We finished our tour through the 50 states. We raced with the builders of the Transcontinental Railroad and read about some immigrants from Sweden and Norway to our country. We learned about the sod house and how those people lived as they worked hard to make a home in the West. I would say the most interesting fact we learned towards the end there was that the Seagull is the state bird of Utah. Yes, that's right. A seagull is the state bird of a landlocked state. :) It seems that they honored the California Gull in 1848. Swarms of crickets were devouring the crops of the early Utah settlers when suddenly huge flocks of gulls appeared in the sky and devoured those crickets. Who knew the seagull could be a hero! We learned the story from this book, which was a fun addition to our curriculum this year. When we studied Washington, we went to the grocery store and counted the varieties of apples. There were 16. We taste-tested most of them and then dried them for snacks later. And for Idaho, we made mashed potatoes that night for dinner. Olivia got to learn how to peel potatoes. :) That is just a bit of what we learned. Just about every state had some interesting information or things to study. Well, maybe except Oklahoma. j/k! :) Olivia had a great time counting and learning facts about the states and can identify many of them on the map.
As a combination of history and science, we read about many inventors of the 1800 and 1900s. This included Alexander Graham Bell and his telephone. That corresponded with her sound science lessons that Jeremy blogged about last week. It seems that Alexander also taught in a deaf/hard of hearing school (the feelings on his work are both good and bad). He was a friend to Ann Sullivan and Helen Keller. She read a book and we watched the movie the Miracle Worker. Did you know that you can find it on You Tube? The version we watched is in 17 parts but nonetheless, it's there. :) There are also many animated video by Nest Entertainment. Olivia has been slowly learning her sign language alphabet. Another inventor we read about were the Wright Brothers and their Flying Machine. We flew paper airplanes and briefly talked about the science of aerodynamics. This was also a good way to review our bird studies from the fall. Scientist and Inventors observe and learn from God's natural creation to do their work.
This week was review week. We reread our history of the American Flag, sang our songs and went back through the history notebook and time line that we have made this year. The last thing she did was to write a letter to President Obama. She asked if he was going to write her back? :)
In addition to the history notebook, she has a notebook with her other subjects. It includes her bible verses from the year, her copywork of those verses, a summary of the art we covered this year, drawings of her science experiments, and drawings of each of the fieldtrips that we have taken. This notebook was a suggestion that came from MFW. These folders will be a great keepsake for Olivia and us to look back on. As for her actual artwork and crafts, we take pictures of each piece. Many of which have been on the blog. It is much easier to keep the memory that way but not have a pile of things to keep. For particular pieces we might send them to someone and Olivia has a board in her room that can display a few.
