Curricula of Note: America The Beautiful

Dear Curious Reader,

What do homeschoolers do all day? A mystery for the ages. Would you like a peek? Sorry, come back later, we’re doing top-secret science experiments at the moment.

Okay, that was a joke. You can laugh now. No? Not even a little chuckle? Oh well, moving on…

If it were up to Bee, we would color all day. So in order to channel that enthusiasm into some other areas of learning I’m constantly on the look-out for color books that explore other subjects. Realistically there is only so much you can learn from picture after picture of cute little kitty cats with polka-dot hair bows and smiling puppy dogs eating from overloaded dog-dishes.

Here is one of my favorite finds:

America the Beautiful Coloring and Activity Book by Playmore-Waldman. I bought it at a Home-school garage-sale a year or so ago and put it away thinking it was a bit advanced for a three or four year-old. Then I promptly forgot about it. Mom-brain gets me every-time. When I did dig it up and took the time to really look through it, I was quite enchanted. I’m a historian at heart and coming across history resources well-formatted and suited for small children is a rare and delightful occurence.

There are little activities on the pages.

And little facts to entice your child into casual (or intense) discussion. Have you ever tried to explain The American Revolution to a five-year-old? It gets interesting.

“Why did they want to fight the King?”

“That wasn’t nice to kill the King’s men”

“Why did they dress up like Indians?”

“Why did they waste all that tea by dumping it in the water”

It's not that easy to explain war to a child.

 Also, it's kind of amusing to realize that The British called the patriots, terrorists, traitors, and radicals. Suffice it to say, it was good exercise to examine my convictions as I stumbled through answering my child’s tough questions. When it was over I was still happy and thankful they fought for freedom and the rights we hold dear.

We even fit in a little lesson on diversity.

Bee was quietly coloring away when she suddenly announced that one of the soldiers had brown skin and the other guy was “kind of pink and orange, like us”. I was glad for an opportunity to commend her on her accuracy and explain that the white and black men fought side by side in the war. At the end of the day, they were all Americans.

When Mr. Loggerhead got home that night she explained it all to him. I listened unobtrusively as she told him,

"The ‘Mericans wanted to be free. They didn’t want to give all their money to a king. They wanted to make their own rules and not have the King tell them what to do. So they fought because the King wanted them to obey him but the ‘Mericans won."

Hmmmm… By George! I think she's got it. And that, my friends, is what we're going for.

Oh, and because she’s a princess as well as a scholar, we had to add some sparkles.

Love,

History Never Misses With This Missus (in NE)

P.S. This color book is no longer in print but I did find several used copies of America The Beautiful Coloring and Activity Book on Amazon.