washington loved to dance? Here they are pretending to do a waltz.

As a young man, George was a surveyor. He went out into the wilderness and surveyed the land.

So we headed outdoors to survey our own land.

We used a 100ft measuring tape. We have some wilderness here too.
Some areas were easier to measure than others.

Here little girl is helping with a measurement.

Then we came back in to warm up. I showed the kids how to take the information and graph it.


Little by little we made our way through the book.
We learned about:
the French and Indian War
the Boston Tea Party
how the colonist fought for independence
The Declaration of Independence
Valley Forge
Becoming the United States of America
How George Washington became our first president

Now that the book is complete we are going to talk a bit more about our current President. Saying a prayer for him, that he will lead well and with integrity.

2 comments:

Mindy Richmond said...

Did you know George Washington was the first president of the United States of America but not the first of our country? He only came on board when the United States Constitution replaced the Articles of Confederation. An interesting point to research.

momteacherfriend said...

True true.
John Hanson was the first "President". There were actually seven before George Washington.

The problem was that they colonies were still acting independently and not coming together as a nation. Hence the Constitution and George Washington as the first president under our current Constitution.

Those before him had little power or say to do much of anything. With one year terms under the Articles of Confederation. That is not much time to bring forth any positive change. Hanson did however design the Great Seal of the United States which every President has used and continues to use on all official documents.