Crafty Monday: Time Machine Studies:1925-1950 & Italy Country Study

In this Post: We craft and learn about the Great Depression & WWII, our homeschool group learns about Italy, and my Tinkerbelle peg dolls. Also, a tutorial on how to make a pretend t.v.

Hello dear ones and chin up :). We started a Time Machine Unit in January. It is a study of the 20th century broken into quarters. I built a time machine for us to use. The links don’t always show up in email so please go to my actual blog to see them.

First, here is a pic of my Tinkerbelle and Terrance peg dolls that I promised a friend. I have them set up in my kitchen window. I hope to add other fairies. Click on it to see a larger pic.

Pics and info from the first quarter, 1900-1925 is found here at these two links:

amberdover.wordpress.com/2013/01/08/a-late-crafty-monday-the-time-machine1900-1925/

https://amberdover.wordpress.com/2013/01/14/crafty-monday-snowflakes-the-teddy-bear-jazz-ball-the-homeschool-room-mural/

My Pinterest Ideas are found here:

I decorated the Time Machine with old news articles and a WWII map Chris colored for me. The links are here:

WWII map:

Click to access 1576901009_225-226.pdf

WWII alliances:

http://www.proteacher.com/redirect.php?goto=5588

WWII Newspapers:

http://www.archives.com/genealogy/newspaper-genealogy-world-war-2.html

http://www.grahamcounty.net/vetweb/newspaper/np01.htm

http://www.grahamcounty.net/vetweb/newspaper/np02.htm

WW II Ration Books:

http://www.grahamcounty.net/vetweb/newspaper/np18.htm

So this week we studied the second quarter, 1925-1950. We didn’t do much from the late 1920’s. But we did take a trip to Cracker Barrel to look for old candy. They had tons of nostalgia candy from 1960 and on but little from our time period. We did however find Bubble gum that came out in the late 1920’s. On the day of our party, Nana (my mom) came over and we attempted to blow bubbles. We had several pop in our face but I decided not to post those pictures :).

Bubble Gum was invented in 1928

Mom’s Bubble

Michael and Mom reading the comics that come in the gum wrapper. Do you remember those?

Michael began reading an American Girl book about the 1940’s (Molly). So my American Girl doll, Molly came through the time machine.

We watched the Kitt Kitredge Movie as we learned about the Great Depression. We didn’t stay in the Depression long because….well it was depressing.

We  dressed up as Hobos the best we could and played pretend.

We learned about Hobo code and used chalk to draw the symbols everywhere.

We also had a Depression store with 1930’s prices. I had Michael calculate how much change he owed me and also he checked if I had given him the right money. A few times I asked him what I could get for a certain price. Chris visited the store too.

Then we moved on to the 1940’s and WWII. I was super excited about this study but I had a lot to relearn. Thankfully Chris had just taken a semester of World History. So my hubby explained to me exactly the why’s and the who’s. I had to do several hours of research just so I could simplify it for Michael.

I read “Number the Stars” to Michael each day. I was happily surprised to find that Lois Lowry, who wrote “The Giver”, also wrote “Number the Stars”. She is one of my favorite authors. “The Giver” changed my life.  Anywho, by the end of the week Michael finally remembered that Annemarie was the blond danish girl and that her friend Ellen was the dark haired Jewish girl. He kept getting mixed up. Each day Michael drew and colored a picture under where I had written a summary. I got the summary from someone else.

We did a Winnie the Pooh craft because it was written in 1926.

We ate at the Steak n Shake which came out in 1934.

Homeschool on the move

We also went to the museum and looked at old inventions and toys from the time period.

A painting symbolizing the struggles women went through.

Old Toys

Old Army tent

We watched a video about Amelia Earhart. She was the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean (1932) and she disappeared in 1937. We still haven’t put together the Wright airplane model that we got. Hopefully I can show you a pic of that next week or two.

Here are the time lines I made. One goes from 1900-1950 and the other one is a 20th century time line of movies (mainly Disney and Cartoons).

Michael had fun with these puzzle boards my sister gave him.

I explained to Michael who the allies and the axis powers were. We used pins to see where everyone was on the globe and how the Nazis invaded Europe and then how later the Allies liberated Europe. I also explained how the Soviet Union switched to our side after Germany attacked them.  And how we went to war with them afterwards (The Cold War)  and only worked with them during WWII because we had a common enemy. It really made sense seeing it on the globe. I finally know and remember what D-Day stands for and Michael remembered too when I asked him (Dooms Day). I also explained that we, the Americans, were fighting a war on two fronts because we were also fighting Japan.

This interactive map helped me a lot. The link is here:

http://c3.ort.org.il/Apps/WW/page.aspx?_item=0e45a1be-144c-4dee-b919-4e2ba98c7aad&_pstate=item&box=e4b8e529-3402-411d-bb44-57b80f06af12&page=c1133131-9b1b-469e-a08e-0ae9eb685f98&ws=496fe4b2-4d9a-4c28-a845-510b28b1e44b

Red pins for the Nazis, blue & purple for the Soviet Union, and Green for the Allies. A yellow pin on Japan.

The Allies liberate Europe!

We were able to pin point Denmark to go along with our book, Number the Stars. It was great to be able to see how close Sweden was to Denmark, since the Jews escaped to Sweden. Afterwards we pinned Afghanistan and Iraq so Michael could see where his Dad went years ago (Iraq) and to remember to pray for Uncle Wesley in Afghanistan.

Rice Krispies came out in 1927  so Michael had them for breakfast. We also did a War Ration Book for the week. Michael had three meals a day, a snack, and an extra sugary drink each day. I stamped and stickered each time he had a meal. If  he had extra snacks then that would take away from the next day. This helped a lot with him whining every 5 minutes for food even after big meals (growth spurt?). There were times that I let snacks slip just in case he was feeding someone he was hiding from the Nazi’s. Michael thanked me for being secretive lol.

Wednesday Michael became a British child during the war when the children were being evacuated to the country. Don’t praise me yet. I didn’t come up with the idea. I got it here at this link:

http://www.proteacher.com/redirect.php?goto=1040

So we watched the first part of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe when the children are being bombed and have to go into their bomb shelter. Then the children are sent on a train to stay with the professor in his big country house.

Michael wrote a list of what he would need for his train trip. He made sure to include a gas mask.

Then he packed his bags.

We made a propaganda sign for sending children to safe homes. I explained to Michael that there is good and bad propaganda and how governments try to influence people by using the media. We looked at pictures of real WWII propaganda for the poster ideas.

Michael made himself a name badge. He had to put something nice about himself on it so the foster family would pick him.

Our couch became the train. I was the conductor and we made several stops before a foster mom picked him. Sadly some kids were not picked in real life and some of them were abused by their foster parents. There were many children though that saw the journey as an adventure and enjoyed their stay during the war. I know it had to be heart breaking for the moms to send their children off.

Thursday we did an Italy Country study with our homeschool group. That was great because Italy was one of the Axis powers in WWII, though they later joined the allies when we invaded and liberated them.

Everyone made an Italian dish. I made spaghetti. A mom asked if it was homemade. I use canned sauce but I spice it up with fresh basil, garlic, onion, red wine, and sugar. Usually I add diced tomatoes and squash but was out. I’m glad she couldn’t tell it was from a can :).

Hannah showed us a map of Italy. We learned about Venice.

Then we made a gondola in a diorama. We found a gondolier online and set him up in the gondola.

Michael was such a gentleman. He helped Maggie, Rachel’s daughter, with her chair.

Maggie’s diorama was awesome. They used a scrapbook paper image. By the way, these pictures are courtesy of Rachel. I left my camera and craft stuff at home so she took pics for me. We had to do our diorama at home.

We also forgot our passport. We will have to get it stamped next time.

When we got home we finished our diorama. Then we read a few books about the Holocaust. Two books were ones we had read during our bug study of Butterflies in May. “I Never Saw Another Butterfly” is a collection of poems and drawings from children at the Terezin Concentration Camp. “The Butterfly” is based on a true story of a girl and her mother that help a Jewish girl to freedom. It’s such a sweet story and with great pictures.

Michael watched a clip from “Life is Beautiful” since it is about an Italian Jew during the Holocaust. So lil man learned how to read subtitles. Then he watched all of “The Sound of Music”. I caught a picture of him smiling and laughing during the song “Favorite Things”.

We ended our studies with an army or “war” party. Nana came over to hang out. I had bought army stuff at Hobby Lobby.

Michael and I got fake military tattoos. Mine still hasn’t come off.

We enjoyed Subway sandwiches on army plates with tank tooth pics in them. My AG doll, Molly, also attended.

I finished reading “Number the Stars” to Michael and Mom. Then Michael finished the drawings. We used the drawings and summaries to make a pretend T.V.

I was surprised by how many people that had not made these t.v.’s. So I will give you a short tutorial.

1. Gather supplies (an old box the shape of the t.v. you want. We used a skinny cereal box to be like a flat screen, tape, glue, and/or staples, 4 old pencils, paper, and writing utensils.)
2. Cut your writing paper to the shape of your t.v. screen. Then write and draw a story on each page. Number the pages to keep them in order.
3. Attach each page to the one above it. It will be like movie film.
4. Then you cut out the screen size (a bit bigger than your paper) in your box.
5. Then you put a pencil on each side at the top and then each side at the bottom.
6. Tape the pencils at the top together and then the same with the bottom ones.
7. Now, tape your first page or title page to the top pencils.
8. Tape your last page to the bottom pencils
9. Now you can use the top pencils to roll the film forward and the bottom pencils to rewind.
10. You have a pretend t.v.!

I gave Michael a code to decipher “from” Sir Winston Churchill. I addressed him as a soldier. We have been learning about the Resistance all week so this activity went with it. I filled in the cipher key to make it easier and helped him on a few lines. He is only six. I briefly told him about the Navaho code but we didn’t learn any.

The Code is found here:

Decoding Nazi Secrets

http://www.proteacher.com/redirect.php?goto=1577

Answer Sheet:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/education/activities/2615_decoding.html#answer

I stamped Michael’s ration card for the last time, we took Molly back in the Time Machine, and we were thankful the War was finally over! Hmmm I wonder what will happen this week?

God bless & remember the High King lives! ~Amber Dover

PS: Join us next week for 1950-1975 Lord willing.

Time Machine 1950-1975:

https://amberdover.wordpress.com/2013/01/30/a-late-crafty-monday-time-machine-studies1950-1975/