Alamo Interviews

This post has been updated and I think now the video should work, I'm still figuring out the whole video thing!

As part of our Unit Study on the Alamo both of my girls are reading everything they can about the battle.

Soph read this book:

And Em read this one:

Both gave wonderful accounts of what it was like to be inside the Alamo during the 13 day battle. As a book report they choose to interview one another as the played the part of their characters from the book. They did a great job and it was a fun alternative to writing a book report, which Soph would do just about anything to avoid.



I'm new to the cut and edit video program I have at the moment so I'm trying to figure out the whole process. This is a pretty rough edit, but I wanted to share just a bit of it.



Em is playing the Boy In The Alamo, who followed his older brother to the battle. Soph, is Susanna, who along with her baby survived the Alamo. She lost her husband during the battle and had to face Santa Anna when it was all over. When Santa Anna released her she went to find Sam Houston to tell him what had happened.

Google Earth and The Alamo

This semester we started off by learning about the Alamo. This is our year of Texas history and it has been so much fun. I did not attend elementary school in Texas so I did not spend much time on the events that shaped this great state. I love learning along with my children. I'm getting smarter every day!

I found this great Lesson Plan booklet for 4th grade from the Daughters of the Republic of Texas. They also have one for 7th grade if you have older children. Today's lesson is to start our timeline that we will eventually hang in our schoolroom.

I love these projects because we cover so many fundamentals by doing one activity. Soph has been practicing her numbers by writing the years on our timeline. Em is writing the events of each year. They both are helping with the illustrations.

Along the way we are using Google Earth to locate places in San Antonio. If you have never used this it is an awesome tool for so many things. They have a free version you can download to your computer very easily.

Here is an image from Google maps of where the Alamo is located, point A.

You can even click on street view and act like you are standing right in front of the Alamo.

You can take tours, zoom in and out and do all sorts of fun things. So as a homeschooler your mind starts to go a little crazy. We can learn direction, coordinates, write directions from point A to Points B. Look at different historic buildings and research them and the list is never ending.

You can even go to

the Moon!

So the learning is endless.

Have you used Google Earth? What are some ways you've used it or what are some creative ways you teach geography?