Slavery

We are learning about the slave days. One of the things we did was go to an historical site and learn what it was like for one family to own slaves in the 1800’s. It was interesting to hear about life for this family. But that did not teach my son about the life of a slave in the south. I found a wonderful series of comic books called Chester Comix. They have one that is about the Underground Railroad. My son has devoured this book. He loves the comic book format. I think he has learned more about the Underground Railroad from this one comic book than he has from any other source. This book is about Harriet Tubman and other famous women in history.

We will definitely be buying more of them for other areas of history. We also love to use the Chester Comix as a basis for lapbooking. Lapbooking is another great way to make history come alive for your children. As they research the material, they can then develop their very own book on the subject.

Rockets

My son loves to build rockets. He woke up late one night when he was about two years old. Daddy was watching the movie, Apollo 13. He stayed up and watched the entire movie. Ever since then he has said he wants to be an astronaut when he grows up. When he was about three years old, Daddy took him to his first rocket launch. That was the beginning of his love for rockets. Soon, Daddy brought home a rocket kit. They spent hours at the kitchen table working on this rocket. You can’t imagine the pride in his eyes when it was completed. They went to a local rocket club the next month and launched the rocket that they had built. My son’s face just lit up when his rocket lifted off. As soon as it hit the ground he was running out to get it. “Again, again,” he cried. Over and over again they launched their rocket that day.

Since that time my son has built many many rockets. He brought home a pile of scraps from rocket club one day and put them together to build a rocket. Now he designs and builds all of his own rockets. This is such and exciting way to learn homeschool math and science.