Homeschool History and Geography Fair

I've been dying to post about the history and geography fair but didn't want to spoil the final product.  Tonight was the annual Homeschool History and Geography Fair.  The theme this year was The United States of America...which fit perfectly with our Cycle in Classical Conversations.  I let the kids have full reign with this.  One of the reasons that I love the fairs that the homeschool group put on is because there aren't many rules and it allows for MUCH creativity.  They acknowledge that the parent is the teacher and whatever I set as goals, rules, minimums, maximums, etc is fine.  I let the kids choose if they wanted to do a family project or an individual project.  They chose to do their own.  They also totally got to pick the topic.  I laid out some books one day and they went to looking.  John Daniel was immediately drawn to Washington State due to it's beautiful landscape, forests, lakes, fishing, AND volcanoes!  He stuck to it too...wasn't budging on what he wanted to do so we set off researching Washington State.  He also wanted to read and discuss volcanoes.  He has this great book on Volcanoes that really helped and we decided to help him make a model of Washington's Mount St. Helens.  John and him did it while I was at work one day.  They used ready set used to put ceramic tile down and grout mix to make the outside.  We painted it a little and used red food coloring gel and gold paint for the lava. He really did have a good time learning about Washington State!  He even wrote all the info that was on his board himself!  I love that the homeschool group allows ALL ages to participate!

Emily had a very creative idea for her project.  She wanted to "play" tour guide for a project of Washington DC. Since we have been there, we had tons of pictures, information, and reading material on DC.  Her project was entitled Emily the Tour Guide takes you through Washington DC.  She used our pictures to tell a story and she gave hints and highlights as if she was a tour guide.  She wrote a 9 page booklet that was suppose to be her tour guide book.  She made a table of contents and divided it into subjects like Memorials, Monuments, Transportation, The Zoo, History, Museums, Food, etc.  She made it very personal and talked about things we did and hints that made our trip better...like finding a hotel near the Metro and getting tickets at the Washington Monument at 6:30 in the morning, and trying exotic foods, and that the zoo is free.  I really thought it was very cute and imaginative!  It was her own spin on a history/geography subject and I loved it!  I truly believe that someone planning a trip to DC could probably really get some good ideas from Emily's DC travel guide!