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Dangerous Wonder
Mar. 18, 2008
History Pockets: Moving West
The last 2 years we have studied Medieval and Renaissance time periods in the springtime and I have shared photos and articles of our fun here and here. I am just realizing that I didn't share photos from last years fun! Ooops! I'll post that after this post!
This spring, several families from our homeschool coop at church are studying the Westward Expansion of the U.S. every-other week. We are basing our study off of the curriculum,
History Pockets: Moving West
While this curriculum is for 4-6 grade, we are using it with 6-13 year olds. We are using it as a jumping off point with lots of other projects to go with it. We have downloaded the book for easy printing from our home computer over at CurrClick and are enjoying this series!
Here are some pictures of my oldest daughter's History Pocket in progress.
Pocket #1
Pocket #2
The concept of the History Pockets is fabulous. We have history facts, coloring sheets and other fun crafts in this series. My only draw back has been the sheer size of the pockets themselves. It calls for a 12x18 sheet of construction paper or cardstock/poster board that is folded 6 inches up and then is stapled to make a pocket. I have found that while it looks cool, the paper is easily torn if using construction paper and the size is awkward if you want to store it. So some of our creative moms have come up with using sheet protectors as the pocket and putting it in a 3-ring binder or just using a pocket divider instead of the sheet protector.
Our Study Group
One of our fabulous mom's who has spearheaded this study group for the last 3 years has come up with wonderful ideas to supplement the History Pockets as she teaches our group of kids. First thing she did was to have all of the children draw a pioneer name from a hat that was associated with a fictional family group. Now the kids are divided into family groups that they use during our 2 hour class time as their small group for projects and assignments during class time.
The first at-home project was to write an autobiographic journal of their fictional character as they make the decision to go west, during the journey and when they arrive at their destination. For instance, my son who is 7, is the 49 year old father of his family group. We laugh a lot when we think about it and as I help him journal. My daughter is an orphan living with her cousins. So we had to brainstorm together how she became an orphan and what her circumstances were. It has been loads of fun to be creative together and see what they come up with! This will be quite the treasure when we finish it!
The Orphan Train
At the moment, I am in charge of the younger siblings that can't quite hang in there for the older kids discussion and activities. We are calling them the Orphans or the Orphan Train as their family group. We thought it would be too difficult to keep track of their fictional characters at this age!
We have been reading picture books, playing with legos and puzzles, coloring, singing, learning some Spanish words from one of our bi-lingual mama's, and watching pioneer videos that pertain to the topic of the day. We are trying to parallel the older kids as much as we can to keep the family history project unified!
What I have done for the 4-6 year olds that are needing something just for them and more user friendly, because they can't read yet and worksheets are beyond them, is to make a lapbook out of the pieces in the History Pocket book. We are working on it and it is not complete yet, but here is the beginning stages of the design I have come up with:
Cover Page
#1 I used cardstock to mount the printables on for durability, but construction paper will work fine too. I also used clear packing tape on both sides of the flaps so it would not tear out of the lapbook. Everything else is glued down using a permanent glue stick.
#2 The first flap has the fast facts on the back. The history about Moving west (blue) is taped at the top of the page so it can flip up for our fun things underneath!
#3 I assembled the time line and put just the last of the 3 panels on cardstock so the other 2 can be pulled out to the side for a view of the entire time line. When book is closed the time line is folded up. The map is part of a worksheet in the Pocket #1 section.
#4 Now we are looking at the back of the Pocket #2 title flap (blue). The page is designed much like the first with the history of the New Frontier (green) taped at the top of the page.
#5 Notice that the green paper has another story on the back and is now flipped up. The yellow paper has one more story and is taped on the right-hand side so that it may open up and reveal what is underneath as well!
I have more to do for the next pockets and will keep you posted! My goal is to use one page of the file folder for each pocket. I will be adding folders to this project so we can complete it!
More pictures, more ideas! Keep your eyes on the horizon and we'll get there!
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Mar. 18, 2008 - Untitled Comment
Just a thought- I do enjoy the projects in the History Pockets, cute series!
Have fun with it all, and enjoy them,
ali