Moving Harrington Harmonies over to WP

Dear Friends,

Harrington Harmonies has been growing so fast that we are ready to make a good blog even better. It's time to leave blogger and transition to WordPress. At the same time, we have an updated look but will remain Harrington Harmonies.

I hope that this new location and organization will make our blog even easier navigate and to find what you are looking for. There won't be any new posts till after this transition.

Over the weekend there may be some down time as we work on the site. Thank you and see you on the other side:)

Stephanie

10 Books for Kansas

We recently began studying the states. One of our learning objectives for 5th grade is to have the states and capitals memorized and know a bit about each state. But since Kansas is our current state we will begin with it. In fact, this is part of a series on homeschooling in Kansas. I'll be sharing all my ideas, a few free unit studies, and many resources for Kansas such as how to get started and field trip ideas.


This post contains affiliate links. If you decide you will purchase any of these recommendations from Amazon anyway, please consider supporting us by clicking on one of the links in this post. The cost will be the same for you but you will support our blog. Thank you!

10 Books for Kansas:

   

 

1. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum. 

 

For only $.99 on Kindle I got the whole collection of Oz books!  Oz: The Complete Collection (All 14 Oz Books, with Illustrated Wonderful Wizard of Oz, and Exclusive Bonus Features) is the ABSOLUTE best buy you will find! It is all 14 original OZ books. The Wonderful Wizard of OZ book includes the original artwork. I hope to offer a Wizard of Oz unit study for free later this year. I also found a charming abridged version as a Dover Coloring Book, and though abridged, the heart of the story remains intact with an original feel! The Wonderful Wizard of Oz Coloring Book (Dover Classic Stories Coloring Book) is a great option for a child who loves to color! I'll give it away later this month.

 

2. Tree in the Trail by Holling Clancy Holling

 

I absolutely love his books. These are great as geography, science and history unit studies. I plan to do them all before these younger homeschool years are over. So far we have done little units on Pagoo and Seabird. I plan to write a unit study for Tree in Trial and offer it here for free. The story tells all about the Santa Fe Trail from the perspective of the tree. The tree watches as people and time pass on the trail. The tree is located on the Santa Fe Trail.

In Council Grove, Kansas there are three actual tree stumps you can visit. Two of them were meeting places on the Santa Fe trail. Until I started researching Kansas I didn't realize the inspiration for the story. The first stump is the remains of Council Oak, an official council site for the Osage Indians.  The second is the remains of Post Office Oak, an official post office for travelers on the Santa Fe Trail between 1825 and 1847. The third marked tree is Custer Elm. It was on Custer's property before the battle of Little Bighorn. This will be an exciting study and I can't wait!

 

 3. S is for Sunflower: A Kansas Alphabet (Discover America State by State) By Devin and Corey Scillian 

 

This is more than just a picture book. Though it is a nice picture book for little ones, it offers details and history for each selection highlighted alphabetically. A great resource.

 

4. George Washington Carver: Man's Slave Becomes God's Scientist (Sower Series) by David Collins

 

George Washington Carver was not born here. But he attended school here in Minneapolis, Kansas. There are two places here in Kansas to honor his accomplishments so we will probably venture off and study him a little. My oldest son read and loved this book. It ties in the Christian aspects of Carver's life and experiences.

 

5.The Lewis and Clark Expedition by Richard L. Neuberger 

 

 We have already studied this part of Kansas and American history. One of the fabulous things this author does is to help the reader realize what it really meant to the explorers to be on this journey. It may be hard for kids to grasp an undeveloped United States so he really wonderfully describes how the land was before development and exploration. Not to mention that his writing is so descriptive and really relays the images and the feelings of the explorers. This book is perfect for middle school students to read alone or as a read aloud for all ages. It has provided me with discussions on vocabulary and metaphor as we have been reading along. No "twaddle" here. Just can't discuss Kansas without mentioning Lewis and Clark.

 

6. The Miracle of Father Kapaun: Priest, Soldier, and Korean War Hero

This book about Fr.Emil Kapaun, a  Koren War  hero and POW, is a must especially if you are military or Catholic in Kansas. He recently received the Medal of Honor and I believe will be a saint someday. His story is very inspiring and has meant a lot to my family. He inspired us so much in fact, that we named our homeschool: Fr. Emil J. Kapaun Home Study School. Naming your homeschool is something you must do in Kansas to register with the Department of Education. More on that later when I write about getting started homeschooling in Kansas.

The next two books we haven't actually read yet. But I am curious about them. I will probably get them or something similar to them because these are two people I want to go over with my child: John Brown and Amelia Earhart.

 

7. Who Was Amelia Earhart? 

 

I have one other book in this series that my son is currently reading on the gold rush. The books are easy reads which make them nice to add into a reading intensive homeschool, especially for my somewhat reluctant reader. It's nice to have a book in the mix that is easy to read for him.  So I think for Amelia Earhart this will be a good choice.

 

8. John Brown's Raid on Harpers Ferry (Graphic History) 

 

This is a must cover topic when we get to the civil war.  Again, I like to throw in easy to read books as well as challenging ones (such as the George Washington Carver book). Having the comic book style books are great way to get the info in my child's head as long as the content is good. I haven't looked this one over yet but I think we will try it. It's nice to refresh the homeschool with variety now an then.

 

9. Little House on the Prairie (Full Color) by Laura Ingalls Wilder

 

It wouldn't be a study of prairie life without the mention of this book. I feel like the series is a bit more suitable for girls and so it don't think we will be reading it. Though it's a wonderful series it would be one we read. However, I had to mention it for Kansas. South of Independence, Kansas you can visit a reconstructed log cabin on the site where Laura used to live. We will probably go see it though we won't have time to read the book.

10. Last but not least a terrific guide book to Kansas! 8 Wonders of Kansas Guidebook. 

I picked this book up in a tourist gift shop off interstate 70. It is truly wonderful! We will never be bored here. Anytime we want we can go site seeing to one of the 216 places featured in this book. It has been and will continue to be an amazing resource for us.

And as a bonus I want to recommend A Simple Start in Chalk Pastels by Tricia Hodges

This is not a Kansas book in content but a resource. It is a wonderful art tutorial eBook for how to use chalk pastels. It contains 45 tutorial plus a few bonus tutorials.  Two tutorials that I know we will be using for our Kansas unit study will be the Sunflower and the Tornado which we will do with a little weather study along with reading The Wizard of Oz! You can read my full review HERE!

Follow more Top 10 lists from all the bloggers from iHomeschool Network:

and Top Ten Tuesdays from Angie @ Many Little Blessings.

Links for my TOP picks:

Homeschool Kansas: A Resource for Homeschooling in Kansas

This summer I will be spending some time sharing my thoughts, ideas, plans, research and resources with you about homeschooling in Kansas. I know that the series will continue to grow through out the time we live here, and I am hoping that will be a while. I've really started to grow a love for Kansas in the short time we've lived here. I'm so grateful for being assigned here. It's been our first assignment in 17 years to the Midwest.

I have Kansas gratitude today for:

•  wide open spaces- being home on the range
• windmills
• being close to family and friends
• friendly and accepting people
• sunflowers
• prairie gardens and blue skies
• summer winds and warm air

Though I like it here already, the fun will be in exploring and learning all about it. As homeschoolers we will have the time to explore Kansas and really get to know it. 

Here are some topics I plan to cover in this series:

1. homeschool laws and getting started
2. field trip bucket list
3. book lists, curriculum ideas and resource links
4. famous people associated with Kansas 
5. Wizard of Oz unit study
6. Tree in the Trail unit study
7. state notebooking pages (For All States)

Whether you live in Kansas or not, I hope you will enjoy some of the homeschool resources you will find on my blog this summer.

Linked up today with: Thankful Thursday,