Week six in American History

This week in American History we learned about the Pennsylvania colony and William Penn of course :) We learned how the early colonists used plants for medicine and how some of these worked while others did not. The kids drew pictures of ones that worked, such as using the willow tree for headaches. The willow tree is how we get aspirin. They also drew pics of ones that didn't work such as children wearing wolves teeth around their necks for courage.

Then we had a "treasure hunt" of sorts and the kids searched our yard for plants that can be used for medicinal remedies and ones that they used in the colonial period.

Queen Anne's Lace: Named this because of it's lace like appearance and it was said to have one small flower in the middle that was a drop of Queen Anne's blood. Really God put it there to help bee's and other insects find it. Used for birth control and to get rid of intestinal gas and worms.

Doodlebug searching for Rosemary  (please use your imagination glasses while looking at our sad herb garden). Rosemary can be used for digestion, circulation of blood, as a disinfectant, and as perfume or ointment.

Here is our basket after coming in from the "Folk Medicine Treasure Hunt" :)

 We learned how the immune system works to fight a virus and how Cotton Mathers came up with the inoculation process. The kids watched a video on the immune system online and then played this game.

 Learning how the virus enters the body. In short...the T-cells then yell for backup. Followed by the B-cells which bring the K-cells to kill the virus and the antibodies are left behind to prevent the virus from making your body sick again.

 

Benjamin West was an artist and used the juice of various plants to add color to his artwork. We used lemon, orange, lime, strawberry, blueberry, and coffee for our pictures.                                   

The finished projects. Inchworm's, Pollywog's, and Doodlebug's.

The

Benjamin West notebooking pages.  

 Doodlebug has been reading James and the Giant Peach and loving it. 

Pollywog has been reading Pocahontas and the Strangers and loving it.  

 

We went on a leaf hunt after learning about leaf classification. The kiddos made leaf rubbings and them labeled the leaves as either compound or simple and then smooth, toothed, or lobed.

 

Nothing very exciting in NOEO this week. We have been reading about the scientific method and the kids illustrated their narration after one of our readings. The next step is to find something we want to ask a question about and then test with the method. Any ideas????

I thought this was funny since I have a picture of the same thing when he was about four months old :) So far our only thumb sucker and hopefully the last ;)

Doodlebug made a track for Inchworm to play with while we were schooling. They both enjoyed playing with it during their one on one time with each other. I'm so glad to have that time scheduled into our days.

This is how Inchworm chooses to do housework ... and from the picture you can tell it really needs it!

Pollywog took this picture of baby America because she thought he was just too cute for words. That is what she said anyways :)

 It was a full week and we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves despite the sickness we are still fighting.