Great Blogs

Discovered some new blogs recently. Ryan is learning his countries in Africa and when I googled "blank African map" for him to fill in for practice I discovered the Free Printable Maps blog. Wow. We’ll be visiting this place again and again. And to show just how thankful I am for this site, here's Ryan's graded test:

While there I noticed a link to Free Coloring Pages. Though most of these are very juvenile, the site did offer a link to several pages of Barack Obama and the Statue of Liberty if any of you happen to need them.

Library of Books, Links & More offers links to loads of topics, including my two favorites, history and geography. Look on the left hand side, eighth subject down. There I spied the Best of History Website. What a treasure trove!

I also enjoyed coming across Karen’s History Project blog this week. She has collected many great history links as well. One that looks particularly interesting is called Picturing History.
Under the Lessons in Looking section of that site I read a thought provoking analysis of how slaves have been depicted in art.

SNOW WEEK - Conquering Everest

TITLE: Triumph on Everest: A Photobiography of Sir Edmund Hillary

AUTHOR: Broughton Coburn

WHO WAS WHERE IN THE SNOW? Edmond Hillary, a New Zealander, along with a Nepalese Sherpa named Tenzing Norgay, were the first to reach the summit of Mount Everest at 11:30 a.m. on May 29, 1953.

AMAZING FACTS ABOUT THIS EVENT: We would never have heard of Hillary if not for Tenzing. His quick thinking saved Hillary from what would have been a fatal crevice fall as they began to ascend Everest. After his Everest adventure, and being knighted by Queen Elizabeth II, Hillary set out to fulfill his childhood hero’s goal. Ernest Shakleton had not traversed Antarctica but Hillary accomplished this feat in 1958. Then he devoted most of his life to creating schools, medical access and ecological stability for the people of Nepal through the Himalayan Trust, which he founded. All of this from one adventurous man who started his life as a beekeeper!

This is an interesting National Geographic Society book with pictures aplenty.

Ages 9 to 12
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Activity: Can you name the highest mountain on each continent?

Talking Walls

I love it when an author picks an off the wall (pardon the pun) object and turns it into a fascinating and educational book. For a case in point, I'd recommend Cod: A Biography of the Fish That Changed the World and Spice: The History of a Temptation.

Walls are the subject in Talking Walls. Margy Burns Knight introduces children to over a dozen walls of historical interest. Each spread is illustrated with a full page depiction of a wall with a child or children incorporated, along with a couple of paragraphs of information. Some of the author’s choices are predictable, like the Great Wall of China, the Berlin Wall and the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. Most people would be hard pressed to name her other selections. They include, Mahabalipuram, the Zimbabwe conical towers and the Canadian Museum of Civilization. What an interesting assortment for a child-sized introduction to culture, geography, and history.

There are even more walls in the author’s follow up book, Talking Walls: The Stories Continue.

Ages 9-12
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Activity: Can you match the wall with it's correct geographic location? Check your answers here.

King of the Wind

Sea Biscuit, Man o’ War and War Admiral were all extraordinary race horses that could trace their sire line back to one special stallion. That stallion is the origin of the Thoroughbred. Marguerite Henry tells a romanticized version of his life in King of the Wind: The Story of the Godolphin Arabian.

Sham, one of the Moroccan Sultan's many fine horses, is sent as a gift to the king of France with his mute Muslim stable boy and five other prized Arabians. When they arrive in Paris, they aren't much to look at after being starved by a cruel ship captain and then enduring a grueling overland trek. To add insult to injury, King Louis XV mocks the Arabians small size, as the preferred breeds in Europe were much larger. More misfortunes ensue for both horse and boy, including cart pulling for the horse, prison time for the boy, and exile for them both after Sham makes time with a beautiful mare, Lady Roxana, who was intended for a prize stallion at The Earl of Godolphin's Estate. But close to two years later Sham's offspring wins every race imaginable. So Sham and the boy, Agba, are retrieved from their swamp home and Sham is finally prized for the rest of his days. This is an enjoyable story for anyone, but is a must read for all horse lovers.

Awards: 1949 Newbery Medal Winner

Ages 9-12

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Activity: Can you match the breed of horse to their country of origin? To make your own poster, print this link (two legal size horizontal pages), and with color pencils, color the name of the horse breed the same color as it's place of origin. Color all of the horses and the map and cut everything out and glue on poster board. Shannon used a half sheet of standard poster board.

Here is Shannon's poster.

Shannon made the words Shetland Pony yellow and that
breed's country of origin, Scotland, yellow as well.

As stated earlier, the Godolphin Arabian is on Seabiscuit’s pedigree. And speaking of Seabiscuit, what a fabulous movie! It is an incredible yet true horse racing story that happened during the Great Depression. A down on their luck horse, jockey, trainer and owner came together to form an unbeatable team and provide inspiration to a down on their luck nation. Full of heart. I highly recommend it!

Pilgrim Cat

Cat lovers will relish Pilgrim Cat. It offers a look at sailing to and settling in a new land from a cat's perspective. It starts when a stray mouser boards the Mayflower and befriends fellow passenger Faith Barret. She names the feline Pounce. Together they experience a new world that includes howling wolves, a tribe of Wampanoags and rows of corn. Then one day Pounce disappears. Faith is distraught, but a happy ending is in store when Pounce is discovered -by Squanto no less- and surprise! He is a she with a litter of kittens. The kittens grow and are present at the first Thanksgiving. Very engaging story and pictures. A sure child pleaser with lots of well researched Pilgrim information.

Ages 4-9
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Activity: Color the Mayflower.

The Little Ship That Could

Here's another embarrassing admission. Until I tripped upon this book at the library, I had never heard of the Dunkirk evacuation. Turns out it's a tale not to be missed! World War II was full of gloom what with gas chambers, death marches, mass graves and every sort of bombing imaginable. This book tells of the unusually uplifting event that occurred between May 26 and June 4, 1940. Hitler’s army had pushed hundreds of thousands of allied forces up against the French shoreline at Dunkirk with no foreseeable means of escape. Then a hastily assembled flotilla of 846 boats of every imaginable variety appeared and rescued 338,226 troops. Many of those boats included civilian fishing vessels and pleasure craft. In The Little Ships: The Heroic Rescue at Dunkirk in World War II, Louise Borden creates a satisfying story based on fact. A British girl, disguised as a boy, joins her father on their fishing boat for the fifty mile Strait of Dover crossing to Dunkirk where she sees the devastation of the war, helps where she can, and keeps an ever vigilant eye on the lookout for her soldier brother.

Ages 6-12

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Here is some interesting actual footage of the evacuation.

Activity: It's game time. Can you Pin the Boat on the Strait of Dover and save the allies?

Genghis Khan

Demi's books are a special treat and this one is no exception. It is oozing with gold leaf, prancing Mongolian ponies and insight into how Genghis Khan became the ruler of the largest empire ever created in one lifetime. He lead an adventurous life, even in childhood. He was riding before he could walk, herding camels at age five, hunting by six and the head of his clan by age nine. He was fourteen when he was captured by rivals, and then made a nail-biting escape. My daughter found it disturbing that he put an arrow through his own brother's heart after he discovered him stealing from their own food provisions (and I thought my kids were rough on each other). But the text emphasizes over and over again the trait he admired and expected most: loyalty. Genghis Khan is a beautiful book and a great way to begin to learn about one man that had an enormous impact on history.

Ages 8-12

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Activity: Add your own details to this Steppes picture. A felt yurt is ready to be colored, but can you add horses, goats, camels, Mongol warriors or even Genghis Khan?

The Mongolian Empire

Hungry Times

In the good old days there were some bad old years. The Irish Potato Famine and the American Dust Bowl are two such instances. Each of these "good farming gone bad" events caused immense physical and financial suffering, epic migrations and questions concerning government response.

My maiden name is O'Brien. My great-grandparents immigrated from Ireland to America during the famine but I had never actually read about it. Then I picked up Black Potatoes: The Story of the Great Irish Famine, 1845-1850. Wow. What a mess! The vast majority of the Irish population were tenant farmers working on land owned by British landlords, and they depended heavily on potatoes to feed their large families. Then along came a blight that turned their potatoes into a black, stinky mush...for five years! This book is loaded with stories of starvation, disease, evictions, work-houses, famine ships, death and misery. It also delves into the Irish/English relationship at that time. How Britain's frustrating Corn Laws, which placed a high tax on imported grains, elevated the local costs of all oats, wheat, barley and rye, exacerbating the famine problem. Also mentioned is the attempted uprising against the British government led by William Smith O'Brien.

Many stories I will have a hard time shaking off. The baker who was obsessed with cleaning his clothes before going into the street for fear any remnants of flour dust would create a frenzied mob. The family that knew the farmer next door shot and buried two diseased pigs and waited until nightfall to dig them up and eat them. The men who cut off the tails of cattle or drained a few pints of blood from them, thereby not destroying someone else's property, and yet providing some protein to their families.

In fact, what makes this book so interesting are all the first hand accounts along with the many etchings as they appeared in London newspapers. If nothing else, Susan Campbell Bartoletti's book will make you ever so thankful the next time you are at the table and say, "please, pass the potatoes."

Ages YA

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Dust to Eat: Drought and Depression in the 1930s describes how life on the plains bottomed out as topsoil blew away.

On May 9, 1934, a dust storm carried an estimated 350 million tons of dirt two thousand miles eastward. Weathermen calculated that four million tons of prairie dirt fell on Chicago—four pounds for each city resident. The following day, the dust darkened the sky over Buffalo, New York, and Atlanta, Georgia. Three hundred miles out into the Atlantic Ocean, brown prairie dirt fell like snow on the decks of ships.

During World War I the federal government guaranteed farmers $2.00 per bushel of wheat. When the war ended, European demand for wheat encouraged what historians call "the Great Plow Up." In Oklahoma in 1915, only a few thousand tractors tilled the soil, but ten years later 50,000 tractors were working the fields. Then the disk harrow, with it's long row of circular blades, replaced the single-blade iron plow. Millions of acres of native grasses that held the earth in place were plowed under. Some farmers planted crops right up to their front doors. Then rain became scarce and winds began to blow.

Michael L. Cooper's straightforward book goes on to describe the policies of newly elected Franklin D. Roosevelt, the all encompassing Great Depression and the migration of millions to mostly California. The book includes many first hand accounts and heart-wrenching photographs.

Ages 9-12

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Activity: Can you correctly identify the most affected states on the Dust Bowl Map?

Gobs of Globes

You and I are on one big, beautiful ball. And a lot of history has happened on that ball. When reading about Magellan's voyage, the Mongol invasions and the Oregon Trail a visual desire kicks in. We yearn to lay our eyes on a map; to view reference points that can be filed away in our head. That's why I stocked up on these great geography resources.

The purchase I most recommend is the LeapFrog® Explorer Smart Globe. Learning geography has never been so fun...and addictive! This globe has a fascinating array of capabilities. The kids were instantly attracted to the music option. By poking a place with the stylus pen a melody plays that best represents that country. My daughter would exclaim, "Turkey is my favorite," while prompting an upbeat tune over and over again. My son was drawn repeatedly to the folksy music of Cambodia.

This globe also, amazingly enough, gives the distance between two points. When pals have moved to Hawaii or Michigan the kids have remembered to use this option to see how far flung their friends are.

And then there is the game. We are asked to find "Argentina" or "New Zealand" or "Finland." Under timed pressure we successfully poke as many countries as we possibly can. My daughter got amazingly good at this at the tender age of seven. Then one day while driving a news report came on the radio about unrest between India and Pakistan. That little girl of mine piped up and said, "Pakistan and India are right next to each other!" There are two points I would like to make here. First, I know she had a mental image of the placement of those two countries and how that related to where she was. And, had she not been familiar with those countries she would NEVER have keyed into that news story.

Speaking of driving, I keep a GeoSafari Talking Globe Traveler in my car. I have noticed a strange phenomenon in regard to this globe. My kids ignore it. But when other kids are along for the ride they can't resist it. Pretty soon everyone is divided up into teams, each attempting to come up with the correct answers to the globe's questions. And viola! The car becomes a high school quiz bowl on wheels. I got this little unit at a teacher's supply store. Unfortunately the sound can be somewhat garbled. Misunderstandings about what is being asked have on occasion caused a round of belly laughs!

I also couldn't resist this gargantuan, inflatable ball that I found on ebay. The sensation of having this big old world come flying down on you from a blue sky is very surreal. And who can resist striking an Atlas pose? I gave it to the children for Christmas in 2007 and then it appeared on our 2008 Christmas card. "Peace on Earth."

Activity: Use this two-dimensional world map while you're globe shopping.

The Dalai Lama

I was going to group all of Demi's many biographical books together in one post, but I decided to slow down and enjoy them one at a time. What she creates is nothing short of book candy...gorgeously illustrated and popping with juicy colors.

In this story Demi, who is a practicing Buddhist, tells about the life of the present day and fourteenth Dalai Lama. And lo and behold, the forward is actually written by His Holiness the Dalai Lama! Through this book your child will learn how the Dalai Lama is discovered, what he was like as a boy, how he grew up in the Potala Palace, how China affected Tibetan life, and how the Dalai Lama and thousands of other Tibetan people made a mass exodus to India in the 1950's. It is well told and will shed some light on those "Free Tibet" bumper stickers.

Ages 7-9
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And this looks interesting. The Tibetan Prayer Flag Pack contains two sets of flags: one with traditional ancient Tibetan blessings, the other to be personalized using the enclosed indelible fabric markers. For centuries Tibetans have been spreading prayers and blessings with the use of these flags and a book describing the history and spirituality behind these beautiful squares of prayer is also included in the pack. Would love to hear what prayers your children come up with.


Activity: Here is a map challenge. Do you know the countries that bordered Tibet? And take a look at this animated map of China from 1948-1950.