Homeschool "Trip" to Ireland

Taking a make-believe trip with our local homeschool friends is one of my favorite group activities. We've been to Greece, India, and Egypt together. This time we are headed to Ireland.

Each of the kids helped out with presentations on Irish facts, folklore, and celebrations.

The moms helped enrich the experience by having an Irish lunch.

Stew on the left. On the plate going clockwise: potatoes, Latke, apple cake w/ cream, soda bread with Irish butter, a slice of Irish cheese.

We blended a few Irish American traditions into our lesson plan.

Then the kids all marched around the library in a St. Patrick's Day "Parade"

Where's George?

Have you ever seen a bill that looks like this?





Nothing special about it right? Except, what's that writing?



The kids and I discovered these some time ago. We've tracked them off and on for a few years now.

If you find one of these bills you can go to the Where's George website and enter in the serial number on the bill.



The website will then show you where the bill started and where it stopped on it's journey to you.



This is a great way to study the circulation of money and geography. Sometimes people will leave notes about the money which creates a sort of "Flat Stanley" story.

After submitting the bills you then release them back into circulation for someone else to find. You can also create an account and register your own dollars.

Class Trip to India

The kids went on board the "plane" and enjoyed an "in-flight" movie about the Bengal tiger.


Afterwards they came downstairs and had their passports stamped.




Several of the kids had presentations.

Elijah took us on a trip to the Bandipur National Park



These kids did a presentation on Indian clothing.



Kayla gave us a lesson on Yoga.



And then the kids worked on their form.



Of course we had to have lunch! So much yummy food!







Then Cassidy and his mom, Tammy, gave us a lesson on Indian festivals.



After which, they took us outside to experience the Holi Festival!!















We had a great time in India! Next we are thinking of taking on Thailand!

Friday's Homeschool Feature

Welcome to Friday's Homeschool Feature. I'm excited about getting this going. I love homeschooling my kids. I love our many adventures!

Today my Homeschool Feature is Geography. You really don't need a curriculum for geography. You just need maps.

My kids love maps, all kinds of maps. We have road maps, physical maps, political maps, and ancient maps. Often I will hand them a student notebook atlas to look at while I read the history lesson for the day. This is especially great when my history lesson takes them from one place to another or discusses a particular region. These can be found for less than $5.00. I have one for each student. This way they don't distract me from my reading while they pass it around.

One like this:


I've mentioned in my post, History and Geography, how much I love the laminated maps from Geography Matters. I only gave them a short blurb. These maps are fantastic. They are just the right size for more than one kid to work with. Typically we write on them with wet erase markers, simply because the kids won't smear eachother's answers when they are reaching across to the other side.

Sometimes I pull out a map just for fun and have them fill in as much as they can from memory. Being competitive little creatures, (...don't know where they got that gene as Leon and I are both very uncompetitive) they turn it into a game of seeing who can label the most. Notice they are using different color markers.

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Homeschool Trip to Greece

We took a pretend trip to Greece with some of our homeschool friends.

We started with issuing boarding passes. Then the kids had an "in flight" movie: a travel video of Greece of course!

The American children were pretty wigged out by some of the food on the video. lol

After the movie the kids had to have their "passports" stamped.

What do I see here?

A tourist of course!

While in "Greece" the kids made mosaic place mats, colored flags, and studied maps.

We had a lovely lunch at a local cafe:

Oh my great goodness!! The food was awesome!!

I had so much fun. A project like this is best done with friends.

History and Geography

We study history as a family. I have learned so much with the kids, and have enjoyed every minute of it. Our history lessons are my favorite time of day. This year's focus is on the Middle Ages. I use two different curriculums.

Mystery of History (MOH) is fun and engaging. We finished Volume I last year. I love the Christian perspective. It starts with Creation and teaches history from a Young Earth point of view. Our B.C. timeline is complete and we are moving on. (previous blog post about this time line)


I supplement with Beautiful Feet (BF). I love the literature base of this curriculum. I only picked up MOH because BF doesn't have a Ancient History series for young children. I understand and respect their philosophy (you can download a pdf of their philosophy here). However, I disagree and wanted to teach Ancient History to my crew. The writing assignments from BF are also challenging and good for my older kids.

For geography we'll pick back up Galloping the Globe. Once a month we'll "take a trip" to a foreign country and "spend the day there." This is just a fun game the kids and I play. We wake up and "pack" for our journey. We get on board "the plane" and watch our in flight movie (usually a travel video). Then when we land we have our passports stamped, read a few books, do a few crafts, have an authentic lunch, and learn some phrases. It's a day to break from the monotony of schoolwork. The kids look forward to it and will probably always remember it.

Some of my favorite geography resources are my maps from Geo Matters. They are laminated black outline maps. We usually write on them with wet erase markers. We've pulled them out for history and marked battle lines. When we studied WWI we marked off the Western Front and the trenches. For WWII occupying powers kept changing and it was really neat to be able to work it out together and see how the war progressed. These maps were worth every penny I paid for them.

For fun we've been working on Beautiful Feet's Geography course. The kids map out the stories of a few Holling C. Holling classics. So far we've finished Tree in the Trail and Paddle to the Sea.

Honolulu Lunch

These were a gift from a very lovely family I met from Hawaii: taro pancakes, coconut syrup, and yummy candies afterwards for a treat.

The syrup is milky in color and ooohhh sooo yummy!
Mmmnnn Mmmnnn good!
The candy was good too!
And the timing couldn't have been better as we had just studied how Hawaii became a state!