Pilgrim study

For the last 2 weeks, we have been doing a study on Pilgrims.  We made lapbooks using the Pilgrim project pack from Homeschool E-store.  We all learned a lot.  There were many things we studied that I did not know - including the story of Squanto.  I am including pictures from both boys' lapbooks.  Nicolas's is red and Alex's is blue.

Here are their covers.

This is Alex's left flap.  We learned some vocabulary words as we went through the study.  The top matchbook is "Shhh!  Secret Meeting" explaining why the Pilgrims had to meet in secret - if King James knew they were worshipping in a different way than he required, they would be persecuted (vocabulary word.)

This is Nicolas's book opened up. 

Starting at the far left, the top Pilgrim book explains why they were called Pilgrims - that they traveled far from home for religious reasons.  The top yellow book called "The Scrooby Separatists" talks about the people from Scrooby, England who separated from the Church of England and went to Holland to get away from King James.  While they were there, they noticed their children losing the English ways and fogetting the English values.  That's when they decide to travel to America to bring their children up with English values and still have freedom to worship the way they please. 

The green book is a biography of William Bradford, the 2nd governor of Plymouth Colony.  The black and white picture on the left is a picture of Bradford. 

The orange pilgrim picture opens up to tell about what kinds of clothes the pilgrims wore.  The rest of the pictures just fill in.

This is the right side of Nicolas's lapbook.  There is a picture of the Mayflower with a map below it showing the Mayflower's route.  This flap lifts up to reveal:

...the first 13 colonies of the US.  Under this flap we have...

a blue envelope book talking about their journey - there was not enough food, many were sick, it was very crowded and there were lots of storms.  The Mayflower Compact book states that the compact was an agreement between the Pilgrims and England that England would send supplies and Plymouth Colony would return the favor.  They would still follow English rules, but they would be their own separate colony.  The green book asks When they sailed? - 1620, How many passengers? 102, and The name of the ship? - the Mayflower.   The rest are just fill-in pictures.

On the far right of Alex's (blue) book, we began our talk about the Indians who helped the pilgrims, Samoset matchbook and Squanto.  We read a wonderful story about Squanto called "Squanto and the Miracle of Thanksgiving" by Eric Metaxas.  It really brings to a point that God had a specific plan for Squanto to be kidnapped so that he could learn the language and be saved from the disease that killed his entire village so that he could help the Pilgrims later.  It compared him to the Joseph story of Genesis, that what men intended for evil, God intended for good.  I highly recommend the book!

Below the Indian books we created a turkey pop-up book.

Behind this flap...

we have a book called "Giving Thanks" that tells some of the things the Pilgrims were thankful for.  Then we did the fan book stating what we are thankful for - family, food, Jesus, parents, etc.

Then to finish up, the boys copied a prayer and glued it to the back of the book.  "Without Thy sunshine and Thy rain We could not have the golden grain; Without Thy love we'd not be fed; We thank Thee for our daily bread."  Nicolas only copied the last 2 lines because it takes him so long to write.  Alex wrote his in cursive, even though he "hates cursive".  He writes so neatly when he takes his time!

We really had a lot of fun with this study.  As an extra, we have been reading "The Mayflower Secret" by Dave and Neta Jackson (the Trailblazer Series).  It is too much for Nicolas to sit and listen too.  It's a late elementary reader, and with the King James language in it, it's hard to understand.  We still have 3 chapters left that I am hoping to finish up tomorrow.  It's a good book, and Alex enjoys listening to it.  We plan to use several other Trailblazer books, especially about missionaries the next school year.

Tennessee Vacation

For our fall break this year, we went to Sevierville, TN with my in-laws to a cabin they own there.  I have always loved Tennessee, but have never been there in the fall.  It is so beautiful when the trees start changing colors!  Even though this was our fall break, we did a couple things that I will count as a school day.  We had just finished talking about horses, so the first thing we did was go to Five Oaks Riding Stables and we all rode horses for 1 hour.  We had to force Nicolas on, but he now says that was his favorite part of vacation.  This is the first time I had ever been on a horse also. 

Alex on his horse,

Nicolas on his horse, Coal.

After horse back riding, we went to Nascar Speedpark.  We went there the last time we were in Tennessee, but it was the spring, and it was busy.  This time there was hardly anyone else there, so the people running the tracks let the kids stay on as long as they wanted to.  The kids wanted to go trick-or-treating while we were there, so we found out Five Oaks Tanger Outlet had trick-or-treating in the stores.  The boys dressed up in their Jedi robes once again and got lots of candy.  That gave me a chance to scope out the stores I would like to shop at in the future!  Ryan and I went to a Mystery Dinner Theatre that night, while the kids stayed with Grandpa and Grandma.  The food was good and the show was funny, (Frankly Scarlet, You're Dead).

Grandpa and Grandma wanted to take all of us to Wonderworks.  It is like a science museum, but the building was built upside down.  They had a hurricane and earthquake simulator, a bed of nails, several optical illusions, a space center, to name a few.  Alex built his own rollercoaster on a computer, then got in a "pod" and was able to ride the rollercoaster he built. 

The last day we were there, we took a trip into the Smokey Mountain National Park.  Along the road we were on, there were 3 old log cabins along with the barns, mills and other buildings that went along with the farm.  The first homestead had a brochure telling about the history of the farmer who lived there.  It was neat to go inside the cabins and bars.  We hiked on the trails a couple of different times and of course got some great pictures of the view.

This is the sunrise from our bedroom window. Gorgeous!!

The rest of our vacation was spent shopping, playing in the game room at the cabin (pool and arcade), and sitting in the hot tub.  No one was ready to leave!