We have been busy with school lately. Doing a unit study on past, present, and future presidents is very time consuming. Although, school in general is just time-consuming. At least we get to pick our own hours. Up until this week our history has pretty much just been looking at different presidents. We are going in order. We are just in the reconstruction era. We have not gone into too much detail about the civil war. (that is planned for two years from now, yes I do have that far away planned) However, Nathaniel read a biography of Stonewall Jackson, which led to Mark also wanting to read one. Some of the things that people had to endure just to survive back then are unimaginable to those of us who have always had it easy. We tend to think of our lives as stressful, but we really have no idea. So many of our early presidents were either widowed or married to widows. Many of them had children who died young. Not to mention, they all lived in the time before indoor plumbing, electricity, microwaves, telephones and other things we take for granted. Like well-trained medical staffs.
Anyway, we are adding to that the election coverage. Yesterday we started a poster of John McCain. We thought we were putting enough stuff together that it would cover the whole poster, but it did not. So we'll finish today. We have been looking at his campaign issues. My little Republican kids are happy studying about him, but they are not happy about studying about B. Hussein Obama. Even though they do not have to pay taxes, they are not happy about someone who says they plan to raise taxes.
Which brings me to another point. I have been going to the candidates websites to get info on them. Obama has a place where you can contact him by e-mail. I sent an e-mail asking where he stands on homeschooling. I got a response (if you could call it that) that no more answers my question than I can fly(without an airplane). His response said to tell other people to register, and get out to vote. So I am doing as asked: If you are not registered, please do so. Also, don't forget to vote. (but please do me a favor and do not vote for a man who refuses to give anything remotely close to an actual answer when he is asked something)
During our study, we are letting each of the boys be "president for a day". They are loving this. They were really excited at first, thinking that it meant they could just kick back and rule the roost for a day. Then they started realizing that being president is not all about fun. They have to use wisdom in running a country, er, household. The president has to make sure that everyone does their schoolwork. The president has to be sure everyone does things like brushing teeth and getting into bed at a reasonable time. This has been kind of neat. They are not tattling to me on each other. They are heading straight to the pres. Of course he does get to do fun stuff like pick out his favorite meal for supper. Everyone has to refer to him as "Mr. President" How's this for funny; Nathaniel's VP was me, Benjamin's was Mark, and Samuel's was Benjamin. Nathaniel has been a secret-service man and Secretary of Defense, Benjamin has served as a secret service man. Samuel has been both a secret service man, and a SNIPER trying to assassinate the president (Benjamin).
Today they are going to draw pictures of their favorite presidents on poster paper with chalk. (wonder if any of them are going to draw themselves) We are going to attach these pictures to the volleyball net outside. Each boy is going to be a secret service agent in charge of protecting his president. Mark and I are going to be snipers hiding behind trees with water guns and water grenades to assassinate the presidents. It will be the boys' jobs to jump in front of the bullets to protect their president. Whoever has the least water on their president at the end wins. Wins what I don't know. They just win.
We are reading Charlie and the Chocolate Factory as a family read aloud. Lots of choices between wisdom and foolishness there. We are attempting our first lapbook on this. I'll post some pictures when the boys get finished.
Speaking of pictures, I have a ton of pictures where we burned holes in leaves studying the sun, (yes, I am the mom who actually shows her boys dangerous stuff) and where we went to the Space and Rocket Center to watch Fly Me to the Moon. However, since this post is already about five miles long and I am still uploading the pics to phototbucket, they'll have to wait until next time.
Hope your week has been great. If not, it's only half over. Maybe something good will happen.
