Ever wonder what homeschooling is really like?

2 am conversation with my mom via IM:

me: I thought about mummifying one of the kids.

Linda: you have been teaching toooooo long.

me: [The other kids] could take out the organs, put the heart back in, wrap in toilet paper, place him in the 3 coffins (blanket, sleeping bag and tent for pyramid?)

Linda: that would work.

Linda: would you make paper organs? that could be fun.

I like the tent idea.

with a real kid minus organs in it.

or do you mummify the organs and then put them back inside before putting him in the pyramid?

me: Except the heart which they put back in, they put the organs in canopic jars.

Linda: what are canopic jars?

me: special jars for preserving organs. Don't you have any?

Linda: no, we eat our organs...had liverwurst for lunch!

me: You are supposed to use paper mache to make animals for the lids of the jars, then paint them. Is that too much trouble or could that work?

I thought if we mummify a kid, and each kid was able to retrieve an organ (he might have to have more than one liver) and then make jars to put them in.

Linda: paper mache takes a long time to dry. I don't think you could make them and paint them all in one day.

me: Ok. Now I just need to know how to make a liver.

me: I need to make 8 organs (heart, liver, stomach, lungs, intestines)

me: Ok. You come up w/ an easy way (please!) for me to have 8 organs by Friday morning. I need one heart and one or more of the others. Now that my project is in your hands, I'm off to bed. THANK YOU!

I'm so glad you stay up until the wee hours to help me with my 2am crises. How many mothers get to say they help their kids figure out how to mummify their grandchildren at 2am?
Linda: We need to cut and paste this conversation and save it. People would think we are nuts.

Ok, there you have it. I'm nuts. Are you dying to know what we're talking about?

The kids are in a Story of the World coop. This week we are studying mummies so when the other kids (7 total) come this Friday we will mummify one of them (don't call DCF, we're only going to pretend). Stay tuned for pictures and an update.

Classical Education History Resource List

Textbooks:
Story of the World books 1-4
Story of the World activity books 1-4
Usborne Internet Linked Encyclopedia of World History
Kingfisher History Encyclopedia (basic text for Logic stage but helpful in grammar stage)

Great Men and Women to Cover
Grade 1 - Ancients 5000 B.C. - A.D. 400:
Cheops, pharaoh of Egypt (2700-2675 B.C.)
Abraham (2100 B.C.)
Hammurabi (1750 B.C.)
Queen Hatshepsut of Egypt (1480 B.C.)
Moses (1450 B.C.)
Tutankhamen (1355 B.C.)
Nebuchadnezzar (1146-1123 B.C.)
King David (1000 B.C.)
Homer (800 B.C.)
Romulus (753-716 B.C.)
Sennacherib (705-681 B.C.)
Lao-tse, Chinese philosopher (born 604 B.C.)
Pythagoras (581-497 B.C.)
Confucius, K'ung Fu-tsu (551-479 B.C.)
Buddha, Siddhartha Gautama (550-480 B.C.)
Socrates (470-399 B.C.)
Plato (427-347 B.C.)
Aristotle (384-322 B.C.)
Alexander the Great (356-323 B.C.)
Hannibal, fought with Rome (218-207B.C.)
Cicero (106-43B.C.)
Julius Caesar (100-44B.C.)
Virgil (70-19B.C.)
Ceasar Augustus (45B.C.-A.D.14)
Jesus Christ (4B.C.-A.D.33)
Saint Paul (A.D.45)
Nero (died A.D. 68)
Constantine the Great (ruled A.D. 306-337)

Grade 2 - Medieval/Early Renaissance 400-1600:
Saint Augustine (writing c. 411)
Attila the Hun (433-453)
King Arthur (probably killed in 537 at Battle of Camlan)
Mohammed (570-632)
Charlemagne (ruled 768-814)
Alfred the Great (849-899)
Leif Ericsson (discovered America c. 1000)
Edward the Confessor (1042-1066)
Genghis Kan (b. 1155)
Dante Alighieri (1265-1321)
Geoffrey Chaucer (1340-1400)
Jan van Eyck (1390-1441)
Johannes Gutenberg (1396-1468)
Christopher Columbus (1451-1506)
Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519)
Amerigo Vespucci (1454-1512)
Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543)
Michelangelo (1475-1564)
Ferdinand Magellan (1480-1521)
Martin Luther (1483-1546)
Raphael (1483-1520)
Nostradamus (1503-1566)
John Calvin (1509-1564)
Hernando Cortes (entered Mexican capital, 1519)
Tycho Brahe (1546-1601)
Walter Raleigh (1554-1618)
William Shakespeare (1564-1616)
Galileo Galilei (1564-1642)

Suggested biographies (not sure why these aren't in chronological list above):
Sir Francis Drake
Elizabeth I
Joan of Arc
Leif Ericsson
Marco Polo
Montezuma

Grade 3 - Late Renaissance/Early Modern 1600-1850:
Mary Stuart, Mary Queen of Scots (1542-1587)
Tokugawa Ieyasu (1543-1616)
James I of England (1566-1652)
Queen Nzinga of Angola (1582-1644)
Shah Jahan (1592-1666)
Oliver Cromwell (1599-1658)
Charles I (1600-1649)
Rembrandt (1606-1669)
John Milton (1608-1674)
Robert Boyle (1627-1691)
Louis XIV of France (1638-1715)
Issac Newton (1642-1747)
William Penn (1644-1718)
Peter I, Peter the Great (1672-1725)
Yoshimune (1684-1751)
Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)
Frederick William I, Frederick the Great (1688-1740)
Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790)
Qianlong (1711-1795)
Maria Theresa (1717-1780)
Catherine the Great (1729-1796)
George Washington (1732-1799)
Franz Joseph Haydn (1732-1809)
Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826)
Betsy Ross (1752-1836)
Phyllis Wheatley (1753-1784)
Louis XVI (1754-1793)
Marie Antoinette (1755-1793)
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791)
George III of England (1760-1820)
Eli Whitney (1765-1825)
Captain James Cook (1768-1771)
Tecumseh (1768-1813)
Napoleon (1769-1821)
Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)
Meriwether Lewis (1774-1809) and WIlliam Clark (1770-1838)
Simon Bolivar (1783-1830)
Shaka Zulu (1787-1828)
Sacagawea (1788-1812)
Nat Turner (1800-1831)

Historical Topics
the Mayflower
early American Settlements
Russia under Peter the Great and his successors
Prussia in the eighteenth century
the Enlightenment
the agricultural revolution
Native American cultures
the British in India
the French Revolution
British-French conflict in Canada
the American Revolution
the Napoleonic Wars
the industrial revolution
Simon Bolivar's fight for independence in South America
the siege of the Alamo
the California gold rush
Australia's beginnings as a penal colony

Grade 4 - Modern 1850-Present:
Andrew Jackson (1767-1845)
Louis Joseph Papineau (1786-1871)
Samuel Morse (1791-1872)
Commodore Matthew Perry (1794-1858)
Santa Anna (1794-1876)
Robert E Lee (1807-1870)
Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865)
David Livingstone (1813-1873)
Otto von Bismarck (1815-1898)
Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815-1902)
Karl Marx (1818-1883)
Queen Victoria (1819-1901)
Victor Emmanuel II (1820-1878)
Susan B Anthony (1820-1906)
Florence Nightingale (1820-1910)
Harriet Tubman (1820-1913)
Ulysses S. Grant (1822-1885)
Catewayo of the Zulus (1826-1884)
Sitting Bull (1831-1890)
Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain) (1835-1910)
George Custer (1839-1876)
Claude Monet (1840-1926)
Alexander Graham Bell (1847-1922)
Thomas Edison (1847-1931)
Mutsuhito (emperor of Japan) (1852-1912)
Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919)
Henry Ford (1863-1947)
Wilbur Wright (1867-1912) and Orville Wright (1871-1948)
Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948)
Vladimir Lenin (1870-1924)
Winston Churchill (1874-1965)
Josef Stalin (1879-1953)
Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882-1945)
Benito Mussolini (1883-1945)
Adolf Hitler (1889-1945)
Dwight D Eisenhower (1890-1969)
Charles de Gaulle (1890-1970)
Francisco Franco (1892-1975)
Mao Zedong (1893-1976)
Czar Nicholas II (1895-1917)
Amelia Earhart (1897-1932)
Albert Einstein (1897-1955)
Charles Lindbergh (1902-1974)
John F Kennedy (1917-1963)
Nelson Mandela (1918-)
Margaret Thatcher (1925-)
Martin Luther King Jr. (1929-1968)
Neil Armstrong (1930-)
Saddam Hussein (1937-)
Bill Gates (1955-)

Suggested biographies (not sure why these aren't in chronological list above):
Louisa May Alcott
Susan B Anthony
Clara Barton
Mary McLeod Bethune (educator born as 15th child of former slaves)
Elizabeth Blackwell (first woman dr)
Frederick Douglass
Emma Edmonds
Albert Einstein
Mohandas Ghandi
Langston Hughes
Helen Keller
Mary Todd Lincoln
Thurgood Marshall
Louis Pasteur
Molly Pitcher
Eleanor Roosevelt
Babe Ruth
Elizabeth Cady Stanton
Harriet Tubman

Major Events:
Africa under European control
the Indian mutinies
the Crimean War
the Victorian era
the Civil War
exploration of the American West
Euro-American conflict with the Native American tribes
the Boxer Rebellion
World War I
the Russian Revolution
the Soviet Union
the Great Depression
the New Deal
civil war in Spain
the Axis and the Allies
World War II
Nazi Germany/Hitler
the Holocaust
Zionism/the Jews' return to Palestine
apartheid/South African segregation
China under Mao
the Korean War
the civil-rights movement
the Vietnam War
landing on the moon

~~~~
*Well Trained Mind also includes an extensive list of supplemental reading for all grades which would be worth perusing.

Classical Education: History Memorization

Grade 1 (Ancient 500BC-AD400):
The Kingfisher History Encyclopedia has a Ready Reference that lists names of Egyptian dynasties, principal pharaohs, Chinese dynasties, kings of Rome, and emperors of the Roman Empire. Aim to memorize at least two of these lists by the end of the first grade year. A first grader who reads a list out loud every day will have it memorized within weeks.

Grade 2 (Medieveal/Early Renaissance 400-1600):
Memorize a Shakespeare Sonnet, a selection from one of his plays and two lists.

#1 - The rulers of England from Egbert through Elizabeth 1, along with each ruler's family allegiance (Saxon, Dane, Norman, Plantagenet, Lancaster, York, Tudor).

#2 - One of the following: Rulers of Scotland from Malcolm II through James VI, the later Holy Roman Emperors or the rulers of other medieval countries - France, Spain, Japan, Russia, or the major wars and major discoveries (listed in back of Kingfisher book).

Grade 3 (Late Renaissance/Early Modern 1600-1850):
Memorize beginning (at least) of Declaration of Independence, the first 12 presidents of the US and major wars for the time period. Assign other lists (rulers of other countries, important discoveries and explorations) at your discretion.

Grade 4 (Modern 1850-Present):
Know the Preamble to the Constitution, the Gettysburg Address and the purpose (if no the exact words) of the ammendments. Finish the list of US Presidents , dates of major wars, and capitals of 50 states.

History Reading List

Charlotte's Recommendations:
Alton Locke by Charles Kingsley
Chronicles of the Crusades by Devizes and deVinsany
Ecclesiastical History of England by Bede
First History of France by Mrs Creighton (covers 55BC to 910 AD)
History of the British Kings by Geoffrey
History of England by Arnold Forster (covers 55BC-910AD)
Julius Cesear
Modern Europe by Lord
Old Stories from British History by York Powell
Quintin Druward by Sir Walter Scott
Plutarch's Lives by Plutarch
Prisoners of the Tower by Brooke Hunt
Quentin Druward by Sir Walter Scott
Shorter History of England by Green
Silas Marner by George Eliot
Sketches from British History by York Powell
The Talisman by Sir Walter Scott
Tales from St. Paul's by Mrs. Frewen Lord
Tales from Westminster Abbey by Mrs Frewen Lord
Waverly by Sir Walter Scott
Westward Ho by Charles Kingsley

Catherine Levison's List:
The Autobiography of B. Franklin by Benjamin Franklin
In Freedom's Cause by GA Henty
Stories of the French Revolution by Walter Montgomery
The History of the World by Kingfisher
The Timetables of History by Grun
Conversations with Pioneer Women by Lockley
Women's Diaries of the Westward Journey by Schlissel
The Tragedy of Leschi by Meeker
Going to School in 1776 by Loeper
If you Were There in 1776 by Brenner
What Jane Austen Ate and Charles Dickens Knew by Pool
The Sower Series Biographies by Mott Media
Oregon Trail, Lewis and Clark, etc published as The Story Behind the Scenery
Albert Schweitzer, Elizabeth the First, etc - A Rookie Biography


Books with good book lists for history:
Let the Authors Speak by Carolyn Hatcher
Books Children Love by Elizabeth Wilson
All through the Ages by Christine Miller

History

Teach history chronologically via literature, plays, novels, essays, biographies, poetry, architecture, and paintings of the period. Read someone's firsthand account who saw what happened whenever possible. Spend time pleasantly with one time period in the life of one man. If you spent a whole year with one man you would learn about a whole nation and time period in which he lived. It is better to know as much as possible about one short period than to know the outlines of history.

What were the ordinary people's conditions?
What were the "great" people doing?

Read 40 pages a term (60 school days) from a well written, well illustrated large book. Not a book written down to a child's level and not one full of little summaries. Amplify this with biographies of people involved in the time period. Visit the monuments of this age or look at pictures of them.

Study the history of countries other than their own.Compare what was occurring in other countries at the same time period.
Read biographies to learn Greek and Roman hisotry.

Projects:
~Have the children illustrating scenes from books. If they can imagine it enough to illustrate, they know it.
~Act out scenes with their dolls or paint scenery and act it out themselves.
~Make history charts. Make one hundred squares (10x10) on a piece of paper. Each square is a year, each paper a century. Invent a symbol for each major event like a war.
~Make a timeline. Make columns with the first century in the middle. Each column represents a century. Don't worry about exact dates, just the order of events.
~Make a book of Centuries - make a 3 ring notebook with one lined and one blank paper per century. This gives a place to make notations of illustrations of historical events. Every book you read or museum you visit should provide a quick notation. This is a running timeline. This can include sketches of artifacts, costumes, ships, weapons, or musical instruments. Can be a quick name and life span of an author or newspaper clipping. Include 10 blank pages in back for map work.

Music Appreciation

Resources:
Music of the Great Composers by Patrick Kavanaugh (formerly A Taste for the Classics) ~ Easy and enjoyable lessons on what a concerto is and similar info

The Spiritual Lives of Great Composers by Patrick Kavanaugh ~ Short biographies of many composers in chronological order of their life spans.

Both are good books for early narration.

Combine history and music study by looking up the musical development of an era in a book such as The Timetables of History by Bernard Grun

Child Pianist by Mrs Curwen

Source: A Charlotte Mason Education; A Home Schooling How To Manual by Catherine Levison