Yesterday we had our Year 2 Unit 3 celebration.  I guess my M&D couldn't wait to come, they were here nearly an hour early! 

The foyer is our time machine area.  ;)  I post a sign (red cardstock) with the era of our celebration.  (Don't we usually like a road sign telling us where we are going?  These signs tell my parents where they ended up!  lol)  On each side of my year plan are the TOG binders my children use.  They contain all of their Accountability and Thinking Question sheets, maps, papers, etc for history and literature for the year.   

Here are the literature and history books we read.  DD did the display.

Here are extra literature books that were read.  They are excellent but unfortunately out of print. We read these a few years ago.  However, since all of our other literature books had been read, these were a terrific review into some history of the Puritans in Salem before the witch trials.  One of the books is missing from the stack because ds was reading it.

Here we are!  DD was Pocahontas.  DS was Squanto.  I was a praying Indian.  The children each gave speeches on who they were.  We were extremely busy last week with finishing up the term paper and power point presentation; I didn't have time to supervise the construction of these character speeches.  The first I heard them was during the presentation.  They were excellent!  Then when it got to my turn, I used Socratic questioning to help pull details from the children on who I represented.  Since I didn't have a name, my dh and dc named me.  DH decided to name me Running Deer, because I am always running around and he always calls me dear.  LOL  The children went through many names for me...Evening Primrose, Sweet Primrose, Quiet Waters, Rippling Brook.  I'm not sure what they ended up with but I liked them all!

Ds studied animal tracks and made a model.

Here is the display table. Their term papers are on the left.  A Squanto audio CD from Focus on the Family is at the bottom. This was excellent! To the right is a rabbit skin and some oyster shells they had collected while in Willliamsburg and Jamestown a few years ago. 

They wore most of their projects. DS made mocassins for himself and me.  He helped dd make hers.  DD designed and made this wampum/seashell necklace.  I did not have much involvement in this and I was quite pleased with how it turned out!  DD's work is usually quite random.  I've been encouraging her to use patterns in her beadwork.  This time she showed me the pattern in her beadwork she had designed.  I loved it!   

 DS made the hatchet, drawstring bag, bear necklace and wampum.  

He designed and made the bear claw necklace with an arrowhead, seashells and wampum.  He had made several extra strands of wampum, tied together on his belt.  Grandpa asked him if he had wampum and right on cue he showed him the wampum.  Now we can't find it anywhere!

The bulk of their time the last few weeks was invested in a 10 page research paper on the settling of the Thirteen Colonies.  They then used that information to do a power point presentation.  

We had lots of food.  DS helped make the New England clam chowder.  DD helped roast the turkey, bake pumpkin bread with walnuts and cranberries, cook cornmeal mush with cranberries topped with maple syrup, prepare trail mix with pumpkin seed, dried cranberries, dried blueberries and corn nuts, and bake blackberry cobbler with cornmeal crust.  We served apple cider to drink. 

 Then we closed with what is considered the first Christmas Carol written in America, "Twas the Moon in Wintertime."  Written with imagery the Huron Indians could understand, it is a carol about the Christ child written by Jesuit missionary Jean de Brebeuf.  He was later tortured and killed by the Iroquois Indians.  Here is the  history and words.  Here is the tune.