Supplemental Resources for Paths of Exploration (POE) Columbus Unit, Lesson 1. Our goal is to add more hands-on activities to this wonderful curriculum!

As we were finishing our supper, I told my husband, "I've got to go post. If I don't, I think I'll die!" Okay, so that was a t-a-d over-dra...

This semester we are embarking on volume two of the Trail Guide to Learning Series – Paths of Exploration. Â Currently my older children are in 5th, 3rd and 2nd grades. Â This is the first year in many years that we have used packaged curriculum, mostly because we have preferred a more relaxed approach to learning. …

Supplemental Hands-On Resources We will be starting Paths of Exploration in April of 2013. We homeschool all year and as the boys wrap up their annual curriculum for language arts, geography, spelling, vocabulary, science, etc., we try to add in an all-inclusive curriculum for the summer. This year Paths of Exploration by Trail Guide to [...]

The Lewis and Clark Expedition (1804-1806) was the first overland expedition undertaken by the United States to the Pacific coast and back. The expedition team was headed by Meriwether Lewis and William Clark and assisted by Sacajawea and Toussaint Charbonneau.

Read about the Italian explorer Christopher Columbus and his various voyages from Europe to the Americas.

David Perry says much of what we think we know about Christopher Columbus turns out to be wrong.

We started POE by Trail Guide to Learning for our summer all-inclusive curriculum, here is the Paths of Exploration Columbus Lesson 2 study.

Language Arts, including reading, writing, spelling, grammar, comprehension for preschool, elementary, middle school, and high school.

1. Read: pages 4-13 in Columbus by Ingri and Edgar Parin D'Aulaire . 2. Map Skills : Have the students find Italy on a world map or gl...

It's time! Time to share my thoughts on the uses and functions of the Paths of Exploration curriculum, part of the Trail Guide to Learning series. I shared my excitement with you when receiving the box of curriculum in the mail here and I also shared how I organized our "path" here. I am going to start with the end... which is to say... I. LOVE. THIS. CURRICULUM! There. I said it. I do, I truly love this curriculum. It fits my son SO perfectly and has resolved so many struggles that he's previously experienced in other curriculums. "Oh sure!", you might say. I know what you're thinking... how can ONE curriculum be the answer? Well, let me tell you how. First, let me give you a little background, though. I am using this curriculum for my 10 year old (turns 11 tomorrow) ALL boy, boy. When I say he's "all boy" what I mean is he is a rough n tumble, can't sit for very long because I need to move, kind of kid. He is easily distracted and enjoys DOING rather than sitting. He is not one that is thrilled to sit with a book for hours on end and he will certainly slump into a puddle of human goo at the thought of being handed a dry textbook to read. I love this boy to death but he is a very different learner from my 13 year old son who is content to be handed a stack of books and a checklist and sit for hours reading to learn. I'll be honest... I took a chance with Trail Guide to Learning. It was a departure from the style of learning I'd been using before and what I was used to. It was scary to spend money on a curriculum I wasn't sure would work and I was fearful that if POE DIDN'T work, I'd be left scrambling mid-year to find something else. But, I'm so glad I did take that chance! We started school after Labor Day and my son actually ENJOYED the first few weeks of school with POE (Paths of Exploration). Insert BIG MISTAKE here. I got panicky and thought maybe we weren't doing enough since he was finishing earlier in the day than we were used to, so... I added more curriculum. Dumb. Dumb. Dumb. Within a week, the boy that was beginning to take an interest in learning, now was back to his old ways of dragging his feet at doing anything remotely to do with learning, complaining and miserable. We both were. What was I thinking?? So, the beginning of October, I scrapped all "extra" curriculum and have been flying solo with POE ever since! It's been enjoyable... for both of us now! So here are my seven reasons that the Trail Guide to Learning series is the answer to our curriculum needs for my second born: * IT HAS BUILT-IN HANDS- ON ACTIVITIES. POE provides a perfect balance of hands on activities to keep the "active" part of my son engaged. I was always left scrambling to come up with hands on activities that would fit our lessons before OR they would be dropped by the end of the day because we'd finish too late to start one (often because he would drag and resist moving from subject to subject; he was miserable!) Now, instead of feeling like the hands on activities compete for our time, they are built into our days! Most importantly, this engages my son's learning style! * IT'S ORGANIZED WELL. POE is organized very well. It takes a great load off of my plate having curriculum so well laid out. I even did the printing in advance of all the units, organized them into weekly file folders and then moved the daily sheets into daily folders for his each week. I do some quick skimming of what supplies, if any, I need for that week and that's it! * THE THEMES FLOW TOGETHER. I'll be honest, at first this bugged the history major in me. I like my history chronological. While POE seems to "jump" around through US History, it is actually connecting themes together. For Paths of Exploration the theme is, well, exploration. Yet, so much more is discussed and learned than just exploration. My son has walked away from the first 3 Units with a solid grasp of Christopher Columbus and his era, Jamestown and their struggles, and the Pilgrims and their struggles to survive and make a new start. *GEOGRAPHY IS INCORPORATED. This is a topic we never got around too, so my husband and I are amazed by my son's knowledge of the areas he has studied thus far and his ease with reading a map! All thanks to POE! * IT IGNITES INTEREST IN LEARNING. Yes, this is a big claim but it is true for our household. While I always admired the Charlotte Mason approach, I never could nail down the timing of moving from subject to subject. The teacher in me felt that more time meant more learning and no matter how hard I tried, I would slip back into that mentality. Prior to POE, I was a Charlotte Mason failure. POE has brought this style of learning into our home successfully and my son has benefited greatly from it. POE does an excellent job of dividing up the information into short, manageable chunks (something that made me panic in the beginning because it felt too short). They are just right for my son's style of learning. However, for me, I was sold once I saw that he was RETAINING the information, shattering the myth that long amounts of time needed to be grasp a concept. POE provides short bursts of concepts that are reinforced throughout each unit which has led to success for my son! * IT INCREASES RETENTION. I can't claim this for every child but for mine, POE has been a lifesaver. Due to lack of interest and a growing resentment to learning in prior years, my son didn't retain information presented to him. Now, he is blossoming! He is remembering information which allows him to taste success and confidence in his knowledge base. He no longer feels like a failure in education. This, to me, is top on my list of why POE is the perfect curriculum. * IT BRINGS IMPROVEMENT IN WRITING AND SPELLING. My son struggled with his handwriting and with spelling. He still does but we have seen great improvement over the past few months in both areas. I give POE credit for this because of the daily copy work and spelling words he is exposed to. I will say that we have had my son tested for Dyslexia. He still shows some evidence of this, even if mild, so we may add a program next year to give him greater support. I know this review was long but there is so much I could speak on regarding this curriculum. I can't answer what this curriculum will do to revolutionize the learning in your own children, I can say that it has definitely revolutionized and ignited an interest in learning in a child that was otherwise fed-up with school, at the ripe ol age of 9. He still has areas of struggle but, through POE, he has been given a taste of success and has improved his confidence, his interest and his desire to learn more! We can't wait to start Paths of Settlement next year! Please feel free to leave a comment with questions you may have that I didn't cover here. ** In exchange for an honest review of my independent thoughts, I was given a discount on the Paths of Exploration curriculum.**

This semester we are embarking on volume two of the Trail Guide to Learning Series – Paths of Exploration. Â Currently my older children are in 5th, 3rd and 2nd grades. Â This is the first year in many years that we have used packaged curriculum, mostly because we have preferred a more relaxed approach to learning. …

Sample pages from Famous Explorers Coloring Book

Supplemental Resources for Paths of Exploration (POE) Columbus Unit, Lesson 1. Our goal is to add more hands-on activities to this wonderful curriculum!

Over the years I have accumulated many nature journal entries recorded on notebooking pages. I started off keeping them chronologically in ...

This semester we are embarking on volume two of the Trail Guide to Learning Series – Paths of Exploration. Â Currently my older children are in 5th, 3rd and 2nd grades. Â This is the first year in many years that we have used packaged curriculum, mostly because we have preferred a more relaxed approach to learning. …

Right now we are knee-deep in our Lewis and Clark study with Paths of Exploration. I have written before about how much we are enjoying Paths of Exploration this year. We are particularly enjoying the Lewis and Clark study. I really had no idea how important their exploration of the west was to our country. …

Da ist ganz schön was los, auf unserer Salzteig-Landkarte! Quanto movimento sulla nostra mappa di pasta di sale! Da kommt die Mayflower…! Ecco la mitica Mayflower in arrivo…! Wir haben …

Pull out those fantastic reds, oranges, browns, yellows and greens and enjoy our free fall art lessons for all ages. Don't you love a fall palette?

For the most part of this term and beyond, our learning will mostly be based on The Travels of Marco Polo. When I did the planning for this topic, I found that this can be turned into a cross-curricula, theme-based learning -- much like a unit study -- since it covers so many different areas: history, geography, science, maths, art, craft, music, food, and literature. Hence, I shall be posting about our learning adventures and resources as we follow Marco Polo's journey to the East and back. As this unit is going to be heavy on geography, I had Tiger work through the Marvelous Map Activities for Young Learners and Fun-to-Solve Map Mysteries to gauge his understanding of basic physical geography knowledge. Until now geography was not our focus, even though we have been incorporating map work consistently as part of our history lessons, so I feel it is important for me to have an idea of how much Tiger already knows (or not) to plan our lessons effectively. He flew through the first two books, but needed some help with Great Map Mysteries, which covers topics such as grid map, map scale, and time zones. With the basics out of the way, we started getting an overview of Marco Polo and his travels by reading generically about him: We also found the following documentary very useful to prepare us to join Marco Polo on his adventures: There seems to be various maps around that show slightly different locations of Marco Polo's journey. We have tried to cross-reference the various maps to arrive at our own conclusion as to the present-day equivalent of where he would have been. So far, we've figured that his outbound journey was as follows: Venice (Italy) --> Jerusalem --> Lebanon --> Constantinople (Turkey) --> Armenia --> Baghdad (Iraq) --> Persia (Iran) --> Herat (Afghanistan) --> Kashgar (Central Asia) --> Tibet --> Mongolia --> Khanbaliq (Beijing in China) When Marco Polo was at the service of Kublai Khan, he made the following journey: Khanbaliq (China) --> Myanmar (Burma) --> Java (Indonesia) --> Eli (India) --> Khanbaliq (China) His homeward journey was: Zaitan (Xiamen in China) --> Vietnam --> Malaysia --> Singapore --> Sumatra (Indonesia) --> Ceylon (Sri Lanka) --> India --> Persia (Iran) --> Caucasus (Azerbaijan, Georgia) --> Constantinople (Turkey) --> Venice Therefore, we will be studying the cultural and physical geography of the following countries/cities as we travel along with Marco Polo: Italy Jerusalem Lebanon Turkey Armenia Iraq Iran Afghanistan Kashgar Tibet Mongolia China Burma Vietnam Malaysia Singapore Indonesia Sri Lanka India This post is linked up to: 1) Creative Kids Cultural Blog Hop #1 2) Great Book Lists and Literacy Projects for Kids 3) Hearts for Home Blog Hop #8 4) History and Geography Meme #66 5) Homeschool Mother's Journal: March 15, 2013 6) Hobbies and Handicrafts - March 15 7) Collage Friday - Making Hard Life Choices 8) TGIF Linky Party #67 9) Homeschool Review - March 15 10) Creative Learning Link Up #6 11) Weekly Wrap-Up: The One Where I Got to Go On a Retreat 12) Share it Saturday - St. Patrick's Day Features 13) The Sunday Showcase - 3/16/13 14) Hip Homeschool Hop - 3/19/13 15) Look What We Did!

Lewis and Clark and the Corps of Discovery, part 1: From St. Louis to Fort Mandan In April of 1805, the Corps of Discovery was ready to le...

A is for Adventure, B is for Barter! Students will discover The Lewis and Clark Expedition through the alphabet with this A to Z Vocabulary Book. Directions: Each of the following alphabetical words is connected somehow to The Lewis and Clark Expedition. Your job is to describe the connection and give important information about the vocabulary word. Then, draw a picture that illustrates the word. Have fun! Here are the words that you can find inside of the book: A- Adventure B- Barter C- Clark D- Dangers E- Expansion F- France G- Grizzly Bears H- Hardships I-Interpreter J- Journal K- Keelboats L- Lewis M- Mountains N- Native Americans O- Ocean P- Purchase (Louisiana) Q- Quest R- Rivers S- Sacagawea T- Thomas Jefferson U- sUpplies V- perseVerance W- Weather X- eXpedition Y- York Z- "The End of the Journey" You can use this resource as you teach throughout the unit or all at once as a great end-of-unit project! Each student can create their own book, or each student can contribute a page or two for a class book! Great critical thinking activity. Students love it!

We started POE by Trail Guide to Learning for our summer all-inclusive curriculum. This post relates to Paths of Exploration Columbus Lesson 1 Part 3.

We are doing Paths of Exploration as a summer intensive study. I will be posting details about how we made this curriculum more hands-on.