The French Revolution (and a little about the Industrial Revolution)

The French Revolution is such an interesting time. I have been writing a Scarlet Pimpernel-inspired book for the last four years so I've been immersed in the era anyway. But it was really interesting to broaden our focus to what was happening politically in England at that time too and how it affected everyday life for those in both countries. And Napoleon! He is a fascinating figure as well. Then when you reflect that Joseph Smith was also alive during this time, and the church of Jesus Christ being restored, it starts to seem like this era was one of the most important in history!

We really liked these video summaries of the French Revolution and its significance, especially the ones with asterisks:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PBn7iWzrKoI French rev. video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5D3hQS6ezXc Marie Antoinette

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lTTvKwCylFY French Revolution crash course

https://www.prageru.com/videos/william-wilberforce-ending-the-slave-trade

*https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w96Ad6N_SGA French Revolution Part I (Dennis Prager)

*https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ND5K0xS7YQ Part II

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UqJuSRLsJzc Understanding Napoleon

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pd6E38FfuMg&t=172s Napoleon

I'm sorry to say that the little boys are fascinated with the guillotine! Here's a quick video about it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dbBkybZMa7g

I found this book at a used bookstore (it was definitely not $172 as this linked one is!) and we have been making the paper model in the book. It's fun but takes lots of cutting and precise folding, so it took us a long time, and we had to put it away for dinner one day and just never got it back out again! So we still need to complete it. But I think it will be cool when it's done (I'll try to remember to put a picture here of it!).

The Industrial Revolution was proceeding along during these years as well. It could really be a whole unit in itself, but we did talk one day about steam power and some of the changes it brought into everyday life. We got the steam engine model linked below and it was fun to put together so we could see how the basic steam engine worked!

https://www.history.com/videos/the-guillotine

https://www.prageru.com/videos/tbh-history-industrial-revolution-part-1

https://www.prageru.com/videos/tbh-history-industrial-revolution-part-2-freedom-vs-control

Build steam engine model https://www.enginediy.com/collections/steam-engine-parts/products/steam-engine-kits-to-build

Regency Unit, and writing a Regency letter

It is terribly sad, but Daisy is graduating from our homeschool and going to college in the Fall! I feel it more keenly than with the older boys, because by this age the boys had mostly disengaged already, either going to public school or doing outside classes and hardly ever joining our family school. But Daisy has valiantly participated to the very end, doing the activities with us and even sitting through our read-aloud books whenever she is able. It is wonderful to have her with us. She brings the kind of enthusiasm that makes me a better teacher. So, I will be VERY SAD to have her go (and she says she will still join us when she can—but I know it won't be often now), and in her honor I let her choose anything she wanted to study for our last unit with her.

She chose, wonderfully, to study The Regency Era. What a great unit! I was very excited about it. For our purposes we chose to study the longer time period (many people classify the whole period from 1795-1837 as Regency-era, even though the Prince Regent was only officially in power in England from 1811-1820). It encompasses so much great stuff. The French Revolution! The early American Republic! Beethoven and Napoleon! And of course, Jane Austen.

For Public Relations purposes, I called this unit "The French Revolution and Napoleonic Wars" when talking to the little boys. And "The Regency Era" when talking to the girls. Thus, everyone was happy.

We learned about lots of people and events as part of this unit, and then we also took as our inspiration some of the expected accomplishments of a well-bred young lady of the era. One day we made quill pens and learned how to write with pen and ink. The older kids also practiced some types of penmanship of the time period, notably "copperplate" (roundhand) and Italian hand. I got each of the girls an inexpensive fountain pen to use. I love fountain pens!

Here are some relevant links:

https://herreputationforaccomplishment.wordpress.com/2015/05/06/anatomy-of-a-regency-letter/ Writing a letter, how to fold a letter

https://herreputationforaccomplishment.wordpress.com/2015/02/11/minums-for-handwriting-practice/ handwriting

https://books.google.com/books?id=GAVQAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false handwriting practice and samples

https://herreputationforaccomplishment.wordpress.com/2015/04/22/rules-for-writing-long-and-short-s-in-jane-austens-era/ the Long S

We already had sealing wax (from our American Revolution unit, maybe?) and were happy to have an excuse to get it out again. Malachi uses sealing wax as a matter of course on all his correspondance, actually, so it was readily at hand.

(Clementine had been going around doing all her sisters' hair throughout this activity, and eventually we took a picture of them all coiffed by her handiwork):

Daisy's writing

Junie's writing

Goldie's lovely (left-handed!) writing

Clementine drew some gnomes and a Caw with the fountain pen. Not bad!

This was Ziggy writing in some other language, I believe

Making paper model trains

These paper steam trains (printable files here, here, and here) were easy to make, since they are basically just paper boxes. But they started a larger trend. I told the boys I had seen more complicated paper models, but they took more time and precision to make, so we weren't going to do them right then. After they begged and begged, I finally said maybe we could try them another day. 

These more complicated models are of the TGV (high-speed train in France and other parts of Europe) and building them took a little more supervision from me at first. They are really cool, once built---much more detailed and realistic than the other paper trains we'd made.

Abe's TGV

Sebby, especially, became more and more obsessed with them. Once he had built a few, they weren't too hard, although he used tape instead of glue for the trickiest folds. For several weeks he was working on one of the TGV cars during every spare moment! He even added the pantograph to the top (the paper model omits that detail, to Seb's disapproval) . . .

and made a system of track and catenary wire for them to run on.

He experimented with making his own models too.

But eventually, he came back to printing out model after model from this site, which has dozens to choose from.

The models have all the different cars to print for each type of TGV, so eventually he got an entire train assembled, and then another. I think now he has made nearly every type on the website. It was really fun to watch him getting better and better at it as he went along.

Eventually Seb made a display case (with informational panel) to hold his favorite TGV power cars. He includes the proper pronunciation (we pronounce it the French way, "tae-zhae-vae") since he does NOT approve of saying "tee-gee-vee"! :)

Here are the power cars resting on their high-speed track, with lovely mountain scenery in the background.