Crimean War.

We have the countries all set up. We are ready to start. I couldn't tell how large Russia or Turkey should be to start so T. colored until he got tired. I will have Rob look that up when he is home for T. to see the right size. Below is our map. Flags are our men.Ottoman Turks (Muslims) ruled over the land of the Palestine (Christian holy places) The red on the map is the Turkish Empire. The picture standing up is the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem. T. put a British and French flag next to the church to show that the ruler of Turkey gave them permission to take care of the holy places in Palestine.
Nicholas I (Russian ruler) wanted to control Constantinople so he could sail ships through the Black sea into the Mediterranean. Below are tiny pictures of Russian warships (what Nicolas wanted to do).
Nicholas I went to meet with Queen Victoria and tried to get her to join him in fighting the Turks. She thought he had an uncivilized mind and wouldn't join him. The British thought the Russians were wild and savage (T.'s favorite part of the war).


Louis-Philippe (king of France) went to see Queen Victoria. She was pleased with him.



Russian and French Christians argued with each other over who should protect the Church of the Nativity. Picture below is showing the church again.

Nicholas didn't want the French to to protect the church so his men marched down and attacked the Turkish Empire.

Then the French and the British attacked the Russians. Lots of time was spent fighting at the Crimean Peninsula so they called it Crimean war. The British made a horrible mistake during the war it became famous with the poem The Charge of the Light Brigade.
Nicolas I heard that his son Alexander fired a general. He got so angry over this he had a stroke and died. Reading that has made T. think about anger. He told me that he is going to try not to get angry anymore. Nicolas I is laying down in the picture to show he died. LOL!
French captured Sevastopol. Alexander (Nicholas's son) lost lots of men and needed to give up fighting. He signed a peach treaty. The Peace of Paris said Russia would have Sevastopol back after returning the Turks land to them. Russia also had to promise not to have warships in the black sea.

That is our history for the day! T. now knows the story and I feel much better as his teacher. He can now write about it or tell his Dad the story. He didn't label everything on the large map yet. I will make sure he does and we can move ahead in history. I am amazed with how much history I didn't learn in school. When I started reading the story I thought the war was going to start because Muslims wouldn't let Christians go visit holy places. I was surprised when I read it was Christians arguing with each other for keys to a church that started it. Nice thing about homeschooling is I get to learn myself everyday!

History Crimean War.

I promise to put some of what my daughter is doing soon (I hope later today). I want to post this before I forget about it. I might need to do this again later in the year if we run into this problem again. I think posting it on this blog will help me remember it. T. and I read about the Crimean War the other day. He got a little confused with all the facts. We are using The Story Of The Word Volume 4. T. loves history! Most of the time he can repeat the stories back word for word but this was not the case the other day. Anytime my son isn't excited with school or doesn't know the story I read I take that as I was not a good teacher. This is just the way I view my childhood. When I look back at the teachers that didn't make learning fun all I can remember is not liking the teacher. I clearly remember the ones that would yell, punish or show frustration with some children in the class. I now think that is sad that that is all I can remember from spending a year with teachers like that. I think that the children I remember the teachers yelling at and punishing all the time learned even less than I did for that year. I hope from sharing that you can see "why" I spend so much time trying to make school fun and educational for my children. I am sad to say I did not know anything about the Crimean War. The year we went over that when I was in school all I remember is learning how to take proper notes. The school I went to gave A's for having notes in the correct form and I think all the history test I took that year I was able to use my notes so I never needed to learn the stuff in the books. I only had to write neat. Reading this story with my son even confused me trying to keep the facts straight. It is only a 3 page story but it has many facts to learn. 1. is the Ottoman Turks were Muslims and ruled over the land of the Palestine. They controlled Jerusalem, Bethlehem, and Constantinople (3 cities important to Christians). 2. Nicholas, ruler of Russia, wanted to capture the city of Istanbul so he could send ships down the Mediterranean Sea. 3. Nicholas wanted the British to help him fight the Turks but the English thought the Russians were wild savages. 4. France didn't like the Turks but knew they were weak. France was afraid of Russia because they were a huge country. All of this confused T (and me a little). I read the 4 small paragraphs in the book 4 times. I then knew the facts but T. still was confused. He did know that people thought Russians were wild savages because he loves the to use the words wild and savage (you can tell he is a boy lol). I decided to just end our school day and try to come up with a better way for T. to learn about this war.

After 2 days of thinking about it I decided to come up with a game for him. This is not a real game more like a play set kind of thing. I can and will make it into a real game if he isn't able to learn the facts of the war. I think he will have no problem once I set it up for him.

I made this up by first going to one of my favorite sites and I printed out a world map. I think I used the 6X6 36 page one but it was late last night and I can't remember right now the exact size. I then needed people (soldiers for the countries). I did tons of searches online and I could not find men to fight in the countries. I am stubborn and will not give up on things that I should be able to see are taking up a lot of time and not worth it so I spent way to much time on this. I hope someday to learn not to waste so much time on little things. Anyway after some more creative thinking I got the thought that I didn't need men to fight I could use something else. I thought of uniforms, country leaders, colored pegs and such but they didn't work out for me. I then got the idea of flags. I thought flags the countries used in 1853 would work. I found them on this link then I just clicked on each country involved in the firs paragraph. I printed out 25 tiny flags for each of the 4 countries on paper and gave them little stands to stand up. I also printed out a picture of Nicolas I, Queen Victoria, Louis-Philippe, Alexander (Nicolas's son) and a copy of the poem The Charge of the Light Brigade.

This is the little labels I made so T. will know what flag is for what country.

This is a picture of my "soldiers" flag armies to fight and defend.

This is a picture of the tiny tabs I folded and stuck on with a tiny piece of tape on back to make them stand up.

Picture of the leaders of the countries (The book doesn't say who the leader of the Turks was).

This is the back sides of the leaders. It tells the name of the leaders and the country they led.

Picture of all the pieces and they all fit in a tiny cup (so my 2 year old doesn't destroy them).

Picture of the map.

Next we will set up and do the lesson again. Only this time we will act it out with our map and pieces.