Part Forty-eight--HEROES: A RENDEZVOUS WITH DESTINY, part 2

AN ARMY OF ONE

Hero Generation

Our focus on the Hero Generation comes from the theories in The Fourth Turning by William Strauss and Neil Howe. They postulate the idea that every 80-100 years the world goes through a cycle, with four generations of peoples taking different roles in the cycle. The WWII soldier generation fit into the Hero Generation of the cycle.

Autumn's picture mind map. She colored all hers for the year.

SOUTH PACIFIC

Our first field trip was a performance of the musical South Pacific. Unlike other field trips, even though our study of the Pacific theater of war came later in the year, we watched plays whenever they were available.

This was a Riverside City College production. It wasn't kid-friendly at all! But the kids still liked getting together. 

TIM NORTON AND ARMY RECRUITING CENTER

Tim Norton, a retired lieutenant colonel who worked with the chiefs of staff in the pentagon, and who fought in Desert Storm and the Gulf War, came to teach us about the army. He sent some of his stories ahead of time, and we were able to ask him questions and learn the ends of his stories. He brought artifacts and uniforms to show us too. 

For lunch we each got an MRE--army ration Meals Ready to Eat. The kids thought they weren't spectacular, but it was thematic! We next went to the local Army recruiting center. Our school group was spread out, some being 2 hours away. So this day others met up at other recruiting centers in their cities. 

A few army sargeants took the kids through boot camp exercises. They did push ups and sit ups and jumping jacks and more! They learned how to stand at attention and do an about-face. Before we left we sang and performed our school song for the sargeants, and they sang their song for us--The Army goes Rolling Along. We loved it!

Autumn left that day saying that there was no way she would ever join the army! haha!

OPENING DAY

THEIR FINEST HOUR

European Theater of War

A pint of sweat will save a gallon of blood. George S. Patton

A good plan, violently executed now, is better than a perfect plan next week. George S. Patton

PALM SPRINGS AIR MUSEUM

We went to the Palm Springs Air Museum for our opening day of the European theater.

For several years my kids had been collecting Helzberg Diamond store I am loved pins in various languages. Though we didn't plan it, when we got to the museum Giselle, Autumn and I realized that we had all worn Axis language pins on this day: Giselle - Italian, Jeanne - German, Autumn - Japanese. We thought it was pretty funny that we were being thematic without knowing it!

We spent many hours learning from docents and meeting veterans and touring planes, and still only saw a portion of the museum. By the time we left we could identify several airplanes.

We toured a B-17 Flying Fortress, which really made our literature time come to life!

Each of our 3 big components consisted of 3 topics, history, human rights, and the power of the word.

This is Autumn's mind map for the Topic: Never Give In, the history of the European theater of war. We had many substantial key points for each topic, and I think Giselle and Autumn felt the significance of the history and principles we were studying.

This was the military-type calendar I set up for school. D-Day was the day of the invasion in France, so D minus 2 means that the next big thing is happening in 2 days.  "283" is the 283rd day of the year. The rest of the letters and numbers indicate something happening in 15 days, and 35 days, and Christmas Eve in 76 days. 

MARCHING THROUGH HISTORY 

We loved this war reenactment in Prado Park, Chino, which came at the perfect time. There were representative armies from Roman times to the Vietnam war. 

The highlight of the girls' day was meeting several WWII veterans, including some Pearl Harbor survivors, and one veteran who was with Patton. We were literally touching history!

These "nurses" had set up a Philippines hospital, which also corresponded to our reading. Autumn loved the red lipstick, and she vowed to start wearing some, which she did!

The last thing we saw was a WWII battle with tanks, half-tracks and jeeps.

INQUIRIES

At home Giselle made a flashlight from batteries for one of her inquiries, because people had to save and reuse and be resourceful during the war.

Giselle cooked a German feast for Oktoberfest. The wiener schnitzel was amazing!

She also made warm German potatoes, schnitzel beans, bratwurst, and apple strudel. Yum!

She also made some kind of ale so the girls could pretend to be really German.

MORE FIELD TRIPS

For many years we continued to return to some favorite field trip locations after the school year had ended. We went back to Little India after our Magic Carpet Ride year; The Getty Villa after our Shakespeare year; and Calico Ghost Town Civil War Reenactment after the American Girl year. Autumn and Giselle wanted to return to the London Brass Rubbings center in Long Beach. 

We planned to go anyway, and then remembered that WWII GI's made rubbings of some of the British churches they visited during their service. So this was a thematic field trip! The girls dressed in their Shakespeare renaissance clothing, and we went to do more brass rubbings. 

CALIFORNIA MILITARY MUSEUM

During family travels we squeezed in other thematic field trips. This wonderful man took us on a little private tour of the California Military Museum in Sacramento. 

SOLDIERS WITHOUT GUNS

The Power of the Word

While learning about WWII propaganda we watched some Disney war propaganda films which were highly prejudiced against Germans and Japanese.The government really wanted the American public to hate the enemy. 

Propaganda permeated some of the popular WWII songs we listened to.

Some of the songs we listened to: 

All the military songs

Patriotic songs

Rosie the Riveter

Any Bonds Today

You can't say no to a soldier (crazy sexist song, and worse!)

We watched movies, like

Stage Door Canteen

Ken Burns' World War II

Life is Beautiful

Patton

Bridge Over the River Kwai

The Longest Day

MILITARY PASSES FOR FIELD TRIPS

I think a mom in our group came up with these military passes. I liked printing them out for myself. I don't remember if the girls put them in their journals of discovery for our field trips, but we tried to help them see that once you're in the military your life is not your own in many ways. 

SAN DIEGO

Hal came with us on this two day field trip to San Diego. First we took a tour of the Midway, and then met up with our group at the 

MARITIME MUSEUM

We toured a Russian submarine that was patterned after a German WWII submarine. 

I  normally wouldn't have explored these museums. But they were very interesting, and I'm glad I had the chance to expand my mind. The students enjoyed it too. We were again touching significant, recent history.

To keep to our theme, that night our school group met for dinner at a Jewish restaurant which was good and filled with local Jews. We ate potato pirogen, fried kreplach, potato latkes, kishka, and a Reuben sandwich which was unlike any I had ever tasted before. 

Afterwards we spent the night on a friend's sailboat in a San Diego harbor, 

and the next morning headed out for a tour of the marine base, 

CAMP PENDLETON

One of the moms set up this awesome field trip. 

One of the highlights was eating in the mess hall with the marines. 

The other exciting part of the tour was the demonstration by the K-9 division. 

FOLK DANCES

At another time one of the moms wanted to teach us some European and Jewish folk dances. A few of us met in a park to do this.

Performing a German folk dance

Our favorite dance was the classic Israeli folk dance, Ma Na Vu. 

Mana vu al he harim

Ra gale hamay va ser

Oh, mana vu al heharim

ragale hamay vaser.

Ma sha mee ah

Ha yeshua

Ma sha mee

Ha shalom

How pleasant on the mountains are the feet of the

messenger of good tidings. He proclaims salvation, he proclaims

peace. Isaiah 52:7

Ma Na Vu -- the music and dance:

We loved that Israeli dance so much that later that summer Autumn and I performed it at our girls camp.

CLOSING DAY

THEIR FINEST HOUR

GUEST SPEAKER RABBI and RESEARCH PROJECTS

A Jewish Rabbi from the Chabad of Palm Springs came to Kathy Morris' home. He was very interesting to listen to. He told us that the light of menorahs come from lighting olive oil with just one helper candle.

He gave us a short version of Jewish history (I believe this is the history of the Exodus: "They fought against us; we won; let's eat!"

Another Jewish saying he shared: "Hitler, may his name and memory be erased."

After his visit we enjoyed some Star of David cookies, and then the students presented their research projects for this component.

Dressed like a WWII French girl, Autumn shared her research project about women in the French resistance.  

Giselle's research project was about women spies in WWII.

GENERAL PATTON MEMORIAL MUSEUM, CHIRIACO SUMMIT

We visited this museum after our closing day of the European theater, but it fits here.

It was over two hours away, but I had learned to really appreciate Patton, and wanted to go.

The main thing I remember from this museum was reading about how Patton peed in the Rhine River, hoping that Hitler would be drinking that water!

LOS ANGELES MUSEUM OF TOLERANCE

Autumn and I went to The Simon Wiesenthal Center Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles. It is dedicated to preserving the memory of the Holocaust and fostering tolerance.We each received the name and a photo of a person who endured the horrors of the Holocaust. We carried the name of this person with us throughout the museum experience, and discovered their fate at the end of our tour.

 I was pleased that the museum was not depressing but enlightening. The best part was hearing and meeting a holocaust survivor. We are in the midst of living history. 

CAMOUFLAGE CHRISTMAS PAJAMAS

This year was perfect for making camouflage Christmas pajamas. After getting into our pjs the girls and I performed our school song and army stomp routine for the family.