Moving from Slavery (HERE) which was an eye opener for the kids on how cruel the history we come from really is, to Declaration of Independence and the idea of ALL men created equal not actually making it to ALL and completely ignoring women, and then to Abraham Lincoln and his push to begin the abolishing of slavery (HERE), the children actually made a good choice in their next two topics…

Martin Luther King Jr. and his movement to end segregation was the twins’ pick. We had briefly read about him on Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Which spurred the wish to know more. Meanwhile Trinity and Emanuel had come across a book that on the back also advertised Rosa Parks in the same series. Her courageous move to NOT move out of her place on the bus and her continuing of standing up for equality and an end to segregation at the same time was just amazing.  Two very timely and appropriate topics we began in February.

Our lapbook of choice for MLK was a free one (I like to avoid the pay for ones, even though they are so complete, just to save on money.) from Homeschool Helper Online HERE. I find that the lapbook booklets make the topics easier to face, and more enjoyable then a plain written report. For worksheets you can check out my collection on Education.com HERE, EnchantedLearning.com has some good resources (pay site) HERE and Activity Village has their page for Martin Luther King Day HERE.

Books:

• Martin Luther King, Jr. by Amy Pastan HERE
• Martin Luther King, Jr. by Marion Dane Bauer HERE (My First Biography)
• I am Martin Luther King, Jr. by Brad Meltzer HERE
• Martin Luther King, Jr. by Wil Mara HERE
• Martin Luther King, Jr. by Josh Gregory HERE (A True Book)
• Martin Luther King, Jr. A Family Tribute HERE
• Love Will See You Through by Angela Farris Watkins, PhD HERE
• Martin Luther King, Jr by Lucia Raatma HERE
• Martin Luther King, Jr. Day by Meredith Dash HERE

DVD:

• Martin’s Big Words (Scholastic) HERE

I spent a grand total of a dollar on Rosa Parks. We used the Knowledge Box Central Interactive Foldable Booklet. Now I do want to warn that when we purchased it there was a minor spelling error (Education was spelled wrong on one of the pages). I was able to correct it with whiteout and pen, but be warned. You can purchase that HERE.

Rosa Parks is a huge inspiration for Trinity and Echo. They think her choice to sit on the bus was amazingly courageous. They could not get enough of hearing how she was able to not only start a bus boycott, but continued on to work as a Civil Rights Leader and make changes not only in the US, but in other countries around the world. Some called her the Mother of the Civil Rights Movement.

One of the questions we asked ourselves was – What would you say to Rosa Parks? Then Emanuel and Trinity wrote her a letter. 

For our craft activity we filled our buses with all sorts of people. You can find our print out HERE thanks to Danielle’s Place. My Education.com collection is HERE. EnchantedLearning had some good pages HERE as well.

We definitely got ourselves a lovely stack of books to read together and use for research.

• Rosa Parks by Wil Mara HERE
• Who Was Rosa Parks? by Yona Zeldis McDonough HERE
• Rosa Parks by Kitson Jazynka HERE
• I am Rosa Parks by Brad Meltzer HERE
• I am Rosa Parks by Rosa Parks and Jim Haskins HERE
• Rosa Parks by Barbara M. Linde HERE
• Rosa Parks by Cynthia Klingel and Robert B. Noyed HERE
• Rosa Parks by Rosa Park and Jim Haskins HERE

Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks are true inspirations. I think we all agreed that doing what is right isn’t easy but it is rewarding!

As I write that it totally looks like I am saying Lincoln was AT the signing… rather we covered BOTH of these rather interesting topics recently and I figured why not bundle the two together for the blog post?

The 2016/2017 school year has had a focus more towards history and the United States of America. It has been a learning experience for students AND teacher. These two topics were the twins’ choice. We started with the Declaration of Independence. Such an important piece of paper. We used a lot of sheets from Education.com HERE.

We had a few books we requested from the library that were helpful:

• What is the Declaration of Independence by Michael C. Harris HERE
• The Declaration of Independence by Don Nardo HERE
• American Documents: The Declaration of Independence by Judith Lloyd Yero HERE
• The Declaration of Independence by Lori Mortensen HERE

I have to share a rather interesting link passed along by a good friend (and fellow twin mom)… this one looks at what happened to the signers of the Declaration of Independence AFTER they signed at USHistory.org. They truly risked life and limb to do so, as they were really committing treason against the crown and King of England. The twins spent quite a bit of time picking out some interesting people to put into our hand out and report folder.

Abraham Lincoln was a huge success. The boys have always had a vague interest in him with his distinctive look and hat that he apparently kept things in. Our final conclusion was that Abraham Lincoln was a great president, one of the best, BUT his life seemed rather miserable. Granted there was a shorter life expectancy and much higher general death rate but… wow… so much sadness, death and difficulty in the life of someone who now is seen as such an inspirational figure.

We ended up choosing a labook set up that was not free, but it was well worth it. We went with a Knowledge Box product you can find for 5.00 (US) HERE. They have a study guide, lapbook and clear instructions.

You can check out my Education.com collection of worksheets HERE. Activity Village has some very helpful worksheets as well (sadly these are all pay for sites to get the full experience, but we have found it well worth it.) HERE. You can do a helpful search on EnchantedLearning as well to get these pages HERE.

Books:

• I am Abraham Lincoln by Brad Meltzer HERE
• Abraham Lincoln: Lawyer, President, Emancipator by Pamela Hill Nettleton HERE
• Abraham Lincoln by Barbara Knox HERE
• Abe Lincoln: The boy who loved books by Kay Winters HERE
• Abraham Lincoln by Tanya Lee Stone HERE
• Encyclopedia of Presidents and Their Times by David Rubel HERE
• Magic Tree House #47: Abe Lincoln at Last! by Mary Pope Osborne HERE
• Abraham Lincoln by Sarah Hansen HERE

DVD:

• Getting to Know The U.S. Presidents: Lincoln HERE

These were wonderful topics for us to cover one after the other. We really haven’t spent as much time on US history as we have researching countries from other parts of the world. I can’t say we will stick with these kind of topics, but the more we can cover and find interest in the better. From Lincoln it is a quick jump to Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks. I will share our resources from these topics to. From slavery to a country declaring independence, to a man realizing that a whole group of people also deserved their independence… then to a man who made sure that it was realized that segregation is wrong and a woman who helped courageously help attain that dream. Not bad for taking topics the kids chose themselves!

Chinese New Year is a holiday we have tried our best to celebrate for at least 5 or 6 years now. This is all thanks to the families of our two gorgeous god daughters (Anna and Isabella). Their moms are from the same city in China (Ghangzou) and have been kind enough to help us learn how to fully embrace this holiday. I love the changing date of the celebration based on the lunar calendar and it has come to mean more than the “traditional” North American New Years to me. We do a significant amount of preparation for this holiday, cleaning, researching and shopping for food, reading out favourite themed stories (The Runaway Wok by Ying Chang Compestine). This year it was Trinity’s turn to do a full on lapbook for the season. She worked really hard on it and it shows.

We finished up our day with take out from our favourite Chinese food restaurant – The Rose Garden.

I have worksheets to share:

• Activity Village HERE
• Education.com collection HERE and chicken collection HERE
• Definitely make sure you search EnchantedLearning.com for their resources HERE

Books to suggest:

• Happy Chinese New Year, Kai-Lan! HERE
• The Nian Monster by Andrea Wang (a new book for us!) by Andrea Wang HERE
• Celebrate Chinese New Year by Carolyn Otto HERE
• Chinese New Year Crafts by Karen E. Bledsoe HERE
• Chinese New Year by Grace Jones HERE
• Celebrating Chinese New Year by Diana Hoyt-Goldsmith HERE
• Chinese New Year by Ann Heinrichs HERE
• Long-Long’s New Year by Catherine Gower HERE
• The Runaway Rice Cake by Ying Chang Compestine HERE
• Fortune Cookie Fortunes by Grace Lin HERE
• Red Butterfly by Deborah Noyes HERE
• Red Kite, Blue Kite by Ji-li Jiang HERE
• Kai-Lan’s Great Trip to China HERE

And a few DVD’s for you to hunt down:

• Celebrate With Kai-Lan! HERE
• Stone Soup (a read-along) HERE

Of course there is the lapbook Trinity used! Currclick has it for 3.00 HERE. This is put out by A Journey Through Learning Lapbooks.

And don’t forget our yearly video!

For our Chicken/Rooster research we had a couple books as well:

• Chickens by Katie Dicker HERE
• Young Chicken Farmers by Vickie Black HERE

I used this amazing designer to make this year’s Zodiac animal – the rooster. I used her last year to make a monkey as well (see my County Fair post from last here HERE). Her site is called All about Ami and you can find her rooster pattern HERE and the monkey HERE.

We also splurged this year and bought two dresses for the girls off of Amazon. They were not overly expensive and definitely not high quality, but so cute!

Of course we also picked up new shirts for the boys at Walmart. And buzzed the twins’ heads. New clothes and fresh haircuts in a clean house. And I mean CLEAN! We threw out, sorted, donated… you name it we got rid of excess. And it felt amazing. So Happy Chinese New Year All! Let’s hope the year of the Rooster is auspicious and prosperous!

The girls love to sort through their toys and find theme friendly pieces.