So I need to finish telling you about our World War I homeschool day.  In my last post on our WWI speech day, I mentioned some of the speeches that were given. (The Sinking of the Lusitania, Donuts, Sgt. York, Army Nurses, Life in the Trenches, War Dogs and Cher-Ami the carrier pigeon.

After the aforementioned speeches, we heard about The Forgotten Warriors (war horses), and then Wesley came and told us about Air Warfare and specifically Frank Luke.

I found this to be an interesting point he brought out in his speech; although there are always conflicting numbers, the average number of days a pilot lived was 8 days with only 18 hours of active duty.  Frank Luke was the 2nd highest scoring American Army Air Service pilot in World War I.  Phoenix, Arizona also has an air force base named after him called Luke Air Force Base.

(Some of the speech makers and audience)

Audrey gave the last speech and it was her very first time to do it all on her own.  She did a fantastic job, speaking very clearly and with her speech almost completely memorized.

She spoke on “Food” and how Americans were able to grow 15% of their family’s food by planting Victory Garden’s.

Before we began our speeches, I handed out little booklets I had made to everyone.

I included some quotes of Bro. Branham & the famous WWI poem “In Flander’s Field”.

I also asked each of our speech makers to give me 5 things they wanted people to remember from their speech. I typed them up and included them in the booklet.

These booklets were given to our guests to keep and also to each of the kids. It will be a little memento of their day and hopefully, it will help the kids remember what others talked about. I’m sure that many of them get so “tied up” with their own speech they hardly remember any others.

Lydia finished up our day by singing the World War I song “When I Get Back to the U.S.A.” and then everyone joined her and sang “My Country Tis of Thee”.

You can hear the actual music on First World War.com.

When I get back home again to the U.S.A.

In the land of peace and freedom, I intend to stay,

Somehow I never feel at home when I’m away from there, anywhere,

No other nation in this creation would ever do for me.

I guess I’m cranky, ’cause I’m a Yankee, But then I’m proud to be.

On the pier you’ll hear me shouting Hip, Hip, Hooray,

When I get back to the U.S.A.

Next was lunch – all authentic World War I fare.

The menu consisted of:

Beef Stew – taken from Foods that Will Win the War and How to Cook Them – written in 1918

Hot Pot of Mutton and Barley (replaced the mutton with elk meat)

Oatmeal Muffins

Rice Corn Bread

Corn Meal Muffins – taken from Best War-Time Recipes by the Royal Baking Powder Co. – written in 1918

Whole Wheat Chocolate Cookies

Herbert Hoover WWI Cake

If you click on any of the links above it will take you to the recipe.

Audrey wanted to serve everyone since her speech topic was on food and the war.

Then Joane, one of the homeschool moms, had some activities she had planned for the kids and they all had a ball doing them.

Melody, picking her way through the grenades water balloons

I loved seeing all the kids playing together.

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I thought you might enjoy seeing some of the propaganda war posters that were made.

We had a wonderful time on our Speech Day. It took us a year-and-a-half before we finally got to it but I’m feeling motivated now and hope to get on track and do another day with a different topic, of course, in 2013.

The kids really enjoy it, it gives them practice writing speeches as well as delivering them and then there’s also all the creativity involved of choosing props, costumes or anything else we feel like adding in.

And we mom’s have quite a bit of fun, too.

We had a really good day, the event was smaller than some of our others have been but for some reason I enjoyed it so much.

Headquarters was in a canvas wall tent with a wood burning stove to keep us toasty or hot as some probably were. It was a perfect setting. I had a drink station set up outside the tent for everyone to either have tea, hot chocolate or coffee before they entered.

I think my speaking career ended that day. I tried to give an introduction but it was so embarrassingly pathetic. I have a hard time saying I can’t do something because I figure you can always learn, but honestly, I think it may be time to throw the towel in, “Enough is enough!”   We can’t help but laugh every time we think of my “smooth wording.”

Zachary read a few quotes about WWI from Bro. Branham. So interesting.

Wesley recited “In Flanders Fields”, the most famous poem of World War I in his intense and dramatic way.

Serenity told us about how the war started and the sinking of the Lusitania.

Justus told us about Sgt. Alvin York and the hand of Providence in his life.

There was a speech on the war horses of WWI and one on the donut lassies with fresh homemade donuts passed around for us all to eat.

A little skit was put on about Nurses in WWI, Life in the Trenches, Dogs used in the war and Cher Ami, a little carrier pigeon.

Part II to come…

We’re here in PA having Thanksgiving with my sister and her family and my mom and dad. It’s time to head to the kitchen and get some of those mashed potatoes made for Thanksgiving Day.

I love this holiday!

I’m thankful for all of you!  Happy Thanksgiving!

The point of our speech day is to teach our children public speaking skills but the bonuses are they get to learn about a subject in-depth (we hope), learn to write a speech and practice their public speaking skills all in a fun setting. We invite grandparents and others who we will feel are interested in the kids and what they’re learning.

For some reason, we have all been lagging with the topic that was chosen.  It has now been over a year almost 2 years since we chose our topic.  Tsk, tsk!  Usually we plan for about 6 months and then have the speech day. Not this time.

We had a work day a few weeks ago. This is something we started with our Medieval study. We have a good time all working together on various projects. I think these are always fun days. We usually try to have the kids do some projects that we can use as props/displays for the actual co-op day.

One of our projects this year was for the kids to choose either a Central Power flag or an Allied flag and then construct it out of construction paper.

We found this website that had all the flags of World War I with pictures and a brief history of each one.

This is a German Naval Jack flag which was used on all Imperial German warships between the years 1909-1919.

All the flags will be attached to a dowel and placed in the ground for display.

Then we had all the kids trace a war poster they had chosen from the WWI era onto a poster board using our digital projector.

The kids all took their posters home to paint them or color them – their choice.

These are the ones my kids painted.  They’re mostly done but parts of the face still need to be completed.  We’ve purchased plenty of 1×2’s that we’ll be pounding into the back yard with a child’s completed war poster stapled to it.  We’ll have 10 of them dotted around the yard.  I think it’s going to look great.

Something we had not planned but is kind of neat is that we’re having our WWI co-op day near the time World War I ended.  The war actually ended on November 11 (formerly known as Armistice Day), and our speech day is going to be on November 17. I think it will add to the occasion.  We are planning to start at the exact time the war ended 11a.m.

It’s shaping up to be a fun day but one of the main things of all is getting those speeches written and we still have 2 to go!  This is not something I recommend.  You don’t want to follow our example in this for sure!

To begin Wesley’s study he is reading Lusitania by Diana Preston.

For our high school students we have started steering them away from giving an informative speech and are asking them to experiment with new types of speeches.  This year they can choose from the following:

Special Occasion Speaking (SOS): SOS is an event where students prepare a humorous speech on a timely and relevant topic. This can be influenced through news, politics, current events, trends, and so on.  It must be geared towards a specific audience, who must be addressed in the speech.

Dramatic Duet Acting (DDA): In this speech, a pair of students acts out a dramatic script. Students are generally allowed to use a table and two chairs to help add to the event.  Students each play just one character and work to form a meaningful interaction with each other.

Ceremonial Speeches: A ceremonial speech is one that is given to mark an important occasion in someones life, such as a graduation speech, a wedding toast, or a eulogy at a funeral. These speeches can be both emotionally moving and fun. 

Persuasive Speeches: The purpose of a persuasive speech is to change people’s minds or behavior about something. This is a very difficult thing to do. For a persuasive speech to be truly effective, it’s not enough to simply present your arguments in an eloquent way. You need to actually get the audience to change their minds. 

Dramatic Interpretation – be one or more people by moving yourself into different positions.  You act out a story, act out a scene, or do a mini-skit.

For our last co-op day (Medieval Times), the older kids did Dramatic Interpretations.  It was quite fun to see the kids and their different interpretations!  So I’m really looking forward to hearing what they’ll do this year.

Because you just never know…. 

The day started out beautifully and the framework for our marketplace was started.

But then it started to rain and it rained off and on for several hours.

We couldn’t put the sheets on the “roof” of the marketplace because of the rain.  What to do?  Our whole event was planned for the outdoors.  A last minute decision was made to move into the racquetball court.  Off to the store some of the men went to buy some plywood and such for a platform and straw for the floor.  A racquetball court is very echoey so you have to do something to absorb sound.

Meanwhile, much preparation was also being done inside the house.  Zachary made iced mint tea from his garden to sell at the marketplace.

“Money” was being put into coin bags to give to our guests.  They then used the “money” to buy goods at the marketplace.

Beautiful long hair was being braided in medieval hair styles.

At last it was time to begin.  To start, we had all our guests go to our front yard.  We then would take 13 at a time and have them enter the time machine.  The time machine that a few of the mom’s worked on turned out to be just great.

All the windows in the dining room were covered with black plastic .  Around the door you can see where the sign reads “Time Portal – Destination”.  Around the edges of the door which you cannot see, it read “Middle Ages”.

The light bulbs in the dining room were changed to colored ones.  These were blinked on and off during our journey back in time.  To complete the effect and make it totally dark a black piece of plastic was pulled across the opening once everyone entered the time machine.  Noises were made resembling space ship sounds using a karaoke machine,

All the participants went through first.

A poem from the middle ages was read while “time” rolled backwards on this big time wheel.

Then a soft voice spoke saying “You have now reached the middle ages.  You may exit to the right.”  They were now back in time.

Ready for adventure!

Off the participants went to the marketplace to await our guests.

Lots more pictures to follow but that’s all for today!

Updated to add:  Part II is up.  Click here.

This will be our 5th year. Thus far our Co-op days have been…

Democratic Republic of the Congo (we have a family at our church that moved from there and we thought it would be a great opportunity to learn some things firsthand)

(Wesley did his speech on the food of the DROC. He served some authentic food from his roadside stand “Red Termite Inn”.)

Under the Sea

(my friend made this sharks submarine mouth that we had to enter before we could go underwater, which was our garage covered in blue tarps)

Pioneer Day


(Don’t you love this carved watermelon that friends from Pennsylvania made? Some people are so talented!)

Inventions

(My oldest daughter did her speech on the pencil and included her two younger siblings.)

This year we will be going back in time to the Middle Ages – a time period with plenty to study since it covers about 1,000 years!

I just recently learned that history is divided up into three parts: 1. Antiquity 2. Middle Ages 3. Modern Times.

Isn’t that interesting? I had always thought the Middle Ages was the time of knights and castles but did not know it also involved the martyrs, William Wallace and Vikings.

I can’t wait to get into this study. So much fascinating history to cover and learn before June when the children give their speeches.

Some materials I plan to use are:

There are of course many other books about the middle ages I intend to use but these are the ones I’ve purchased. It’s much easier for me to have the books on hand than to be going to the library (since it’s a little ways away) and I end up paying fines so many times, too. If they’re good books I don’t mind having them in our own personal library for the kids to mull over at will.