Jamestown Wrap Up!

We just wrapped up the third week of the 2011-2012 school year and really enjoyed our study of Jamestown. In my previous post, I listed the activities that I had planned, but as always we didn't do everything and we also found a few more things to keep us busy.

To my surprise, the kids really enjoyed playing archaeologists at the Historic Jamestowne site. They were able to excavate a piece of land, then examine and study several artifacts. Some of the activities were a bit advanced for my 1st and 3rd graders, so I'm keeping this one on file for the next time we study Jamestown.















We built a miniature Jamestown using the a free sample of Homeschool In the Woods' American Revolution unit study. This was amazing and I do think that I'll go back to purchase the entire kit when we get back to the Revolution in a few weeks. Look at this. Doesn't that look fun?


Madelyn really enjoyed reading about Jamestown from the perspective of a fictional 9 year old girl in a book from the My America series called Our Strange New Land: Elizabeth's Jamestown Colony.

The kids enjoyed learning about Pocahontas much more than I had expected, so they read a few books about her including Pocahontas: Princess of the River Tribes and The Story of Pocahontas. They even watched an animated dvd about her, but not the Disney version. Netflix had this one so I hoped it would be a bit more accurate. To be honest, I didn't watch it so I have no idea. Actually, I'm not a historian so I probably would have no idea about the movies historical accuracy anyway!

I also found a great book series by Mara L. Pratt called American History Stories. We only have volume 1 at the moment, but I think I'll look for the other three volumes.  The book seems to be perfect for 3rd graders and Maddie enjoyed reading her assigned chapter very much.

Story of the World was not a big hit this week, but the kids really enjoyed reading the 66th story in A Child's History Of The World by  V.M. Hillyer. They thought it was hysterical that King James knighted a cut of meat and began calling it Sir Loin. Personally I prefer a filet mignon. Maybe King James never had the pleasure of having one.

It was a good week, and once again I am so thankful I can travel this journey with them. I know that every day is a gift and the memories we are making when we built little Jamestown replicas, make a batch of colonial "pottage" stew, and read together, will be treasured for a lifetime. 

Next week we'll learn about King Charles, the plague, and the great fire of London.

The New School Year

I have been having so much fun planning our lessons for the upcoming school year. We've already finished two weeks, but decided to postpone the third week to accommodate a heavily planned week. I decided that since it is still July, and we got started a bit early, it would be better to take a week off than attempt to cram it all in.

Over the next two weeks, we will be studying Jamestown and the Great Fire of London. We use Story Of The World as our history spine but I like to plan supplemental activities to go with our history topic. My kids are still young, so I doubt we'll do everything on my list but here is what I have lined up-

Week 3 - Jamestown

Reading-

• Story Of The World Volume 3, Chapter 3
• A Child's History of The World, Story #66- King James The Servant
• Pocahontas: Princess of the River Tribes by Elaine Raphael
  The Story of Pocahontas by Caryn Jenner
  American History Stories Volume 1, pages 55-63
• Meet The Pilgrim Fathers, by Elizabeth Payne, Chapters 1 and 2
• A Visual Dictionary of Native Communities, by Bobbie Kalman, page 5
• William's House, by Ginger Howard, take the quiz on Book Adventures
• Our Strange New Land: Elizabeth's Jamestown Adventures by Patricia Hermes

Activities from The Story Of The World, Volume 3 Activity Book

• Map
• Coloring page
• Celebrate Guy Fawkes' Day
• Cooking Colonial Pottage

Additional Activities

• We'll watch the movies on The Jamestown Chronicle website. This is a fantastic resource if you can't make a trip to Jamestown.
• Art Lesson Plans on the Historic Jamestown website 
• Build a paper replica of Jamestown. This is part of the American Revolution sampler at Homeschool In The Woods.