Week 4 ~ The Year of Miss Agnes and The Homefront during Word War II ...

We had a busy and productive week. We finished our unit study on The Year of Miss Agnes by Kirkpatrick Hill and our unit study on the United States during World War II. We also attended a birthday party, three physical/pool therapy appointments, an appointment to look at a school program for Goldilocks, and an art class. Whew! I am beat.

The Year of Miss Agnes ~ We really enjoyed this book that is set in Alaska just after World War II. It is a sweet story about a teacher from England who comes to a rural Alaskan village and brings the joy of learning to a one room school. A book right up my alley. We loosely followed a unit study from Homeschoolshare.com. Here is a list of what we did:

• We had a delicious fish dinner.
• We wrote a story from a different point of view ~ both kids decided to write from our dog's point of view during bath time.
• We read The House in the Mail by Rosemary Wells and drove through a neighborhood that has several Sears catalog houses.
• Little Red Riding Hood learned to crochet at a crafts class.
• We watched an Imax DVD about flight and airplanes.
• We learned about biomes and studied Alaska's biome, which is an Alpine tundra.
• We watched an Imax DVD on the world's greatest places and figured out the biome for each place.
• Each child wrote a very short autobiography.
• We made pictures within a margin.

The Homefront During World War II ~ We did several activities over the last few weeks. Some our favorites are listed below.

• The kids made a meal from Molly's Cookbook: A Peek at Dining in the Past with Meals You can Cook Today (American Girls Pastimes).
• We are taking good care of our victory garden and it is giving us a wonderful yield.
• We watched the America Girl Doll movie about Molly.
• We read Attack on Pearl Harbor.
• We read So Far from the Sea by Eve Bunting.
• We made Scottie dog bookmarks.

Bacon, Toad in a Hole, and Waldorf Salad.

Other Learning ~

Polymer clay monster key chains

Physical therapy in the pool -- working hard

We started our geography state pages this week. We are going to start with the nine states the kids have visited or lived in. I decided to cut the state shape out of a photograph of the kids at a North Carolina landmark. Then I decided I wasn't good at cutting out such complicated shapes ~ so assigned my mother to cut out the state. She did a super job. The kids then wrote a paper about a place they had visited in the state and cut up a map to make a collage. They came out great. We then read the book, T is for Tar Heel: A North Carolina Alphabet by Carol Crane. This is from a series of books for each state and Washington D.C. We wrapped it up with a meal from foods grown in North Carolina. We had blueberries, sweet potato fries and local grass fed cheese burgers. 

The picture is fuzzy, but you get the idea.

Well, that wraps up our week. I love homeschooling!

Blessings, Dawn