Wild Wild West and the Young Riders

Gold Rush!  Cowboys & Indians! Outlaws! 

What do you think of when you hear the wild west?  Those are a few of the things we learned about in our final section of our study through the early part of American History.  This was a very brief unit but has become one of our favorite parts so far.  We will pick up more on this unit when we do some review next year when we pick up learning about the rest of American History (Pre-Civil War to present).

Here are all the books and extra things we used to make it more fun.  (I'm going to add a bunch more things when we cover it again next year.)

Books:



Notebook pages & Lapbook:
We didn't do much lapbooking or notebooking because I just didn't have much time.  But you can get some lapbook parts from Homeschoolshare.


Websites:

• My friend at Butterflies & Barefoot Lasses has a unit on Cowboys.
• Gold Rush game.
• By the Great Horn Spoon website to go along with the book.
• WayBack Gold Rush 
• Gold Rush California's Untold Stories
• Strike It Rich! (game) My kids like this one.
• Oregon Trail game.  Its the game I played as a kids but updated.  If you have a Facebook account you can play it for free.

Videos:


We've been Watching through this series on Netflix.  Its great and my kid's love it.  Dare-Devil Boy has been become intersted in Wild Bill Hickok and Buffalo Bill since we've started watching it.  I've posted just the first part of the first episode of the first season.  There are 5 parts to this episode.




There is 5 parts to this series.  I'm posting just the first.



Clip from America:The Story of US


Pecos Bill Cartoon:






There are lots of other books, videos, projects, websites and other things to do for this unit.  But I'm saving it for next year when we do a short review unit on the west.  I hope you all enjoy the stuff I've added for this unit.

Pioneering Unit: Settleing the West

Have you ever made butter? How about try your hand at maple sugaring? Or even spun your own wool? I've never done most of those things my self, minus the making butter. Would I like to do the rest? Hmmmmmm.......I'd like to give it a try.

This was unit on the Pioneers was probably one of the best we've done.  Or at least I think so.  I didn't make any added notebook pages or lapbooks like that.  Mostly it was due to the fact I was so busy and other technical reasons (aka computer trouble). But here are the things that we used and I did manage to add in.

  
Books We Used & Read:

We have been watching a mini-series called, "Into the West".  This mini-series has 6 parts and went along great with our studies. We watched the first episodes.  (These 3 go well what we covered so far in our study of pioneers and the settling of the west.)

In to the West fallows the lives of two families The Wheelers (a white family from Virgina) and an Lakota Tribe.  The show is told from both sides as it slowly unfolds.  Starting with Lakota people and there relationship with the buffalo.  Then it goes into the Adventures of the early Mountain Man, Jedediah Smith.  Continuing on until finally concluding at the aftermath of the Battle of Wounded Knee.

I recommend watching these 3 first.  (We are saving the rest for when we cover railroads and the Indian Wars next year. One the second half of American History.)

• Episode 1 - Wheel to the Stars 
• Episode 2 - Manifest Destiny 
• Episode 3 - Dreams and Schemes

Here is a preview from the first episode.


We also watched The History Channels: The Story of US episode "Westward".  There are 9 parts that make up this video if you watch it on Youtube.  Here are the first 2 parts.  (You can get it from Netflix as a disk too.)

Part 1 





Part 2

We also watched a few episodes of Little House on the Prairie. I can post the video cause it Youtube won't let me, But there is a link to the first part of the first episode. Click Here!

I even made a some of the activities from the Little House Craft book myself that I'm going to give away as gifts.  I'm not posting them just in case those who I'm going to give them to are reading this.

Needs a Bit of Butter

This last week we learned about the different thing that the pioneers made with the milk from their cows.  We even gotten a chance to make some.  One thing we made was butter.  It was quite fun and didn't take as long as I thought it would.

My husband like how it came out and suggested that we make our own butter from now on.  Its not a bad idea and to tell you the truth it would last a long while.  We don't use butter to much in out house unless I'm baking cookies.  Wonder Girl has a milk allergy. (She not lactose intolerant.  She allergic to milk and all the proteins that make it up.) So if I made a larger batch of butter it will be in my refrigerator for a while.

The longest and hardest part about making butter was the shaking of the jar.  It ended up take almost an hour to do.  But everyone helped out in doing that. 

Pouring int the whipping cream.

Dare-Devil Boy shaking the cream

Wonder Girl taking her turn shaking the jar.

(The picture is a bit blurry.  She wouldn't stand still enough.)

My husband doing his part in making butter.

Me helping in making the butter.

Even Hondo helped out.  

But really he ended up rolling the jar around the kitchen floor.

Finally after everyone helping and watching an episode of Busy Town Mysteries it was done.I poured out the buttermilk from the bowl and my husband ended up drinking it I think.  I can't find it.  I was going to use it to make ranch dressing or butter milk pancakes for breakfast, but my husband got to it first.  Then I rinsed the last of the buttermilk from the butter.

Finally after all that work I mixed in some salt.  Then put it in a small airtight container and put it in the refrigerator to harden. I used it haven't had a chance to use it for any cooking, but I put some of my husband's home-made bread (he makes the bread in our house) and it tasted great.

 

Making Maple Candy

We have just started out on our unit on pioneering.  The whole family is having a great time during this unit.  

The book that we are using for this unit is called Pioneer Sampler by Barbara Greenwood.  Its a great book for us so far.  The book fallows a pioneer family, the Robertsons, that are living on a little farm in the back woods of North America.  With each chapter you learn a little about the life of this pioneer family and the way they live there lives. After each story chapter there is information about the whatever subject is covered in that chapter and usually an activity that you can do.



 One of the chapters we learned about how they use to collect and make maple syrup.  At the end there was an activity on how to make maple sugar candy.  I had found another maple sugar candy recipe that was a bit easier then the one they gave in the book, that we did instead.

Here is our time of making candy. 

 Wonder Girl add the butter.

Measuring and putting in the salt.

 Adding in some maple syrup.

  Stir all everything together.

 

 Dare-Devil Boy couldn't help to have a try.

 Here we are rolled the candy and left them on the tray to harden.

 I forgot to take a picture of how it came out.  But you can see from the last picture it wasn't so bad.  It was good treat and I think I'm going to make them again myself, but dipped in melted chocolate and let harden to make a truffle kind of candy.

Trail of Tears, Erie Canal & Steamboats (all small unit)

These units were very small stops in our journey in learning American history.  Despite all of that we managed to learn about a few things and even made a short field trip to one of the stops on the Tear of Tears.  The trail runs through were we live.  

Here are the books that we used and the videos we watched.

Here are a few of the extra videos I found on the the Trail of Tears that we really helpful in our learning.

Trail of Tears-

I'm putting just 1 of the 8 video clips thatt his has.  But if you have Netflix you can get it on there too.  Its American Experience: We Shall Remain (Trail of Tears Episode)



Steamboats and the Erie Canal-

Lewis and Clark Unit- Corps of Discovery

This unit was 3 weeks long but it was short compared to our unit on the American Revolutionary War.  I didn't supplement with a lot of other books.  But I managed to find a few movies and clips to watch.  

We also managed to do a few other crafts and activities.  I should note that the book that we used for our unit; is: The Lewis and Clark Expedition by Carol A. Johmann.  You can see it in the widget.  This is also the book that the notebook pages that I made goes with.


Notebook Pages:
The notebook pages i created for his unit was so big I had to make two files. Lewis and Clark Journey Notebook Pages 1-CLICK HERE to download. 
Lewis and Clark Journey Notebook Pages 2-CLICK HERE to download.
I made the notebook pages to go along with the book The Lewis and Clark Expedition.  



Project/Crafts:
We tried to do a few crafts with this unit.  You can see more pictures of the crafts and projects we did for this is unit on this blog post.  I just wanted to give a small idea of what we did.  If you want to see more pictures go to my post Being a Member of the Corps.

One we did was make a Keel boat out of cardboard box and Playmobil people.

Also like I stated above we made a few meals that the Corps might have eaten. Here is a picture of one of the meals.  This one is roasted duck with three golden squash and corn and sweet potatoes.

Books and Videos:

I wanted to point out the book The Food Journal of Lewis & Clark: Recipes for an Expedition.  I found this book because I though it would be nice to try and make a meal or two that they might have eaten.  My husband loved the meals I made for our Colonial/Revolutionary unit.  He like this one just as much.  It was a great book because it starts from the White House to the end of the trip. 



Here are also some of the Youtube videos that I could find and added to the our unit.  

Being a Member of the Corps of Discovery

For the last few weeks we have spent out time learning about Lewis and Clark and their journey into the west.  It was a fairly short unit, but felt like we spent so long on it.  


All of use learned so much more about the Lewis and Clark then neither of knew.  It was a unit that Dare-Devil Boy(DD Boy) really enjoyed.  He has been looking forward to it all year.

  

To go along with this unit I made notebook pages to go along with the books we used in this unit.  You can find it under my Homeschool Printable Page.

Here is DD Boy with is keel boat that we made.  

Another close up picture of the keel boat and the Playmobil guys we used as the crew.  Yes, those are Roman soldiers as Lewis and Clark.  There are vikings and Celts too if you look closely.  I think there is even a monkey standing in as "Pomp" Sacajawea's baby, but I think he's hiding.  Sacajawea is somewhere on the boat too if you can find her.

We even made moccasins. A kit someone gave to us a while back.

Here is DD Boy and I reading the instructions.

Here is DD Boy giving it a try.

 Here is the final product.  Not to bad.  I even made one for WG (Wonder Girl). They like them so much that they use them as house slippers.

Here is a look at the Lewis and Clark meals I made for the unit.  I even made hardtack.  Hardtack gotta love the stuff it last forever.  I'm the only one that liked that. Oh well!! More for me. I got the recipes for these in a book called The Food Journal of Lewis & Clark.  But here is link to some of the recipes that are in the book. 

 This is Salmon with Sweet & New (I used red) Potatoes.

My husband's favorite: Duck with Three Golden Squash Corn and Sweet Potatoes.

One last story, someone was listening to me while we learned about the Corps of Discovery because the other day while we we outside playing WG and Hondo were playing Lewis & Clark.  I was pulling them in the wagon and WG keep yelling to her brother, "Row! Row, Clark, Row!"  I stopped pulling them to ask her what she was doing with her stick. Without missing a beat she told me that they were playing Lewis & Clark rowing up the river.  She was Lewis and Hondo was Clark.  When I inquired who I was she said, "Your the members pulling the boat up the river." 

Revolutionary War Unit

During our time in learning about the Revolutionary War we supplemented our learning with lots of hands-on stuff, a lapbook, some great books, and many videos we watched on Youtube or got from Netflix.

Printables:

• Ben Franklin Lapbook I found on homeschoolshare.com
• Revolutionary War Lapbook- (I created to go along with the books we used.  The clipart that I used in to make this lapbook where from http://etc.usf.edu/clipart )
• Patriots and Loyalist lapbook part  (This goes with the Revolutionary War lapbook I made.  But I couldn't put it into one file.)
• Spies Notebook pages that I made.  (Like the Revolutionary War Lapbook I got the clipart from http://etc.usf.edu/clipart) 
• Revolutionary War paper dolls

Movies we watched:

Learning About Our Inner Patriot (Learning about the Revolutionary War)

It was a long few weeks, but we finally finished the part of our American History trek that took us through the American Revolution.  Dare-Devil boy had a great time learning all about Ben Franklin, George Washington and the other heroes of the Revolution.  


During that time we got to eat some colonial food, set up some battles and making a lapbook that i created.  

Dare-Devil boy setting up his army men for the Battle of Bunker Hill

Reading a copy of the Declaration of Independence

Here he is explaining how the battle was fought.

I think it was his favorite part of the lessons.

A Brave New World

Last week we learned mostly about Christopher Columbus.  How he thought that he was in sailing to China, his ships and everything else.  It was an informative lesson about the founding of the New World.  

Along with our regular books I added in Draw Write Now books.  We've never really used this series before, but so far Dare-Devil Boy is liking it.  What we've liked about it is that it has stepped by stepped instructions on how to draw the picture.  This has made it easier for Dare-Devil Boy to draw.

Mapping Columbus's Journey

Dare-Devil Boy's Columbus Lapbook

Dare-Devil Boy's pictures that he drew this week using Draw Write Now.

Columbus as a boy.

A Map of the World

Columbus's ships.

Viking Videos

I couldn't post with when I posted about our study of Vikings discovering America a few days ago. But her it is now.  It is a short video of Dare-Devil boy explaining about what he learned about vikings.

 

Also another video of Dare-Devil playing with his Vikings.  It was a Romans vs. Vikings battle.

Tepi, not TP

Beside our trip into the world of vikings last week we also have been doing a Native American study.  This week we focused on the Hopi and a few of the Plains Indians.  The highlight and the biggest thing that came out of this was our Tepi.  

Dare-Devil Boy and my husband did the actually building of the Tepi or the none paper one at least.  Wonder Girl and I made a paper one for her to play with.  Complete with people and other things.

Spider-Dad first tracing out the shape.

 

Next cutting out the fabric.

 

As my husband was doing that Dare-Devil Boy 

was trying to put up the poles on his own.

The final product.  Even with Native Americans.  

(I didn't mange to get the actually raise of the tepi because

the did it while I was out.)

Later Dare-Devil Boy set up his Indian guys and Viking guys

for a formal meeting.

And finally...Wonder Girl's Tepi.  She was very 

excited to have one of her own.

A Vikings Nicer Side

Do Vikings has a nicer side?  Well I would like to think so.  This week in our study we learned that Vikings were more then Raiders, most of them were farmers,  that they are exploders and they never wore hats that had horns on them.  (Yeah, I was shocked to learn that too.)  Just to mention a few other things.

This is was our 2nd week of school, but so far our favorite.  Dare-Devil boy has much loved or is fascinated by the Vikings.  He would pull out the books we had around the house that had to do with this subject and would read or look at pictures.  Then proceed to ask questions on things that at the time I could never answer.  

So when we went into this week he was a bit more excited or interested in what we were learning.  Her is a small list of what we both learned about this semi-misunderstood group of people.  We learned that...

• ... they NEVER had helmets with horns on them. 
• ... they were actually the first of discover American and not Columbus.
• ... most Vikings were farmers and not raiders.
• ... came for a place call Scandinavia.
• ... that Scandinavia was made up of three countries: Denmark, Sweden, & Norway.

To go along with our study of Vikings we made a lapbook that I got from Homeschoolshare.com and a few notebook pages too. Also we did some great hands-on paper crafts that Dare-Devil Boy like a lot.

A picture of the inside of Dare-Devil Boy's Lapbook

The paper Viking Long House & Ship we made. 

Water colored Map of the place the Vikings Discovered

The Vikings fighting the Romans

Also the Vikings meeting the Native Americans when they came to North America.
(The Tepi was made during out study of Native Americans we also did this week.)

Early America

Our homeschooling journey is going back to the future.  Really we are going back into Early American History this year.  So far it has been a great one.  
 

This week we are learning about Native Americans and how they first came to America.  Along with reading some great books we have manged to do some great hands-on projects.  (Which I excited about cause I haven't had to schedule and hunt down them.  I have add some things but nothing like I did last year.)  There is a look at what we have learned this week. 

We started our school day with our bible reading.  We have been reading from a Children's bible  story book.  As I was reading my kids decided to draw a picture of what I read.  Here are their interpretations of the creation story.

Dare-Devil Boy's

God Creating the world.

(The person floating is the sky, I was informed is God. Not a superman flying.)

Wonder Girl's

God creating the world picture.

(She told me that she made fish that could fly. Because she didn't have room in the water for them.)

Here is one of the notebook pages we made. 

One of the highlights of the week was learning to play an Native Ameican game.  This game is called the Plum Game.  Dare-Devil and Spider-Dad had a great time playing it.