Part Fifty-one--HEROES: A RENDEZVOUS WITH DESTINY, part 5

SCISSORS BEAT PAPER

End of the War & Celebration

I found this during my study of World War II. Perfect!

Near the end of this school year Karen asked Autumn to share some insights about her homeschool experience at a California homeschool convention. Karen was teaching a class and asked Autumn some impromptu questions. Here are her responses which Karen organized: 

THE CONCEPTUAL IDEA

We studied World War Two, and the conceptual idea was that strategically placed people, like Patton and Winston Churchill and others in the HERO GENERATION were ready when the crisis came. If I prepare I will be ready for my crisis.

DRAWN INTO THE ADVENTURE

Even though I’m not a kid anymore, the kid-grabbing title is really important—HEROES: A RENDEZVOUS WITH DESTINY

--you can’t say anything is a little kid thing--IN EVERY SUBJECT IN LIFE YOU CAN GO DEEP

“ROSIE THE RIVETER” visited our school. That sparked my imagination. I saw her dressed up—I’ll never forget her. She gave us the surface facts in a memorable way—then after experiencing all that emotion around her I went on and studied the contribution of women in WWII in the Homefront.

You don’t start an adventure with a book! You start an adventure with an experience. This is real life and not somebody that is dead on a page. Now when I see a book on Winston Churchill, I pick it up. It’s exciting because I had an experience with it.

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 CLOSING DAY

The girls dressed in their forties attire with red lipstick for our closing day. 

I brought our soldier for part of the decoration.

We watched a video of the year that Carol Palmer made, and sang our school song.

All the mothers and students shared what we enjoyed best about the year. The mothers said that studying the heroes was the best part--it was life-changing. Each family presented mementos to every family to remember the year by. Some families shared poems, quotes, and flags for veterans’ graves for Memorial day the next week.  I gave a copy of my An Unsung Hero poem to each mother. Autumn and Giselle and I also gave each family a different WWII book we had bought used at the library.  

Alicia, My Story was my favorite book this year, and I bought one to give away.

Our special guest was Joe Culotta, Karen's father. He was the last WWII veteran we spoke with. We loved hearing his stories about flying with the navy. 

Joe Culotta

Who would have thought that we would find a WWII year so momentous and magical? This was a lovely closing day to a significant year of study.

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AFTER CLOSING DAY and MORE

FRENCH

I thought this year would be perfect for learning more French. Several years ago my kids put French words all over our home, identifying things like light switches, etc. I don't know where they put this word, but Autumn and Giselle labeled more things in French this year.

We also read Le Livre de Mormon as a family. Our usual family devotional schedule was to read through a book of scriptures at one chapter a day--Old Testament, New Testament, Doctrine and Covenants, or The Book of Mormon: Another Testament of Jesus Christ. But during the years we didn't read the Book of Mormon, then we read at least one column from The Book of Mormon in addition to our one chapter. We did this because our prophets asked us to read from it every day, and also because The Book of Mormon speaks more of Christ and testifies of Him more than any other book of scripture.

I had read Le Livre de Mormon a few times, and I had taught my children some French so that they had some pretty good accents. I had every expectation that we could read this together.

I don't remember exactly when we started reading Le Livre de Mormon. My recollection is that we started in August 2008, just before the year began. We told the girls what we planned to do and they were good sports about it. Our plan was to read one column a day. Each person--four of us--would read one verse aloud in the French and then translate it, and I would generally read any extra verses. I helped everyone translate their verse. I was really asking a lot of them, but I didn't think that at the time. We skipped all the Isaiah chapters because I couldn't understand them completely.

At first it was a little difficult for the girls, but after awhile it was just like learning to read English--they remembered some of the more common words, and they got things from context. A few months into our reading they could comprehend and translate about 80-90 percent of a verse. That was remarkable to me!

JOURNALS

Halfway through the year I knew I would need another journal of discovery. Teri Helms gave me one with a title page she had already written inside an extra book. What a treasure!

These are some of the trinkets added to our journals. The Ally and Axis flags from a school family, our dog tags, and lots of pennies pressed in machines at WWII museums. We drilled holes in them, and they were perfect to help us remember our field trips. 

A FAREWELL TO ARMS

Goodbye to another school year

General George S. Patton Fr. 1 Jan 1945 to the officers and men of the 3rd Army:

I can find no fitter expression for my feelings than to apply to you the immortal words spoken by General Scott at Chapultepec... 'You have been baptized in fire and blood and have come out steel. 

Part of my journal entry Tuesday, June 9, 2009:

It's time to say goodbye to another school year. I always feel melancholy at this time of year because we will never experience this year again. I never thought I would enjoy studying war so much. I think it's because I was studying courage and perseverance. It has been a great experience for me, my children, and our school group.  

Today we will go through all the things that we’ve had on the walls for school, and the girls will choose which things they want to keep for their binders, like timeline pieces.

Our timeline in 4 parallel rows: Europe, Pacific, Home Front, and Parallels to our day. 

Other decorations on our school room/dining room wall--The insignia of the four branches of the military, (material found at a fabric store), and a map that the girls filled in.

I took down our life-size soldier who has been an ever-present sentinel guarding our dining room for the past nine months. It’s going to feel bare around here. 

Today I’m saying a farewell to arms--farewell to WWII and the hero generation. I’ll finish typing up, filing, throwing away, and then putting another curriculum binder on my growing shelf of school year binders. The girls will put theirs on their growing shelf of school year binders. Sometime in the future they will pull out their Hero Generation binder and talk about how they enjoyed learning about something. They’ll stop and read a paper they wrote. They’ll read an article they collected or a map they drew. They’ll remark about an especially important field trip or inquiry. As they turn the pages I mostly hope they’ll remember the courage and what it takes to be a true hero.

HEROES: A RENDEZVOUS WITH DESTINY

“There is a mysterious cycle in human events. To some generations, much is given, of other generations, much is expected. This generation of Americans has a rendezvous with destiny.”  FDR 1936

Part Fifty--HEROES: A RENDEZVOUS WITH DESTINY, part 4

ARSENAL OF DEMOCRACY

The Home Front

At a radio fireside chat December 29, 1940, almost a year before the U.S. entered WWII, FDR called for America to be "the great arsenal of democracy."

As President of the United States, I call for that national effort. I call for it in the name of this nation which we love and honor and which we are privileged and proud to serve. I call upon our people with absolute confidence that our common cause will greatly succeed.

 

OPENING DAY 

ARSENAL OF DEMOCRACY

The Home Front 

ROSIE THE RIVETER

Amanda Royer was our opening day visitor--Rosie the Riveter! She really looked and acted the part, though she told me she was pretty nervous. Several families met at our house to learn from her.

After sharing some of the contributions of women during WWII, especially at home, she gave each student a steel penny. I found these on Ebay. Due to wartime shortages of copper the 1943 pennies were made of steel coated in zinc. We Bradleys kept 2 each to put in our journals of discovery. Pretty cool!

Our group with Rosie

After pictures we had a wartime potluck meal.

This was awesome! My kids had never tasted Spam before!

That day we also learned how to swing dance to WWII swing music. Even though my kids knew a little swing, it was great to learn from one of the moms that taught us.

Autumn and Chase

Hal and Giselle

VICTORY GARDEN

We also visited a garden in Phelan. I don't remember how I found this place, but the couple who owns this property taught us valuable lessons on desert food production.

The woman let us taste various items from her garden.

GARDEN INQURIES

Of course we had to have our own Victory Gardens! The girls have planted gardens previous to this, but this year we ordered heirloom seeds and planted gardens for school projects.

Giselle planted potatoes, among other things.

ANNE FRANK

I learned about this spring play and called the theater to ask about school discounts. I bought forty-three $38 tickets at $12 each for our school group. It was a lovely play, funny and sad. Autumn forgot about this and had already booked herself for work on this Saturday, so Giselle took a neighbor friend in her place. 

MARCH FIELD AIR MUSEUM & THE RIVERSIDE NATIONAL CEMETERY

We enjoyed learning from more WWII veterans at this smaller museum. 

Giselle and Autumn in front of a B-29 bomber, the same kind of plane as the one that dropped the bomb on Hiroshima.

Afterwards we headed across the freeway to see the Medal of Honor memorial 

The national cemetery felt like hallowed ground to us.

A cemetery docent taught us about military burials at this national cemetery.

MARINES

This was the last of the four armed forces recruiting centers that we visited.

The girls were not convinced to join any of the armed forces though.

RONALD REAGAN MUSEUM

We specifically went to this museum to see two preeminent items. We saw a copy of the Magna Carta, which was the basis for part of our Constitution.

We also saw this section of the Berlin wall which symbolized the Cold War which began in 1947. Even though the allies won the war against the axis powers, we continued to see threats to our republic and our American way of life.

Part Forty-nine--HEROES: A RENDEZVOUS WITH DESTINY, part 3

UNCOMMON VALOR

No man is entitled to the blessings of freedom unless he be vigilant in its preservation.

Douglas MacArthur

The enemy is in front of us, the enemy is behind us, the enemy is to the right and to the left of us. They can't get away this time!  Douglas MacArthur

PEARL HARBOR

We had the great fortune of taking the girls to Honolulu to visit the USS Arizona Memorial at Pearl Harbor.

We took the boat out to the memorial which straddles the sunken battleship.

This is the final resting place of over 1000 service men who pledged to defend our country.

"To the Memory of the Gallant Men Here Entombed and their shipmates who gave their lives in action on December 7, 1941, on the U.S.S. Arizona" — This inscription in marble with the names of Arizona's honored dead is inside the memorial.

Our visit to Hawaii was definitely one of the coolest field trips this year. 

OPENING DAY

UNCOMMON VALOR

The Pacific Theater of War

The Marine memorial in Arlington, Virginia is a famous statue of the men putting up the U.S. flag at Iwo Jima. It is engraved with this quote: "Uncommon valor was a common virtue." More medals of honor were awarded to marines for the taking of that island, than were given out for all other battles combined during the war!

We went to Suzanne Manutai's home to meet a WWII navy veteran Cleo Boek. 

Hal brought home that Japanese rising sun flag from his mission, and I brought it to our opening day. I had no idea what this flag represented to the American GI's, or that it was comparable to the Nazi swastika, or I would not have brought it to display. Teri Helm's father was there, and he told me that when he saw the Japanese Rising Sun flag all his childhood animosity against the Japanese swelled within him.

Fortunately our guest of honor, Cleo Boek, did not show animosity to that flag or the Japanese.

In writing this post I was curious if Mr. Boek's story was online. This is what I found--Cleo Boek passed away a little over a year after we met him. The fragility of this history emphasized the once in a lifetime opportunity we were experiencing.

At this opening day we ate Japanese food, which might have been insensitive to our visitor as well, but we thought we were being cultural and thematic. We thought that was better than military MRE's (meals ready to eat), again.

This day also included a special package. One of the mom's sent away for the loan of this footlocker from the National WWII Museum in New Orleans. Once again our large group contributed to the variety of our experiences. 

Examining WWII artifacts while wearing white gloves.

Sand from the beaches at Normandy and Iwo Jima. My girls and I got our own samples of Normandy sand from Karen or Jasmyn from our France trip. We put some of that sand in little plastic bags and glued them into our journals of discovery. What a treasure!

NAVY RECRUITING STATION

Lastly, some of us went to a nearby navy recruiting station.

The recruiter, Jason Rhodes, was so convincing and really good with the kids. He shared the incredible navy opportunities, and how most of the student's career choices could be advanced in the navy. He gave us lots of navy bling, and convinced some that they should join the navy!

MAKING PERISCOPES

We learned the science of periscopes and made our own one day. 

Haley was there as well.

SAN DIEGO

While on a trip to see the opera, Tosca, we went to see some of the WWII items we missed last time. We had three other young ladies with us.

We mostly wanted to see the "kissing sailor" statue, which is 25 feet tall, weighs 6,000 pounds and is called "Unconditional Surrender."

Near the statue was an entire walk honoring WWII veterans. The girls had fun posing with Bob Hope and other WWII military statues.

LITTLE TOKYO & MORE

We met up with a few people before meeting our bigger group. We wanted to visit some Japanese sites, shops, and gardens. 

We visited some places we had been during our Magic Carpet Ride year, and more.

GO FOR BROKE, JAPANESE AMERICAN VETERANS MEMORIAL

“Go For Broke” was the motto of the WWII 442nd Regimental Combat Team, an Army unit comprised of second generation Japanese Americans from Hawai’i and the mainland United States--shockingly from Japanese internment camps in the U.S. (While writing this I am reminded of the Mormon Battalion, made up of American pioneers who were violently forced from U.S. territory and then asked to join the U.S. army). 

This WWII veteran taught us about his special unit which fought in the European theater. He showed us his name on this special memorial. 

JAPANESE AMERICAN NATIONAL MUSEUM

We met up with the rest of our group and were given a tour of the museum exhibits. 

We were taught how to fold some origami.

This was important recent history. Our group photo is in front of an location Center building, originally in Wyoming.

PHILIPPINES DAY

One of the mothers in our group had some neighbors who taught us about the Philippines.

They made some amazing food for us too: kun chinta, puto, chicken adobo, panc it bi hon, etc.

We had been reading about the Bataan Death March in the Philippines, so this day created greater layers of meaning for us.

IWO JIMA PIC TO GIRLS 

February 23

This morning I shared a 10 minute film clip about the raising of the American flag at Iwo Jima. We talked about it and looked up some more questions. And then I saw that this captured moment actually took place on the day we learned about it! This happens so frequently in our home school that I know it's not a coincidence. I made sure to share this memento with the girls for our journals of discovery.

CLOSING DAY UNCOMMON VALOR

What an incredible day to meet two Bataan Death March survivors.

We felt the impact of touching this fleeting history, as these survivors will be gone soon.

After learning from these veterans the students shared their research projects.

Giselle shared information about the prisoners code created during WWII imprisonments. For part of her demonstration Giselle had me write out something in code and she decifered it without the key.  

Autumn was out of town and wasn't able to be there, but these are two of Autumn's mind maps from this component.