Day 15: The Most Important Date in U.S. History?

Assignment:  After watching this video, post a few comments about what date (and event) you think is the most important date in US history?  Briefly describe why that date and events was so important.

Day 14: History

Search the internet to put the following global people and events in order from earliest to the most recent event:

Jurassic era

invention of the lightbulb

US Civil War

Napoleon

Inca Empire

Life of Jesus Christ

Minnesota Vikings play in their first Super Bowl

Wright brother's flight

eruption of Mt. Vesuvius

building of the Sphynx

Germ theory is "discovered"

Motzart lives and composes music

Genghis Kahn conquers Asia

man lands on the moon

Magellan circumnavigates the globe

the television is invented

Jamestown is established

Jello is invented

Black death

printing press invented

Thomas invents mint and chip ice cream

the population of the world is 1 billion

the population of the world is 2 billion

Solomon builds a temple in Jerusalem

Salt Lake City temple built

Hint:  make a timeline and plug each of these events into the dates on the timeline. 

Assignment:  Once you have your sequence, pick either the 10th 11th or 12th event and make a comment about it on this site.

Day 13: Physical Education

Time for some exercise!  First read through these 20 benefits of exercise:

Accomplish the following activities within the next 20 minutes:
10 push ups
20 sit ups
30 jumping jacks
run around the block once
ride your bike around the block twice (if you don't have a bicycle, run around the block twice)

-OR-
put in an exercise/fitness DVD (likely your mom or dad has one they planned to use but rarely have) and participate in the program for 20 minutes.


Assignment:
1.  take your pulse rate before you begin the exercise (write it down).  Take your pulse rate after you exercise.  Enter both numbers in a comment on this site.  If you don't know how to take your pulse rate, look it up on Google as the first part of this lesson.

Day 12: Drama

Pick one of your favorite poems, monologues or speeches and memorize a portion of it according to these standards:
Elementary school:  4 lines
Middle school: 8 lines
High school: 10 or more lines

Next, use your iPhone or other smart phone and record yourself performing a dramatic reading or recitation of the memorized work.  Finally, post this to your parent's (or your, as appropriate) Facebook account.  If you cannot decide on a piece of work to memorize, here are a few options:

The Bravest Battle

The bravest battle that ever was fought;

Shall I tell you where and when

On the maps of the world you will find it not;

It was fought by the mothers of men.

The Happy Warrior

Whose high endeavors are an inward light

that makes the path before him always bright:

Who, with a natural instinct to discern

What knowledge can perform, is diligent to learn;

Abides by this resolve, and stops not there,

But makes his moral being his prime care;

Who, doomed to go in company with Pain,

And Fear, and Bloodshed, miserable train!

Turns his necessity to glorious gain;

Tiny Little Minute                                    

Just a tiny little minute,                                                           

Just sixty seconds in it.                                                           

Forced upon me, can’t refuse it                                              

Didn’t seek it, didn’t choose it,                                               

But it’s up to me to use it,                                           

Give account if I abuse it.                                           

Just a tiny little minute                                                

But eternity is in it.                                                     

 Water and Sin
All the water in the world, no matter how it tried
Could never sink the smallest ship unless it got inside.
All the evil of the world and every kind of sin
Could never damn a human soul unless we let it in.

The Ladder of St. Augustine (1858)

The heights by great men reached and kept

 Were not attained by sudden flight,

But they, while their companions slept,

 Were toiling upward in the night.

If
If you can keep your head when all about you
   Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
   But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
   Or, being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or, being hated, don’t give way to hating,
   And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;
   If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with triumph and disaster
   And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
   Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,
   And stoop and build ‘em up with wornout tools;

Day 11: Our Lives Our Fortunes Our Sacred Honor

Watch this video to learn about the 56 men -and their tremendous sacrifices- who signed the Declaration of Independence.


Assignment:
1.  Think about the sacrifices made by these men and write down (make comment on this site) one that impressed you.  Why did this impress you?

2.  Why were these men (and the women they were married to) so willing to sacrifice their "lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor"?

Day 10: History and Political Science -The 4th of July

As you start this weekend, take a moment to consider the amazing country we live in.  So much of what we have has been handed to us by the sacrifices of mostly anonymous people who lived a LONG time ago.  The United States and the world certainly faces a long list of challenges in our day, but it also is the country best positioned to continue to offer the greatest opportunities and freedoms to those within its borders and around the world. 

 

1776 may sound like a long time ago but in the context of world history, the US is still very young.  No other country has had such a profound impact on the world in such a short time than the US.  Consider just a handful of contributions: constitutional democracy, the library, harnessing electricity, bi-focals (thank you Benjamin Franklin for these three), the blues, gospel, Broadway and country music, television, nuclear power, baseball, the automobile, saving the free world three times (WWI, WWII, the cold war), polio vaccine,  a functioning capitalist system that has raised the standard of living for the world, sufficient food to feed the entire world, iPods/Pads/Phones, religious liberty, women’s rights, public education for all, propane, Star Wars, the human genome decoding, Starbucks, John Steinbeck, YouTube, etc.   To be sure, our civilization stands on the shoulders of prior people and their developments (thank you Greece, France and Mesopotamia) and we have had our share of struggles to improve and advance (thank you Abigale Adams, Abraham Lincoln, Dr. Martin Luther King, etc.) but in a world that was fairly stagnant in its progress between 3,000 BC and 1700 AD, there have been quantum jumps in science, prosperity, learning and society in 300 short years!  This corresponds, not coincidentally, with the rise of a country founded on some amazing principles and filled with amazing (hard working, self-sufficient, generous, religious) citizens.  That is something to celebrate… particularly that we are both inheritors of and custodians of such an amazing legacy.

 

This will take a bit of your time, but this article is definitely worth reading sometime this week/weekend: 

Our Ten Contributions to Civilization

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1959/03/our-ten-contributions-to-civilization/305144/

Here is a video depicting the Constitutional Congress's vote to adopt the Declaration of Independence:
https://youtu.be/nrvpZxMfKaU
 

For Elementary level students of Dad's Academy,  I've posted a separate video on the history and importance of July 4th and the formation of the United States. 

 

It can all feel so “big” and we can be left wondering, “how does my little life make a difference”, “how do I play any significant part in all of this”?  This is one of the most amazing parts of the social system and governmental structure that we have inherited:  the strength of a republican democracy is not in one or two individual or even two hundred elite and important rulers... it resides in each citizen.  The US will be great or not depending on the virtue and liberty that is retained in each person.  You do make a difference!  Every time you treat another person fairly, kindly and generously you contribute to the strength of the country.  Every time you keep the laws, stand for truth, exercise your freedoms of conscience you contribute to the strength of the country.  Every time you defend those who are oppressed, vote and fight oppression you contribute to the strength of the country.  Every time you retain your inalienable rights and refuse to look to the government to provide you with food, housing, healthcare or other responsibilities that rightly belong to the individual, you contribute to the strength of the country.  Any time you fail to do these things you contribute to the downfall of the country, to the weakening of the individual and the dissolution of freedom.  What Benjamin Franklin said to a common citizen (a woman) back in 1787 applies to each one of us.  As he emerged from the Constitutional Convention, she asked him what type of government the delegates had created for the nation, he answered "A republic, if you can keep it."  It is not the job of the government to keep this great country, it is "your" job.  Each one of ours. 

 

Assignment 1:  post a comment about one of the things you learned from the article or video above AND one of the ways you can keep this nation strong. 

Assignment 2:  eat a hot dog, watermelon or apple pie this weekend!

Day 10: The Fourth Of July (Elementary School)

Assignment:  Watch this video and then tell your parent(s) what makes July 4th so special.  Post these thoughts on this site.