Posts Tagged ‘Homeschooling’

Antique Train Tour

Monday, August 17th, 2015

antique-train-tourThis post contains affiliate links. I was compensated for my work in writing this post.

Today I will be taking you on an antique train tour. This is a fun field trip if you are studying modern history. We have been using All American History, Volume II this year for our American History studies, and this is one field trip that is mentioned in the book to help experience this time period. This particular train was built in the 1940’s.

Trains were built to transport people and freight from one end of the country to the other. Train tracks criss-crossed the nation back during a time when cars did not yet exist and horses and buggies were too slow. Even today, trains are the most economical way to transport heavy objects from one place to another.

dining-train-car

Antique passenger trains would have a dining car with a counter and stools. You could order your food and listen to music over the old-fashioned radio. (You will see this in the short video tour.) The ceiling was arched and ribbed. The kitchen was located behind and to the side of the dining car, with a narrow corridor leading to the next train car.

dining-trainHere is where people would sit to eat a proper dinner. Hopefully the dishes wouldn’t be rattling as the train rolled over the tracks.

train-bathroom

This is a bathroom. The yellow paint makes it cheerful, but it doesn’t make up for the fact that it is such a small room, almost like a closet. The red seat can be pulled up to go to the bathroom. The sink is super small, as you can see.

train-lights

There were some old-fashioned lanterns and other paraphernalia from that time period, enclosed behind various glass cases that were museum-like. I show you a lot more trinkets in the video, like an old-fashioned telephone and typewriter.

train-seats

These are your regular train seats where you would sit and enjoy the scenery while you were going to your destination.

There was a small model train at the end of the tour, with bridges, trees, tunnels, and other fun features. My kids really enjoyed being able to experience what life was like during the 1940’s.

Here is the short 6-minute antique train tour:

Charlie Chaplin Creative Writing Assignment

Wednesday, August 12th, 2015

charlie-chaplin-creative-writing

While studying the 1920’s, two of my children wanted to do Charlie Chaplin projects. We all watched several silent Charlie Chaplin movies, and my kids loved the humor and the corny editing of these early movies. My 13-year-old son Stephen wanted to do a creative writing assignment about this famous actor to include in his Modern History binder. Another one of my sons decided that he wanted to make a black-and-white Charlie Chaplin short movie, and whenever he does that, we will put it into the Unit Study Treasure Vault.

Here is Stephen’s description of Charlie Chaplin and his silent movies:

Charlie Chaplin Creative Writing Assignment

Charlie Chaplin was the king of slapstick comedy (sorrowfully, not the Three Stooges) in the period known as the Roaring Twenties. He starred in those old-fashioned black-and-white silent films, which weren’t all that silent because of some crazy guy banging out an ancient tune on a weather-beaten old piano.

Our clumsy clod sported a fake-looking mustache and black bowler hat. He also wore a waistcoat and baggy trousers. He was very sensitive about his hat’s position on his head and was constantly adjusting it.

Those silent films were always without any talking whatsoever (I have no idea how the audience could put up with it) and staged most of the time in a random town or house somewhere. In one of them, Charlie was so poor he had to resort to thievery to get money. In that movie he hid an alarm clock in his pants (the last place I would want to put an alarm clock), and it started ringing. He jumped around like my aunt Betsy when her socks are on fire, trying to extingui—I mean silence—the alarm clock (weren’t there snooze buttons back then?)

Another movie was made during the end of WWI which was criticizing and making fun of the trench warfare. In it he pretended to be a tree as he was spying out the enemy lines. He was a good tree. When a German soldier went to get wood, he immediately went for the Charlie Tree. The tree whacked the soldier on the head whenever he turned his back, eventually knocking him out cold (reminds me of my half cousin). His friends came and saw him lying there, and soon they too were lying on top of him.

In the trenches he had a varied assortment of odds and ends he took with him, including a mousetrap and cheese. The other soldiers in the trench constantly got their fingers stuck in it. On the first night the trenches got flooded, and they had to sleep face-deep in dirty, ice-cold water. As Charlie was rubbing some life into his feet when he woke up, he accidentally grabbed someone else’s foot and started rubbing it. Naturally the foot in question woke up its owner in a very grumpy mood.

In a different movie, Charlie was working in a factory when the manager and some weird dudes walked up with this crazy contraption which consisted of a large rotating disc with soup, some cubed food, a napkin strapped to a fat horseshoe, and corn-on-the-cob on a spinning arm. They chose Charlie as their first target and shoved him into it. Then they turned it on. It first lifted the soup bowl and poured some into his mouth. Then it lowered, and the napkin was rubbed across his face. The disc then turned a quarter-turn, and the plate with the cubed stuff was lifted. Then an arm pushed the stuff into his mouth as the plate spun slowly. The napkin cleaned him off and malfunctioned. It started to massage his face quicker, and quicker, until it was a blur. They managed to turn it off, fix it, and restart it. It failed again, and this time they couldn’t fix it. It went out of control and caught fire (don’t ask me where the fire came from). In the end Charlie was released, and the contraption was thrown away.

Charlie Chaplin was the best of the best in his time. Nowadays there are better actors, but back then he was a rarity. Editing must have just been invented when he was around, and pretty basic editing at that (like speeding up and cutting-and-pasting). That added a bit more humor to this already funny guy.

Victorian Campbell House (Early 1900’s)

Monday, August 10th, 2015

campbell-house-spokaneThis post contains affiliate links. I was compensated for my work in writing this post.

If you’ve never been to Campbell House in Spokane, Washington, today you will get a tour of this beautiful historic house. It was built in the early 1900’s, and it reminds me of many of the homes I saw when I lived in England. The outside is half-timbered and brick. The inside is gorgeous and ornately decorated.

campbell-house-spokane-2

Look at this tea room! Doesn’t it make you want to sit down and have a nice cup of tea with scones and jam?

campbell-house-3

The dining room was decorated with garlands. We went on a day that was called “Campbell House Victorian Christmas.” This was a special day because there were actors in period costume, walking around the house and giving demonstrations. The cook, for example, showed my kids how to roll cookie dough. You will see this in the short video tour at the bottom of this post.

victorian-campbell-house

Every detail of Campbell House is beautiful. Just look at the hat box, gloves, and books.

campbell-house-5

Each of the rooms had wall paper on the walls, and they all had a fireplace as well.

campbell-house-6

One of the beds had a canopy. A white wash basin sat on a dresser, so that people could wash up.

dumbwaiter

A dumbwaiter is a small elevator on pulleys inside the wall. You could send clean linens up and down the stairs, for example, without having to go up and down the stairs.

victorian-couple

Period costumes were available to see how we would look at the turn of the century. I like the top hat on my son, and my daughter is enjoying her gorgeous hat.

1900s-carA carriage house was adjacent to Campbell House, where there were two antique cars from the early 1900’s. My dad loves old cars, so he would have loved to see these. What a great adventure in modern history!

Come take a 5-minute tour of Campbell House with us:

Civil War Letter

Wednesday, July 29th, 2015

civil-war-letter

My 11-year-old son wrote a Civil War letter as a writing assignment for his Civil War Binder. I read many Civil War letters to my kids to get a flavor for what would be going through the mind of a Civil War soldier. While studying Civil War letters, I came across a poignant letter. (You can read it here.)

My son chose a specific battle so that he would be able to make reference to finding Lee’s secret orders:

September 18, 1862

From J. Mitchell

To my loving wife,

I am writing this in a hospital tent, for I was shot in my right arm. So I will be writing this with my weak hand. We are at a river called Antietam Creek, and it was the bloodiest battle I have ever seen. I reported that twenty-five thousand at least died here, including my friend of whom we are all acquainted. It was gruesome watching him fall from that tree. He was a sniper, and he had shot at least a dozen enemy soldiers in the front lines. I also reported that you could walk across the battlefield on the bodies of the dead without touching the ground.

My night watch wasn’t good either. If anyone came by, I would say, “Stop,” three times. If he didn’t stop, I would shoot because it meant that he might be an enemy scout or spy. I couldn’t see very well, but if the soldiers were friendly, they would stop.

One time I was nearly hit when a cannonball whistled past my head and made a tree fall on a few of the soldiers in our ranks. It came as a complete surprise. One of those cannonballs could go right though you, killing you and the person behind you.

Guess what I found five days ago? Three cigars wrapped in paper. My friend and I delightedly picked them up and sat down under a tree, for my feet were hurting. Suddenly I found a message on the paper I was about to throw away. It was Lee’s orders for his next attack! I can’t tell you how exited I was when I showed it to General McClellan. Before, we didn’t know where Lee was; now, we knew exactly what his battle strategy was!

What a battle it was! I had to hide behind the bodies of the dead to survive, making barricades out of them! After the battle I saw a dead soldier hanging on a fence with fifty-seven bullets in his body. Some soldiers must have tried to hide behind him to survive but failed, for I found dead bodies behind him, too. It was a gruesome sight.

Hope you’re doing better back home. Best wishes to the kids,

J. Mitchell