Last year we embarked on a journey westward… …and found ourselves walking in the footsteps of Lewis & Clark at various points along our trek across the U.S. Our first stop was the Gateway Arch in St Louis, which marks the beginning of the famous trail. Later in Iowa we stumbled across the Lewis & […]
The War of 1812: The story of two unlikely heroes
It’s a little-known story about the War of 1812. The heroes? Two daughters of a lighthouse keeper along the coast of Massachusetts. While away on a short trip, their father Simeon Bates left his two daughters in charge of the Scitutate Lighthouse that overlooks the coast at Scituate harbor. Only months before, the most powerful […]
It’s Time for… Challenge Timelines!
I’ve mentioned before my ridiculous enthusiasm for keeping up with a timeline to document our homeschool learning adventures. Well, imagine my excitement when we found ourselves in the midst of timeline activities in our Classical Conversations Challenge B and Challenge I classes this year! Boy howdy! I just love this sort of stuff! (Keeping a […]
Memory Work Tracking Charts
Just wanted to take a moment to share some progress charts we’ve used for our children as a way to track and record the number of times they’ve practiced memory work or English grammar charts. These New-World-Explorers-themed charts include compasses with directional arrows that may be colored in each time they practice a week’s memory […]
Treading on Boston’s Freedom Trail
Where is Griffin’s Wharf? You know… the site of the Boston Tea Party? Upon our trip to Boston, I didn’t realize how much of American Revolutionary War history I did not understand. It wasn’t until I stumbled upon some historical maps that it became clear that comparing maps of Boston then and now would clarify […]
A Pilgrimage to Plymouth
Ay, call it holy ground, The soil where first they trod: They have left unstained what there they found, Freedom to worship God. – final stanza from “Landing of the Pilgrim Fathers” by Felicia Dorothea Hemans There are moments in my life when a veil is lifted as I learn a nugget of truth that […]
A sneak peek at our first few weeks
Although we’re about a month into our school year, last week was our first week in our homeschool community. I thought I’d give a quick update on how reality is panning out for us – a little picture of what homeschooling looks like in our home. This semester, we’re studying American history and geography, and […]
Visit the Nina and the Pinta (but not the Santa Maria)
Let’s step back in time to the 15th Century as we climb aboard a caravel, a type of ship used during the Age of Discovery…. Three times over the past seven years, our family has had the opportunity to explore a floating living history museum comprised of replicas of two of Columbus’ ships, the Nina […]
Handicrafts in History Studies
…we know that the human hand is a wonderful and exquisite instrument to be used in a hundred movements exacting delicacy, direction and force; every such movement is a cause of joy as it leads to the pleasure of execution and the triumph of success. We begin to understand this and make some efforts to […]