Ancient Mycenae

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January 12, 2016 By Jennifer Leave a Comment

We took a day trip to Mycenae.

The archaeological site of Mycenae comprises the fortified acropolis and surrounding funerary and habitation sites. Most of the visible monuments date from 1350 to 1200 BC.

We stopped into the little museum first.

We were so excited we go to wander all over the ruins and explore.

The Lion’s Gate is still magnificent, even headless.

We even walked down into a cistern. We used our phones as flashlights.

The tombs of Clytemnestra and Agamemnon are enormous.

Adult tickets are €8 and kids are FREE!
Ticket is valid for the Archaeological Site, the Museum, and the Treasure of Atreus.

The Treasure of Atreus is across the street. We just walked, but there is no sidewalk. There is a little trailer with ice cold water that’s super affordable.

Check out our Eating Through Greece post! See our whole Greek trip itinerary here.

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Ancient Olympia

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January 7, 2016 By Jennifer Leave a Comment

We took a day trip to the ancient city of Olympia.

This is where athletes lived and trained during ancient times.

There are many temples and training buildings in great condition.

Tori ran around the Olympia stadium.

The entryway into the stadium:

Outside the entrance were statues erected from fines of athletes who cheated. On the bases of the statues were the atheletes’ names and nature of penalty. I think we should reenact this practice.

The track is 212.54 m (697.3 ft) long and 28.5 m (94 ft) wide and surrounded by grassy banks on all sides. All the seats were made of mud and on the southern slope there was a stone platform, the exedra, on which the Hellanodikai, the judges, would sit. The stadium could hold 50,000 spectators.
The games were held between 776 BC and 393 AD. The games were held every four years at the beginning, and the middle of the “Great Year”. The Great Year, was a way that people in Greece would determine the difference between solar and lunar years.
There were three stadiums constructed. The first one, (Stadium I), was created during the archaic period. It was mainly used to hold games for the contestants of nearby city-states of Greece. (Stadium II) was built to the east of the first stadium, this was built to add on events. In addition, a racetrack was also built. It was built ideally next to a large hillside that served as a natural sitting area. The third stadium, (Stadium III), was built mainly to hold larger audiences. Along the embankments surrounding the stadium are large wells that not only served as water offerings, but also served as votive offerings, mostly of bronze.
For all participating city-states, a sacred truce was made by the three kings Iphitus of Elis, Lycourgus of Sparta, and Cleostenes of Pisa. The truce ensured that no one would be hostile towards one another and it also ensured a suspension of any executions for the duration of the games. From the lists that we have of victors from these Olympic games, we know that the Olympic games eventually brought in many champions from different parts of the world. Champions were from as far as Sicily and Northern Africa. See more.

Guests and patrons stayed in a fancy house with a mosaic pool and lovely courtyard.

Here’s what it used to look like:

Alex liked the Philippeion, commissioned by Alexander the Great.

I just wanted to see the workshop of Pheidias!

The building was erected in the second half of the fifth century, when Pheidias, after completing the sculptures for the Athenian Acropolis, went to Olympia to work on the statue of Zeus. Excavation finds and pottery date it precisely to 430-420 BC. Later the workshop became a place of worship containing an altar for sacrifices to various gods, which Pausanias saw in the second century AD. In the fifth century AD, a Christian basilica was erected over its ruins.
The workshop, a rectangular hall oriented east-west with an entrance on the east side, had the same dimensions (32 x18 x 14.50m) as the cella of the temple of Zeus, probably to facilitate the construction of the statue. Built of shell-limestone, it was divided into three naves by two rows of columns. The statue probably stood in the central, wider nave. It had a wooden core which the sculptor revetted with gold, ivory and glass plaques. These were worked in the adjacent south wing of the workshop, which sheltered the craftsmen. A wealth of excavation finds, including clay matrices for the folds of the statue’s robe, pieces of ivory and semi-precious stone, bone goldsmith’s tools, glass flower petals and a most important small black-painted oinochoe inscribed Pheidio eimi, or “I belong to Pheidias” all come from this area. See more.

There’s a nice museum where we cooled off and saw some of the artifacts from the workshop of Pheidias.

The girls liked the statue of Victoria Nike.

This was one of our favorite trips. It was the least anticipated and we were so pleasantly surprised. It was quite warm that day and the ruins are extensive. There’s a shop by the parking lot for treats and a nice cafe in the museum where we got ice cream.

Combo tickets for adults for the ruins and museum are €9 and kids are FREE!

Check out our Eating Through Greece post! See our whole Greek trip itinerary here.

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Visit to Dachau

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September 28, 2015 By Jennifer 1 Comment

After our idyllic weekend in Bavaria, we drove home past Munich and visited Dachau.

It was a humbling experience for our family visiting Dachau to learn about WWII history.

We recently had studied about Dachau and other concentration camps in our history studies.

There is a tragic beauty to the area with its trees, memorials, and austere gravel path.

We were quiet and wide-eyed as we emerged from the visitor’s center and restrooms, and seemed to leave modern society.

There are stations with signs throughout for a self-guided tour.

We followed the path which mimics that of the prisoners entering the concentration camp.

I whispered explanations and read the station signs aloud to the children.

Station 1: In Front of the Jourhaus

The Dachau Concentration Camp opened with the arrival of the first prisoners on March 22, 1933. This is a remnant of the train platform and tracks.

The Jourhaus served as the main exit and entrance to the prisoners’ camp and as the main office of the camp SS.

Station 2: The Jourhaus

The Jourhaus served as the main exit and entrance to the prisoners’ camp and as the main office of the camp SS personnel.

The ominous front gate with its ironic motto: Work Makes Free.

I shed tears as I walked through these gates.

Station 3: International Memorial

Officially dedicated in 1968, the Internationl Monument was designed by the Yugoslavian artist and concentration camp survivor, Nandor Glid.

Station 4: Maintenance Building

Today the exhibition documenting the history of the Dachau concentration camp is located in the rooms of the former maintenance building.

We rushed through the museum last since I wanted to make sure we saw the memorials.

We skipped the video as recommended for ages 12+. They were locking the doors as we finished the last part of the exhibit.

During the ordeal of roll call, the prisoners were confronted with the inscription painted on the roof of the maintenance building which read: “There is one path to freedom. Its milestones are: obedience, honesty, cleanliness, sobriety, diligence, orderliness, self-sacrifice, truthfulness, love of the fatherland.”

Station 5: Shunt Room

This is the section of the Maintenance Building where prisoners were admitted.

Station 6: Prisoner Baths

Also in the Maintenance Building. The baths were the last station of the admission procedure.

Station 7: Courtyard and Bunker

There were three detention buildings (bunkers) in camp.

Station 8: Roll-call Square

The open area was able to hold fifty thousand people.

May the example of those who were exterminated here between 1933 and 1945 because of their fight against National Socialism unite the living in their defense of peace and freedom and in reverence of human dignity.

Station 9: Barracks

A total of 34 barracks were located on the right and left of the camp road. It was pretty devastating to view the conditions of the 2 reconstructed barracks. Outlined beds of gravel show the location of the former barracks. They have numbers in front of each bed.

Station 10: Camp Road

A line of evenly-spaced poplar trees was planted on each side of the camp road in 1937. The original trees were cut down in 1964 and the current trees were planted in the 1980s.

I was reminded of this poem by my favorite poet:

Wind shakes the big poplar,
quicksilvering
The whole tree in a single sweep.
What bright scale fell and left this needle quivering?
What loaded balances have come to grief?

~Seamus Heaney

And Psalm 137: 1-6:

By the rivers of Babylon we sat and wept
    when we remembered Zion.
There on the poplars
    we hung our harps,
for there our captors asked us for songs,
    our tormentors demanded songs of joy;
    they said, “Sing us one of the songs of Zion!”

How can we sing the songs of the Lord
    while in a foreign land?
If I forget you, Jerusalem,
    may my right hand forget its skill.
May my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth
    if I do not remember you,
if I do not consider Jerusalem
    my highest joy.

There are seven watchtowers. The grass was off-limits. Prisoners were shot if they touched the grass.

Station 11: Crematorium

We did not go into this area. There are some monuments.

Station 12: Religious Memorials

Carmelite Convent
The Protestant Church of Reconciliation
The Jewish Memorial
The Russian-Orthodox Chapel
The Mortal Agony of Christ Chapel (below)

Station 13: International Memorial

This part of the monument recalls the triangle badges that marked every prisoner as of 1937.

At the end of the monument are the words “Never Again” in Yiddish using Hebrew letters, and in French, English, German and Russian.

An urn with the ashes of the unknown concentration camp prisoner lies before it and recalls the fate of the thousands of people whose corpses were burnt in the crematorium. It was buried here in May 1967. The panel on the left narrow side of the monument notes further: “This monument was erected in honor of the tens of thousands of martyrs, who died here as victims of National Socialist tyranny and was dedicated on September 8, 1968 by the Comité International de Dachau.”

When we left, we started to walk down the Path of Remembrance, but it was too far and we were all exhausted.

The commandant’s house:

Former Business Enterprises of the Dachau Concentration Camp

We saw this poignant memorial as we left the parking lot. We didn’t notice it when we turned in.

My children were aged 5, 8, 9, and 14 when we visited Dachau. They understood and were respectful of all the monuments and exhibits. You know your kids best, if they can handle and understand such an experience. It was very moving.

Visitor Info:

Open daily from 9:00 am to 5:00 pm. Closed December 24.

Entry is free. Parking fees are €3,00 per car.

View the guidelines for visitors here. (We saw a man wearing a pretty graphic inappropriate T-shirt. Don’t be that guy.)

It’s about 4 hours from Ramstein and 5.5 hours from Spangdahlem.

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How We Do History

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May 25, 2015 By Jennifer 7 Comments

We primarily use Tapestry of Grace for our homeschool.

It encompasses most of our curriculum needs and we only add math, science, and foreign language to complete our studies.

Tapestry of Grace is a four-year cycle, similar to other classical history programs.

Year 1 – Creation to the Fall of Rome
Year 2 – Middle Ages, from Byzantium to the New World
Year 3 – Nineteenth Century, from Napoleon to Teddy Roosevelt
Year 4 – 1900 to the Present Day

We used Story of the World for our first four years of homeschooling but Liz studied that so comprehensively that we needed something more in-depth after that. We tried compiling our own materials for a year, but I preferred some guidance. ToG uses Story of the World as a spine for upper grammar level.

Each year is divided into four units. Each unit is divided into 9 weeks. Within the units are color-coded study materials and resource lists for the four learning levels – lower grammar, upper grammar (logic), dialectic, and rhetoric.

I like the division of four levels instead of the typical three because it encourages me to include my littles as soon as they are able to sit for read alouds and some seat work. And now, there is even a Primer level (at an additional cost) so even preschoolers can join in the family fun! We previewed it and it wasn’t that great.

I don’t always follow the curriculum outline completely. Often I look at the overview and make a checklist for the unit and we work through that until it’s completed. We utilize the library regularly. We can’t possibly purchase all the recommended books!

The 9-week units last us between 3-12 weeks, depending on the availability of material and interest. There are 36 weeks in each year, four units of nine weeks each.

The subject threads available for each week are:

History
Writing
Literature
Geography
Fine Arts and Activities
Church History/Worldview
Enrichment
Government (high school level and an additional cost)
Philosophy (high school level and an additional cost)

We’re currently finishing up year 4. I am a bit disappointed how sparse the curriculum is for the last unit and a half for year 4. There has been much great literature written and history made during my lifetime and I have to pull it together myself, since there is so little listed in the curriculum that I paid for.

The curriculum is biased towards conservative Christian and I pick and choose what I include and omit (we will not be reading anything by John Piper nor watching Left Behind), often supplementing so my kids get a more well-rounded idea of history and world events.

How we study history:

Geography
Timelines
Literature
Living Books
Church History
Art
Music

Maps and Geography

Most weeks, the kids have a map to label and color. It helps to visualize where in the world we are studying.

We have large world and USA maps on the wall too, for quick reference. We have several atlases and apps too.

The kids label physical and political maps, even my youngest!

I supplement our map pages with curriculum from Knowledge Quest – printables and geography galore!

We also create fun maps – with cookies, salt dough, cookie dough, or homemade play dough!

Timelines

This is the first year we’ve completed a big timeline. Tori and I essentially pasted the timeline images (from Story of the World Activity Books) on Index cards. She colored the flags but we left the others black and white. She put them in order and helped hole punch them. I strung them up with yarn in our homeschool classroom.

My Level 3 daughter completes a Book of Centuries page every week as part of her history notebooking.

Literature

Great classic literature to accompany our history studies and the time periods we learn.

You can read our ninth grade reading list here (some were family read alouds). View all my book lists.

The literature thread has core and in-depth options each week. Most are living books that bring history to life through the eyes of real or fictional characters.

Living History Books

I love, love, love the reading lists. So many choices and we want to read them all!

We love biographies and historical fiction.

History assignments are divided into core, in-depth, textbook, and supplement.

You can see our Great Depression Unit Study with our reading lists and activities.

We were ecstatic to read War Dogs about Winston Churchill and then meet a new friend who has the same kind of poodle as Rufus!

We all thoroughly enjoyed The Secret of Priest’s Grotto. It was just a lucky find at the library! Amazing story.

Church History and Worldview

Our evening read alouds are missionary stories. The whole family gathers and I read the missionary who corresponds to our history each week.

My favorites are the Christian Heroes series. Well-written and easy to read and listen to, even for my young son. I want to collect them all!

Arts and Crafts

I fail miserably at arts and crafts.

We study artists and go see art often. We’ve visited several art museums this year – Stadel in Frankfurt, The Louvre and d’Orsay in Paris, the van Gogh, Rijksmuseum, and Mauritshuis in Amsterdam. We loved the history and culture in Greece. We learned about glass and lace making in Venice.

I love Artistic Pursuits which often corresponds to our history timeline.

I vow to do more arts and crafts projects with the kids since they love it so much.

Music History and Appreciation

The kids and I love to listen to music that corresponds to our history time period.

One of our favorite books is The Gift of Music. It’s a great intro to composers.

We look up YouTube videos or search on Spotify for music and often, we notebook about the ones who interest us most.

Liz practices ragtime on the keyboard:

Videos

The enrichment thread lists recommended videos that support the topics we learn about that week.

Some films for our history lessons for year 4:

Rough Riders, Titanic, Gallipoli, Lawrence of Arabia, Chariots of Fire, The Inn of the Sixth Happiness, Life is Beautiful, Schindler’s List, The Pianist, The Book Thief, Unbroken, Farewell My Concubine, Ghandi, Malcolm X, Mr. Holland’s Opus, Blood Diamond, Hotel Rwanda and more!

We like PBS and the library if we can’t stream a film on Netflix or Amazon.

Field Trips

Recommendations for field trips, both real and virtual are listed on the website for each unit.

We’ve been very fortunate to be able to travel and see many sites as we study.

We enjoyed seeing Yellowstone National Park a few years ago.

We drove to Georgia a year ago just as we finished up studying the Civil War and we got to see an antebellum home and Stone Mountain.

We visited the Pearl Harbor sites when we lived in Hawaii.

We have traveled all over Europe for three years and visited many historical sites and museums.

Notebooking

Each week has threads with pages for activities, writing, and notebooking options.

I often gather materials and design themed unit studies for seasons, time periods, and interests.

The Student Activities Pages are an optional purchase and I use those mostly for grammar level. Liz still likes some of the graphic organizers for her history notebooking.

*All the following Tapestry of Grace pages are available as a free sample!*

This is the high school writing assignments page:

This is a Dialectic Level page. She completes the Accountability and Thinking Questions in a journal and we discuss them.

This is the Rhetoric Level accountability and thinking questions. They’re a little more in depth. It all starts to come together!

This is a Rhetoric Level page for church history and government (an optional supplement).

We often read missionary stories (sometimes a different selection than the booklist) and discuss the questions.

This is the Rhetoric Level Literature page. My daughter answers the questions in a journal and we discuss.

You can download high school credits pages for the Rhetoric Level, scope and sequence, and notebooking page templates for free from the website.

I also like to supplement the SAP with printable Notebooking Pages and we often make our own for biographies and topics of interest with the web app:

Supporting links offer great resources for each unit.

Supplements to a year’s curriculum:

Map Aids $25
Writing Aids $40-60 (I have never needed this and regret the purchase)
Lapbooks (options for ready made or pdf files) $15-75
Evaluations $15 per level per year
Pop Quiz (for dads) $50 (We never used these)
Government $15
Shorter Works (Literature Anthology) $25 (I just bought a Norton’s used)
Poetics (Literature Handbook) $20-50
Additional Printed Student Activities Packs $15-35 (great to save printer ink!)
Primer Level $49.90 (we didn’t care for this)
Lit Studies $29.95 (we don’t like these plans)

A digital edition of a year plan (updated forever) is $170 and print edition is $295.

Overall, Tapestry of Grace is the most comprehensive program we have seen for classical and Charlotte Mason style homeschooling. We love that it encompasses literature and history and offers so many options and choices.

My eldest just began college and is running the show in her history and English courses, so it’s all been worth it!

Linking up: A Little Pinch of Perfect, All Kinds of Things, The Jenny Evolution, Rich Faith Rising, Happy and Blessed Home, 123Homeschool4Me, Hip Homeschooling,

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Great Depression Unit Study

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May 11, 2015 By Jennifer 1 Comment

We’ve been learning about difficult times in history.

The Great Depression was a dark time in American history. And it led into a dark time for the world.

Some of our books were hard to read and the imagery was hard to view.

We are so fortunate and have never known hardship.

The girls read lots of books – nonfiction, living books, and fiction.

We completed notebooking pages and a lapbook.

We studied the causes and effects of The Great Depression and the Dust Bowl.

We learned about erosion, crop rotation, wind.

We discussed how wind can be destructive or beautiful and helpful.

We looked at wind in art. We love to study van Gogh’s paintings of wind. We looked through our pictures of recent museum tours.

We studied the photography of Dorothea Lange and read biographies about her.

We really enjoyed the books Restless Spirit by Elizabeth Partridge and Migrant Mother by Don Nardo.

We always love biographies by Mike Venezia.

We also looked at photography in these books: The Dust Bowl Through the Lens by Martin W. Sandler, Who We Were by Michael Williams, and We Were There Too by Phillip Hoose.

Photo project:

I asked the girls to go out and photograph beauty from ashes, something that might not be an especially lovely or photogenic scene, to search for beauty and find it in austerity.

Tori chose this bark-stripped tree stump with moss, lichen, and mushrooms growing from it:

Kate found the bricks under this train trestle bridge lovely in their patches of color and the dampness seeping through:

They also photographed rocks, grass, moss and a peeling, rotten wooden bench.

They see beauty everywhere.

Resources we use and love:

Elizabeth is currently 14 and in 9th grade and Tori and Kate are in 3rd grade. These are the resources we enjoyed, with supervision.

Notebooking and Lapbooks:

American Presidents pages (we studied Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal)
Ration book activity and lapbook materials from Homeschool Share
The Great Depression Express Lapbook from A Journey Through Learning
Notebooking pages from Homeschool Helper

Books:

Kit books from the American Girl series by Valerie Tripp
Mimmy and Sophie by Miriam Cohen
Bud, Not Buddy by Christopher Paul Curtis
Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
Potato by Kate Lied
Children of the Great Depression by Russell Freedman
Children of the Dust Bowl by Jerry Stanley
Children of the Dust Days by Karen Mueller Coombs
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Out of the Dust by Karen Hesse
Sounder by William H. Armstrong
The Green Mile by Stephen King
Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen
The Color Purple by Alice Walker
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

Movies:

Of course, use discretion. Not all of these are suitable for all audiences. My younger kids did not watch many of these.

Seabiscuit
Annie
The Great Gatsby
Chicago
Cinderella Man
Oscar
The Godfather
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
Radioland Murders
Shirley Temple movies
Modern Times or any Charlie Chaplin film
O Brother, Where Art Thou?
Public Enemies
Road to Perdition

There’s a lot of crossover with the books being made into movies, and I usually want the kids to read it before they watch it. We only have so much time and Liz probably won’t get to do year 4 again.

Do you have anything to add to the list?

Linking up: Enchanted Homeschooling Mom, The Educators Spin on It, Living Montessori Now, Kiddycharts, B Inspired Mama, Simple Life of a Fire Wife, A Life in Balance, Burlap and Babies, Golden Reflections, Los Gringos Locos, All Kinds of Things, True Aim Education, Milk and Cuddles, Adventures of Mel, Natural Beach Living, Hip Homeschool Moms, Living and Learning at Home, Witty Hoots, The Jenny Evolution, 123Homeschool4Me, Happy and Blessed Home, Wife Mom Geek, Christian Montessori Network, Blessed Learners

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Notebooking Early US History

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October 17, 2013 By Jennifer Leave a Comment

This month, we’ve been studying our nation’s beginnings.

In light of the government shutdown, it’s been interesting to see how simple things were 225 years ago.

Thankfully, my husband got a paycheck, but we know many who have not and they are struggling. We pray this all gets resolved quickly.

We use Tapestry of Grace as our history core. We’ve almost completed the first unit of year three!

Liz is pretty fascinated by the election process. She loves the Presidential Game.

We watch Schoolhouse Rock videos and do lots and lots and lots of reading.

We all loved this book about the Supreme Court:

We love A Journey Through Learning lapbooks and notebooking!

Check out this lapbook that worked for our unit:

Here’s the official page of the USS Constitution. Oh, I want to go see it!

I printed out this Old Ironsides coloring page for the younger three. Fascinating story.

Learn about sailing with these fun games and activities!

Liz loves to make her own timelines, biography pages, and write about her learning in history and other subjects. She wrote a timeline of the events leading up the War of 1812. She’s notebooking about abolitionism and Lewis and Clark.

We’re reading about Sacajawea and Tecumseh and I’m loving learning along with the kids!

Our favorite resource for notebooking is Notebooking Pages.

Kate and I made a cotton gin with Story of the World!

What are your favorite history resources?

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Middle East Unit Study

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August 10, 2013 By Jennifer 1 Comment

We learned about the Middle East with Books, Movies, and Notebooking.

History Series:
American Revolutionary War
Civil War
World War I
World War II
Vietnam and Korea (coming soon!)
Iraq and Afghanistan

Too few Americans only know about the Middle East from Fox News, Breitbart, and other news outlets. They don’t know any of the history.

They don’t understand. Some don’t even want to understand or learn.

There is beauty in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, and other Middle East countries.

People are not our enemy. God loves all of us in this world. The moms and dads love their children in the Middle East just like we love our babies here in America.

For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Ephesians 6:12

Please pray with me for a more peaceful world.

This is a difficult concept. Our children have never known our country to not be at war. I remember when Desert Shield and Desert Storm took place when I was in high school. My parents worked for the U.S. Army and provided support for our forces in Iraq.
CNN and other news channels show their biased accounts of what’s going on “over there” but history is written by the winners.

The children aren’t winning.

9/11 disrupted the world and brought many Americans together but tore many others apart. Sides were chosen. America is the world’s police.
The children aren’t winning.

My husband deployed to Kandahar Air Field in 2011 for almost 8 months. He protected me from many stories and that’s probably best. I know he saw many horrors there. He worked in the medical facility there and in the blood bank. The medics cared for all injured, no matter whose side they fought for. My husband’s team collected and provided blood from UN Coalition personnel for injured Afghani civilians and soldiers (and even child soldiers) from both sides of that country’s conflict, in addition to our own.

The children aren’t winning.
My husband has those memories forever.
Will the war ever end?

I have to admit that we haven’t really exposed our kids to these events much yet. We are protecting their innocence as long as possible. It’s such a scary world we live in. The news is full of terrorist attacks and we just don’t discuss it much. We are diligent to be aware of our surroundings when we travel. We realize we are very American in a very hostile environment.

We’re losing much history, art, and culture with war in the Middle East.

Resources

Movies

(use discretion)

Books

(use discretion)

We are very respectful of the military and very patriotic.
Recently, my eldest joined Civil Air Patrol and you can read about it here: My Civil Air Patrol cadet.

Please join me in praying for our world.

Follow Jennifer Lambert’s board US History on Pinterest.

Follow Jennifer Lambert’s board Modern History on Pinterest.

You might also like: Raising Readers and How We Study History.

Check out the rest of the Crew posts!

Do you have resources to add? How do you teach this difficult time period to your kids?

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World War II Unit Study

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August 8, 2013 By Jennifer 9 Comments

We studied World War II with Notebooking, Books, Videos, and Trips.

Series:

American Revolutionary War

Civil War

World War I

World War II

Iraq and Afghanistan

World War II Unit

We watched in horror as the world erupted in war. When American was attacked at Pearl Harbor, it was devastating to Americans.

We defended our nation and its people and fought valiantly in Europe and the Pacific.

The genocidal state of Germany made the rapid extermination of a cultural and racial group {including women and children} an unprecedented event in the history of the world. Almost 6 million or 78% of the Jews in Europe were murdered during WWII, along with millions of others, such as Slavs, disabled, persons of color, Freemasons, homosexuals, and Jehovah’s Witnesses.

Few knew about the situation and even fewer tried to help.

Travel

Resources

Movies

{use discretion}

Books

The Boy in the Striped Pajamas
The Hiding Place
Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl
The Devil’s Arithmetic
Number the Stars
Hidden: A Child’s Story of the Holocaust
Yankee Doodle Gals
Early Sunday Morning
Meet Molly
Catch-22
World Wars
A History of US: War, Peace, and All That Jazz: 1918-1945 A History of US
Terezin: Voices from the Holocaust
Baseball Saved Us
Terrible Things: An Allegory of the Holocaust
Jars of Hope: How One Woman Helped Save 2,500 Children During the Holocaust
The Yellow Star: The Legend of King Christian X of Denmark
Star of Fear, Star of Hope
The Butterfly
Passage to Freedom: The Sugihara Story
The Little Riders
The Harmonica
A Father’s Promise
The Cats in Krasinski Square
The War That Saved My Life
War Boy: A Wartime Childhood
When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit
Benno and the Night of Broken Glass
The Bracelet
The Whispering Town
Six Million Paper Clips: The Making Of A Children’s Holocaust Memorial

Follow Jennifer Lambert’s board US History on Pinterest.

Follow Jennifer Lambert’s board Modern History on Pinterest.

You might also like: Raising Readers and How We Study History

Check out the rest of the Crew posts!

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World War I Unit Study

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August 7, 2013 By Jennifer 6 Comments

We studied WWI with Notebooking, Books, Videos, and Trips.

Series:
American Revolutionary War
Civil War
World War I
World War II
Iraq and Afghanistan

World War 1 Unit

American military forces

The most destructive war the world had seen and the first genuinely world war began exactly 99 years ago. Called the Great War until World War II. The history books focus on Europe, but there were campaigns in Asia, the Pacific, and Africa too. Many Europeans military fought in conflicts all over the world while Americans supported European interests on the Western front.

But I don’t want my kids to have just an American view of the war – or the world. We study all world history. We learned about the Commonwealth and their interests during WWI. We learned about German issues.

It’s important to have the larger picture to understand why it happened, lest we forget.