Our Week in Review

This week in history we learned about the writing of the Constitution.  Honestly, the fact that so many different delegates, from different states, with very different ideas about how to run a government, agreed on such a detailed, wide ranging set of rules for our new country, in only three months, is absolutely miraculous!

For eight years we had been governed by the Articles of Confederation, and it provided only for a rather powerless Congress (which could make laws but had no power to enforce them), with no executive or judicial branches.  It made the federal government so weak, our founders were rightly concerned about a "hostile takeover" from any of the big European powers.  So they convened the Constitutional Conventions to work on a replacement document.

They argued fiercely over the issue of states rights versus the power of the federal government.  What issues would each body be allowed to manage?  And they argued over whether new states added to the Union would enter as slave states or as free.  The issue producing the greatest deadlock was over representation ~ would states be represented according to their population, or by a one-state one-vote rule?  It was only after Benjamin Franklin suggested that prayer be offered every morning before deliberation began, that a breakthrough was made. Roger Sherman, a delegate from Connecticut, suggested that both forms of representation be used, and his suggestion saved the day!

Here is a part of Benjamin Franklin's resolution to add prayer to the daily agenda:

"I have lived, Sir, a long time, and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth- that God Governs in the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without his notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without his aid?" 

Isn't that marvelous?

We read and studied the Constitution in its entirety.  It is an amazing document!  It seems that our founding fathers thought of virtually everything in their quest to ensure checks and balances.  Several delegates were concerned about individual liberties, but the Bill of Rights was intentionally tackled later, to make the ratification process go more smoothly.  We will be studying the Bill of Rights next week!

In other subjects, son L did two physics experiments this week involving electricity.

One of them called for the making of an electroscope, which can detect the presence of electricity. When the balloon, rubbed on his hair to create static electricity, was held close to the blue glass, the strips of foil hanging on the inside would move, indicating the presence of electricity.  He did it several times and it was pretty cool to watch!

Making some type of game that could actually be played was the challenge in Little Man's lego class at co-op this week.  It warmed my heart to see son  C voluntarily helping him!  His original plan was to make a lego "bop it," but that proved rather challenging, so he changed it to hockey.  He made a tiny little puck, two sticks, and two goals.  It was enthusiastically played by several kids in his lego class.

The week ended with a wonderful date night - hubby and I went with some friends to a Matthew West concert!!  It was fantastic!

Our Week in Review

In recent years the ratio of amount of school work done for classes at home versus the amount of work done for classes elsewhere has shifted.  Our high schoolers do about half or more of their work for classes they are taking at our co-op, so they are turning in work and reporting to other teachers.  I love keeping my hands in a few choice subjects at home, but also appreciate the accountability our children must learn by being responsible to teachers other than me.

Son C is taking biology at co-op, and he had an assignment to make a cell model of any kind of cell.  He chose to make an edible eukaryotic cell.  He used marshmallows for the cell membrane, and red twizzlers for the cyto-skeleton.  Into this he poured jello (for the cytoplasm), a truffle (for the nucleus), gob-stoppers (for the vesicles and vacuoles), and gummy worms (for the mitocondria).

Believe it or not, he ate this after class! (at least parts of it!)

We took a week off our curriculum-assigned reading for history, and just read tons of library books about the Revolutionary War.  It was wonderful!  We read this gem of a book about one of the three delegates to the Second Continental Congress from Delaware, Caesar Rodney.  Are you familiar with his story?  I had not ever heard it before.  The delegates believed that the decision to break away from Britain needed to be unanimous.  That meant for the Declaration of Independence to be signed and sent to Britain, each of the 13 Colonies needed to vote in the affirmative, or abstain from voting.   Delaware was a "swing" colony, meaning that one delegate intended to vote yes, and one intended to vote no.  The third delegate was Caesar Rodney.  He was called to his home in Dover, Delaware, 80 miles away from Philadelphia, the day before the vote was to be taken.  A courier was sent after him with an urgent message to return to Philadelphia for the vote.  He set out in a small buggy from his home, with rain threatening, and rode as fast as possible toward Philadelphia.

The rain began falling and before long the roads were so muddy they prevented Rodney's buggy from traveling any further.  He left the buggy behind and continued on horseback.  He rode through a terrible rain, thunder, and lightning storm, all day and ALL NIGHT LONG, reaching Philadelphia in the afternoon of the next day, July 2, 1776.  Still wearing his riding boots and spurs, he strode into the State House just in time for the vote!  Caesar Rodney voted for independence, putting his colony of Delaware in the "yay" column.  Twelve of the colonies voted for independence, with New York abstaining (New York later cast its support behind the resolution).  It was unanimous!

One more amazing substory in the incredible history of the making of our country!

We also read about David Bushnell and the first ever submarine that he invented (used in the war, but not responsible for the sinking of any Britian warships), Polish engineers Thaddeus Kosciuszko and Casimir Pulaski who made victories at Saratoga and West Point possible with their brilliant ideas for fortifications and defenses, such as a "great chain" strung across the Hudson River to prevent British ships from sailing up it, the determined Henry Knox who transported 59 cannons 300 miles from Fort Ticonderoga to Boston, finally routing the entrenched British soldiers from that beleaguered city, and the brave Nathan Hale, who was captured in New York as a Patriot spy, and famously said as he was about to be hung by the British, "I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country."

These people were made of strong stuff!

It was a good week, and I am looking forward to next week's in depth look at the making of the Constitution.  So timely for my boys right now!

Transparency Map Project

Our history curriculum comes with a wonderful set of maps to learn geography right along with history.  For rhetoric (high school) students they suggest using transparency overlays for the mapwork, rather than straight paper maps, and we chose to do this with our daughter G this past year.  It was something she really enjoyed, making geography more "artsy" for her, and therefore probably sticking better in her memory!

Here is a set of pictures showing how the transparency maps work.  These are from this past spring, as we learned about the Revolutionary War.  First she started with a base map that was printed onto cardstock.  It had boundary lines for the colonies already printed on it, as well as some geographical features such as mountains and major rivers.  She added nothing to this base map (sometimes the base maps are more sparse and I have her add a few features directly to the cardstock base map first).

This particular set of map overlays spanned two weeks.  The first week she did two overlays, and the second week just one.  The first overlay showed the northern, middle, and southern colonies (in different colors).

Later that week, the second overlay showed early battles of the Revolutionary War. Those won by the Americans are shown in blue, while those won by the British are shown in red.  Place names (of the battles) are also labeled.

The following week our daughter added this third overlay to show the later battles of the war.  She lined up all the info in the "key" so that no writing would be on top of the writing from a previous overlay (click on photos to see larger).

When looking at the whole thing, as long as the transparencies are lined up, it is not confusing at all, but a wonderful visual representation of dates, places, and battles that she learned about!

We have found that not all weeks lend themselves well to a transparency project; on those weeks our daughter does paper maps like everyone else.  But whenever possible (I do try to look ahead and plan for it) the transparency maps are a fun way for her to do map making!

Our Week In Review

This is actually for the week before last, but the new way blogger has me uploading and manipulating photos took a bit of time for me to figure out, so I was avoiding posts with pictures unless absolutely necessary (such as for my daughter's birthday!  that's necessary!)  haha

We are up to the Revolutionary War in history, which is staggering to me considering that we started the year at the fall of the Roman Empire, around 400 A.D.  Last week we had a tea party!  While we drank our tea we discussed all the various taxes that King George III and the British Parliament levied on the colonies, and the reasons for the colonists' initial rebellion against the crown.  We also talked about the role of tea in the colonists' lives, and how to behave properly while drinking it.

We tend to associate tea parties now with little girls, but in colonial times both women and men drank tea on a daily basis.  In addition to being a staple drink, the process of making, serving, and drinking tea was something of an "event" and a social convention.  I don't have a tea strainer large enough to steep an entire pot at once, so we used tea bags, but we discussed how the tea the colonist's purchased would have been loose tea.

We also talked about what they would have put in their tea to sweeten it.  Most likely honey rather than sugar, as sugar was largely imported and therefore very expensive.  We pretended that I was a wealthy colonist, so we had both honey and sugar available. :-)   Several of the children were brave enough to try milk (our substitute for cream) in their tea as well.

We practiced good manners at the table!

From our reading we learned that the colonists were not just upset that the crown had taxed their tea and many other daily household items, but that they had taxed them without the colonists having representation in Parliament.   And they had taxed only the British colonists, not the British subjects living in Britain.  Many of the colonists, even at the start of the war, still considered themselves loyal British citizens.  If King George III had allowed them representation in Parliament, it is entirely possible that the Revolutionary War would not have happened at that time.

After the Boston Massacre in 1770, and the various taxes that were levied both before and after that time, tensions increased almost to the breaking point.  The breaking point came when the British responded to the infamous Boston Tea Party by closing the port of Boston to all ships, and posting soldiers on the narrow spit of land connecting the peninsula of Boston to greater Massachusetts, thereby severely restricting the flow of merchandise into Boston, and controlling who went in and who went out.  The people of Boston had their very own version of The Starving Time (original starving time happened during the winter of 1610 at the Jamestown Colony in Virginia).

Forget tea, they could not get basic food supplies.  Shops could not replenish their shelves and soon there was nothing to buy.  No raw materials for any of the trades could be obtained.  Work came to a standstill.  Many people lost everything they had.  Sickness was rampant and many people died.  Much as a parent may punish a rebellious child too harshly and wound their spirit, King George did not know that his heavy hand would wound the feelings of loyalty so deeply there was no turning back.

It was perfect timing that Paul Revere's midnight ride happened the night of April 18, and the morning of April 19, 1775, exactly 237 years before our little tea party!  The first shots of the Revolutionary War were fired at Lexington on April 19, a few hours after Paul's ride had ended.

Then this past week we learned about the early battles of the Revolutionary War.  How and where it started.  Such gripping tales can be told of those early battles!  It is so unlikely that the colonists would have had early success, but they did.  We passed around a poetry book, taking turns reading Longfellow's poem Paul Revere's Ride.

I love that poem, and the last paragraph bears repeating:

"So through the night rode Paul Revere,
And so through the night went his cry of alarm
To every Middlesex village and farm -
A cry of defiance and not of fear,
A voice in the darkness, a knock at the door,
And a word that shall echo forevermore!
For, borne on the night-wind of the past,
Through all our history to the last,
In the hour of darkness and peril and need,
The people will waken and listen to hear
The hurrying hoofbeats of that steed,
And the midnight message of Paul Revere."