September 11th, the perfect time to talk about American heroes, America and The Flag. With today being Patriot Day, I started off on a lesson on how this day came to be. We read a kid friendly outline on what happened here in America on 9/11/01 here on this website along with a short video on the Attack of the Twin Towers. Which led us into a discussion on everyday heroes and who helped us that day and everyday! What it means to be a true American Hero.
As it would be, Liam is in Boy Scouts and had “homework” after his first meeting this week to find two famous and or great Americans and tell things they did or are doing to help improve our way of life. This tied in perfectly with today. He’s still working on the second famous/great American, but he without hesitation chose two of our family friends who are both in the army as his first great Americans. He said “Well, my first one is going to be Crissy and Jr., because they help us everyday.” I said “that’s a great choice, how do they help improve our lives?” To which he said “well, they fight for us and protect us in our country.” We both were amused that the print out was a male and female too, worked out perfectly.
Next we read “The Story of the Star-Spangled Banner By the Dawns Early Light” by Steven Kroll
Great story on how the song became the national anthem. Stating with the War of 1812, historically accurate details and beautiful pictures.
We then listened to the song and he sang along via video on youtube.
I am not usually one to teach with worksheets, however I did come across these and liked them. Great time line for the American flag, vocabulary words and definitions on the Pledge of Allegiance, poem about the flag. I found them on Education.com
Continued on with math, took a little break, did some straw blowing art, then wrapped up the morning with some more reading of “The Wind in the Willows” I had made up a book/character study sheet for him to use as we read, trying to get him to connect with the story and characters as well as be aware of essential parts of a book. He’s not overly thrilled but we’ll see if it ends up being a useful tool in the end?! He says he likes to just listen, so I explained it’s just like taking a few notes as we read, not to write sentences and with that he seemed more into it, and wrote more than I had expected.
nature of homeschooling 