Robert Toombs & Civil War Recipe

A couple of years ago we went on a business trip with my husband to Washington, Georgia.  While we were there we took a day to visit the Robert Toombs house & made it part of our history study.  His home has been turned into a museum for the public to view. 

Robert Toombs was an attorney & was instrumental in helping the South secede from the Union during the Civil War.  He became Secretary of State for the Confederacy, however, he really wanted to become president.  When Jefferson Davis was chosen for that position Toombs was not happy.  He eventually resigned & lived out the remainder of the war at his home in Washington.

While we were there I picked up a recipe that was made by Mrs. Toombs.  If you are doing a Civil War study this might be a neat project to do with your kids. 

Japan: Make Your Own Origami

We have been studying Japan for Social Studies, so today we did an origami project. At first my son moaned about doing it...he is 11 after all! But I know he loves doing art projects & this would be right up his alley.

We found a great website with tons of patterns & animated videos that take you through each step. They also have their patterns categorized from easy to difficult so you can chose a pattern that suits your skill level.

My son chose 3 different ones: A cat, a penguin (his favorite animal), & a snake. All of these were from the easy level & took less than 15 minutes to make each one. We used construction paper that we had on hand & then he finished off the details with markers.

After you have finished you can display them by hanging them from the ceiling of your school room. So if you are looking for a project to do with your study of Japan, try this & get in some art at the same time. Their website is http://www.origami-club.com/en/

Make a Model of an Indian Village

We studied Navajo Indians this past week & I gave Noah a list of activities that he could choose from to do to go along with the study. He chose to make a model of an Indian village. Before I could come up with ideas for the project he asked me if we had any toilet paper rolls. So I gave him 2 that I had saved along with a paper towel roll. I left him with that, scissors & tape. I had no clue what he was going to do, I just told him to let me know when he was done. This is what he did:

He cut out the door & then bent the tops in together & taped them. He then made a campfire out of the cardboard by taping together little strips of cardboard (sticks) & then attached a cut out flame on top. He then drew a zig-zag line around each one for a Indian design.

This is just a very simple idea that you can use to build an Indian village. You can paint them out in whatever colors you want & then add your own toy Indian figures to complete the scene. So get creative with your kids & have fun with history!