Friday, December 16, 2016

Travelschooling in TN - The Gilded Age, Anagrams and Reading



This week we started with our first State Swim Meet Competition.  What an event that was.  This is our first time participating in swimming with Special Olympics.  Most people don't consider Special Olympics true sports or athletics.  Boy are they wrong!!  We have rules to follow in the sports just like everyone else.  Lydia learned that well this weekend.  She was disqualified from one of her events because she didn't touch the wall during her 50 m event the way that the judges were expecting.  It was upsetting, but she corrected it and came back with 2nd place in the next event.  But she earned gold, because the 1st place athlete was disqualified for another minor infraction.







It was a busy day on Sunday, after the girls finished their events, we headed for Tennessee with Joe.  The new company he is working for has an office just south of Nashville in Franklin.  He needs to go down once a month for a week right now.  We decided to go on this trip.

We took the kids to a stir-fry restaurant.  They loved it!





It timed out perfect since there is a great Agricultural Museum in Nashville.  So we visited there Monday when we dropped Joe off at work.  Our history this week is reading about the Gilded Age and the Revolution of Agriculture.  We were able to see many examples of farming implements and life from the mid 1800-s to 1940s/50s.  Great quick trip for us there.  











Our history has been a lot of information.  The Gilded Age brought so many changes.  This week's chapter also taught us about the Second Industrial Revolution and other advancements such as that in communication.  We watched the Animated Hero Classics on Alexander Graham Bell.

We read about the Rockefellers and Carnegies.  We also talked about the beginning of labor unions.  Then we covered the topics of how urbanization was growing and the drawbacks and benefits of this.  This brought up the cities of Chicago (Great Fire, 1871) and San Francisco (Earthquake 1906).  During this discussion, Caty got very worried about the O'Leary's cow. (We were discussing the Great Chicago Fire of 1871.) She said it's not fair that the reporter made up that story just to sell papers. That poor cow was laughed at and made fun of all in the name of sensationalism. Even the family had to live with people laughing and making fun of them or even hating them for no reason. I had to give myself a little pat on the back because she made a very good point and then we continued our discussion from yesterday about Journalism in the late 1800 and early 1900s and how they wanted headlines to sell papers.... and how that still happens today.

Three of the four started new comprehension books this week.  Caty is going to start early comprehension activities when we get back home next week, so she is reading in her Magic Animals book series.   Lydia is starting Socks by Beverly Cleary, Joey is reading White Fang and Brayden is reading I Survived the Shark Attacks 1916.

In Math we had a lot of review of counting money (mainly coins), adding/subtracting basic money problems (no carry/regroup) and also fact families.

The girls did have art class.  This week they finished their metal art projects.  They had fun with this and they turned out cute.







No regular science this week.  I honestly was cutting back the amount of stuff we brought on this trip and didn't want to try and find the space for a bunch of subjects.  So we did the bare basics this week with a lot of filler.

We met up with some friends that live in the Nashville area and we visited Opryland Hotel and walked through their beautiful courtyards.









We did take advantage of an opportunity I saw posted in a homeschool group.  We listened in on the virtual field trip from the National World War II Museum in New Orleans.  We do not start World War II for a couple months, but With Pearl Harbor day we took advantage and had some discussions about what we will be learning in the future. The virtual field trip took us through the museum and showed us various exhibits, answered questions, and even took us to Pearl Harbor and the places to visit there.  We were able to see the Arizona memorial also.  



It was a lazy morning at the hotel.



This is how I found Brayden working on his comprehension questions...lol



Our last day there, I saw that Build A Bear had gotten a new Pokemon stuffie, so I surprised them with a trip there while we were waiting on Daddy to finish work.




Joey couldn't decide, he finally decided on Sonic.  



This is one of their favorite ice places.  We haven't been since we were in Nashville four years ago.  So we had to go twice this week.  This was a picture of our farewell stop as we were leaving town!



When we got home we had a busy Friday.  We had a field trip to learn about Pioneer and Native American toys.  It was a little below the kids level, but they got to see and play with toys that we had talked about.  So it was nice.






Then we had tickets to see a play of the Lion, Witch and the Wardrobe at the School Days program at a local theater.  It was really good.  The cast made it very funny in spots.




We all kind of look forwarded to coming home.  It was just a little exhausting with the swimming competition at the start of our trip.  But it was nice to stay together and not be separated.  

We'll be spending a lot of time in the Tennessee area now.  So we didn't go all out on our sightseeing.  We spent some time at the hotel pool and hot tub.  It was nice.

Hope everyone had a wonderful week!!  See you next Friday with our Week in Review.  Linking up with other moms at:


Weekly Wrap-Up

5 comments:

  1. Looks like you had a very full and amazing week!

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  2. Looks like an amazing week! I am a bit scared that Build a Bear has Pokemon stuffies now... my boys LOVE stuffed animals and Pokemon.

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  3. I love their metal art! Congrats on the swim medals!!!

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  4. What a wonderful week. I am glad to "meet you" in the blog world.
    Blessings, Dawn

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  5. We went through TN on our RV trip.....we had so much fun, looks like you guys did too!!!

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