in the fall, i attended a used book sale. while there... i picked up a stack of michigan history magazines for my husband... for winter reading~ little did i know.. i'd be implementing them into our homeschool lessons!

i'll give you an example: one article was about postal carriers that delivered mail from mackinaw island to beaver island in the winter time! the story told of the many challenges the carriers faced. how so many lost their lives falling through the ice and even a brief history of the island and the murder it holds. this story... i counted as history. i also used it for geography, and required tommie to do the "5 finger paragraph," assignment.

he read one story about life as a shanty boy. again... for history. this time... i had him make a comic strip of the events and how they happened.

today... he read a very interesting story about the presidents who visited mackinaw island and the u.p. this covered history.. which led to a you tube video of jfk's assassination and who really did kill him? was it the secret service? ummm? now, i wonder. he learned bits and pieces of 7 presidents who visited the island and how gerald ford served as a boy scout on the island, in 1929. this was followed by the 5 finger paragraph assignment... a rough draft and then a corrected draft.

i realize this isn't on any scope and sequence. nor is it listed in any "what your 6th grader needs to know," books... but, how it is presented and the lessons i pull from it... work for us. it's real.. and i'm sure he'll remember it for a long time to come... rather then a fake-mass produced curriculum.

just my opinion.