This year in school we are using Layers of Learning year 4. Week seventeen of school we did unit 10. Our history topic was the Great Depression.

We added to our timeline.

We learned about FDR’s Four Freedoms.

We learned about the Dust Bowl.

We learned about the Spanish Civil War and Francisco Franco.

This year in school we are using Layers of Learning year 4. Week sixteen of school we did unit 9. Our history topic was totalitarianism.

We added to our timeline. We broke into the 1920s for the first time.

We learned about various dictators. The boys decided Mao was the worst.

We learned about the Weimar Republic and hyperinflation and how that led to the Third Reich.

We learned about how the Third Reich looked good from the outside at the beginning, but was actually awful.

We learned about the Roaring Twenties.

We learned about Prohibition.

We learned about tariffs and specifically about the Fordney-McCumber Act of 1922.

This year in school we are using Layers of Learning year 4. Weeks fourteen and fifteen of school we did unit 8. Our history topic was World War I.

We learned about the Franco-Prussian War and what led up to World War I.

We learned about the Schlieffen Plan.

We added to our timeline.

We learned about trench warfare.

We did mapwork.

We learned about the tanks used in World War I.

We learned about Sopwith Camels and made paper models of them.

We learned about the Battle of Verdun.

And about Big Bertha.

We learned about the Battle of the Somme.

And about German U-boats.

This year in school we are using Layers of Learning year 4. Weeks twelve and thirteen of school we did unit 7. Our history topic was the Civil War.

We watched a YouTube video by Alternate History Hub outlining what might have happened it the south won the Civil War.

We added to the timeline.

We made an Underground Railroad diorama.

We did mapwork of what the US looked like in 1861.

We learned about the tenth amendment.

We watched a short biography on Abraham Lincoln.

We learned about animal mascots of the Civil War.

We learned about the Battle of Gettysburg…

…And the Gettysburg Address.

We watched two Crash Course videos on the Civil War.

We did mapwork on the major battles of the Civil War.

We learned about reconstruction and some terms related to it.

This year in school we are using Layers of Learning year 4. Week eleven of school we did unit 6. Our history topic was the west.

We added to our timeline.

We did mapwork of westward expansion.

We learned about Geronimo and looked at pictures of the quadrangle at Fort Sam where he was held.

We learned about the gold rush and how to pan for gold.

And then we put what we learned into practice by panning for “gold.”

This year in school we are using Layers of Learning year 4. Weeks nine and ten of school we did unit 5. Our history topic was Africa.

We added to our timeline. It’s fun getting closer and closer to the present day.

We learned about the Zulu Empire.

We learned about the bull formation and made war shields.

We did mapwork.

We learned about apartheid.

We talked about Henry Morton Stanley and David Livingstone and watched a very dramatic clip of a movie where Stanley first met Livingstone.

We did mapwork about the scramble for Africa.

We watched a video examining what Africa might be like today if there had never been a scramble for it.

We found the Democratic Republic of the Congo on the big wall map.

We learned about Ethiopia and what made it different from the rest of Africa.

This year in school we are using Layers of Learning year 4. Weeks seven and eight of school we did unit 4. Our history topic was revolutions.

We’ve pretty much given up on having an orderly timeline. Some pages are more than covered now.

We learned about the three estates and the storming of the Bastille.

We learned about Marie Antoinette, Jean-Paul Marat, Maximilian Robespierre, Lord Haratio Nelson, Arthur Wellesley, and Napoleon Bonaparte.

We did mapwork of European revolutions around 1848.

We watched a Crash Course video on Latin American revolutions.

We learned about the Irish potato famine.

We watched the barricade scene from Les Mis.

We made two French flags – a red one and a tricolor one – and discussed what they both represent.

We made a Karl Marx bobblehead and discussed some of his quotes.

We learned about Florence Nightingale and her work during the Crimean War.

This year in school we are using Layers of Learning year 4. Weeks five and six of school we did unit 3. Our history topic was the industrial revolution.

We watched a Crash Course on the industrial revolution.

We added to our timeline.

We learned about Charles Babbage.

We learned about several inventors and their inventions.

We made posters of our favorite invention. Adrian insisted the scribbles were light coming from the lightbulb.

We learned about Ned Ludd and the Luddites.

We learned about Lewis Hine and viewed some of the pictures of child laborers that he took.

We learned about capitalism and what happens when it becomes crony capitalism.

We played Roller Coaster Tycoon.

We learned about pencils and how many different people and things go into making a pencil.

This year in school we are using Layers of Learning year 4. The second two weeks of school we did unit 2. Our history topic was the expanding nation.

We added to our timeline. The pages weren’t quite as full as last unit’s.

We learned about Daniel Boone.

We went outside and looked for animal tracks. Adrian was very excited to find a pretty feather.

We learned about the Lewis and Clark Expedition.

We learned about several people from that time period in history and made puppets of them.

We learned about President James Monroe.

We learned about slavery and made a shadow picture of a cotton field.

We learned about Eli Whitney and the Cotton Gin.

We learned about the Trail of Tears.

We learned about John Ross.

And we learned about the Battle of the Alamo.