Green Thumb

Anything can grow in California. The climate is perfect all year round. Most of the plants that are grown there now were introduced to the area. We went to several history sites that were covered in awesome plants I have never seen before. Even the ones that could not produce food could be used for something else like brooms, medicine, cleaning...

One place we went was The Getty Museum. Getty wanted to create a Mediterranean Villa to house his large Greek and Roman art collection that he had collected over the years. The outside gardens had tons of plants.

 Peach Tree

 Artichokes. I never knew they looked like this. 

 Lemons

Papyrus

Planes of Fame

We stopped by the Planes of Fame in China, CA during our history trip. The have dozens of planes from around the world and all eras of aviation history. They restore all planes and all of their planes on display can be flown. (For a few thousand dollars, you can fly one yourself.)

This is the "graveyard" for planes waiting to be restored. 

This is the only flyable Japanese Zero in the world. The Zero is the same type of plane that was flown in the attack on Pearl Harbor in WWII. This specific plane was not part of Pearl Harbor, but was used as a prop in the movie Pearl Harbor. 

For anyone who loves planes and their history, I think this is a fantastic place to be. All the talking about planes was a bit much for me after 2 hours. Luckily, there was a dog on site who was happy to go around to the ladies looking for some love. 

The Berlin Wall

One of my favorite parts about the trip was seeing the piece of the Berlin Wall. It would be cool to me to see as many pieces of the Berlin Wall that I could.

The first is at the Nixon Presidential Library. The side with the graffiti was on the west side of Berlin. (The side controlled by the United States, Britain and France.) The other side is completely blank. (From the side of Berlin that was controlled by the Soviet Union.)

The second is at the Reagan Presidential Library. The other side is also completely blank. (Except for a marking that was made to mark which piece of the wall it is after the fact.)

One of the main reasons the wall was built was to stop emigration from East Berlin. I guess when people have a choice between oppression and non-oppression they will choose the first.

Several people who killed or put in prison for trying to cross the wall. However, there were several success stories. Some found ways to dig tunnels, ride a hot air balloon over, or take a zipline over.

The Berlin wall fell when I was only 4 years old. So my students definitely do not have a appreciation for the events surrounding it and the world it was constructed in. Listening to speeches and learning more about the Berlin Wall this past week has been a good way for me to understand, so I can pass that on to my students.

Crazy Days in California

I am back from a crazy week in California. We flew into Los Angeles on a Saturday and flew out of San Francisco the next Saturday. 8 days of hotels, bus ride, unhealthy food and little sleep. 

This trip is part of the Teaching American History I am a part of. Throughout the year I have been reading books and attending professional development with other teachers in 3 school districts to increase our knowledge of American history. At the end of the year, we take a trip to visit history sites. 

This is what our map looked like. This year had a lot more driving then last year. There was about 900 miles of driving. 

This was different from the trip last year. I enjoyed it, but I missed Chris so much. I would have been fine leaving on day 6 instead of day 8.

I have some posts this week about some of my favorite spots. 

                        

Constitution Day

Yesterday at school we had a lady from the Grimes County something come and read a book about the Constitution to our fifth grade. I was busy taking care of two behavior issues and the yearbook guy who came to talk to me that I wasn't paying attention all that much.

When I finally got settled, she was asking kids to name some people who helped write the Constitution.

Some kids raised their hands and shouted names.

"George Washington!" Yes he was.

And then two students said "John Adams and Thomas Jefferson"

And she said Yes.

Um... Not they were not. They were both aboard as ministers in Great Britain and France.

It isn't a huge mistake, but I think that you should always tell kids the truth. I try to never say anything untrue and if I don't know for sure, I say, "I'll look that up for you." But we all just assume that they were part of the delegation that helped write the Constitution and because we assume, that lie of history gets passed down.

They did sign the Declaration of Independence, but we weren't talking about that.

Montpelier

The morning we visited Monticello we also visited James Madison's house Montpelier which is in Virginia. Because it has really only looked like this for three years, it is very sparse inside. They are still looking for some of Madison's furniture or similar things to fill the house with. And you can imagine that those things would be expensive. 

I find it interesting that Monticello actually has some art that was originally James Madison's while Montpelier actually has the copies. I think they should probably give those back, but I guess Monticello wouldn't like to lose it.

After Madison died, his stepson basically lost the house. It was went through a few hand before ending up in the DuPont family. They had several additions to the house and added some pink stucco. When the last DuPont died in 1983, she gave it to National Trust for Historic Preservation. The must have toured it like this for while before they decided they could take the stucco off and took off the additions. 

It almost doesn't look like the same house. I would love to go back in a few years to see what they have added. 

Antietam Battlefield

We saw a few battlefields on the trip. This one is Antietam which is in Maryland. 

Side note: I love Maryland and the east coast. It is near the ocean, it is beautiful, and there are fireflies. Even this battle field is gorgeous. However, it wasn't always. 

The Battle of Antietam was the bloodiest day in the Civil War. There were 23,000 casualties. It is still the bloodiest day for Americans. 

This battle was almost a fluke. Lee's battle plans were found lying on the ground and found by a union soldier who passed it up to his supervisor and eventually it got to General McClellan. Who actually moved forward to fight! (There might be a post on him later. Not exactly the greatest guy in history.)

If I remember correctly, both the Confederate and Union lost five generals. The battle could not be declared a win on either side. 

So while this battlefield is gorgeous today, you have to try to imagine it covered with soldiers. Some still fighting and some wounded and dead on the ground. It was in September so the corn was high.

During the civil war, photography was a new technology. After the war, photographers took pictures of the battlefield. There were still soldiers on the battlefield who had died. Thankfully today that practice didn't stick around.

If you are at all interested in knowing more, check out wikipedia. There is much more on this battle then I remember.

Smithsonians

The saddest part of my trip, besides being apart from Chris, was only being in DC for one day. I've only ever been to DC for one day at a time and would really love to spend multiple days in a row there.

We hit some Smithsonian Museums. I loved the Museum of American History and the Museum of Natural History. A little something for the history and science teacher in me.

These are some pictures I took with my class still in mind. This would be my class from last year because I know they would have loved to see this stuff. And I can only hope that the incoming 4th graders aren't too much different and will also love it.

I've said before that my students were obsessed with how people in history died. And John Wilkes Booth.

This is the hat that Lincoln was wearing the night he went to Ford's theater the night he was assassinated.  The hat is cast in bronze, I believe. 

This is a reward poster for the capture of John Wilkes Booth. I wonder if I can find the actual poster replica. 

And the real Ford's theater. We walked by it after it was closed so I didn't get to see inside. (Next time, along with everything else I need to do there.) I would love to compare this to a photo taken closer to Lincoln's time. 

And finally, there was so much in the Museum of Natural History. I wish I had more time to explore it. I got lots of ideas for science this year. Can you find the bugs in this picture?

Monticello

Back to my trip. I have a stack of postcards over an inch high from all the places that we went. I think this was one of my favorite places we went. We had walked through a few historic houses before and some of them weren't so amazing; I kept my expectations low. But even if I had high expectations I would have loved it. Now get ready for a history lesson. 

                             

Monticello is the house that Thomas Jefferson designed, built and lived in. It is on the top of a mountain that he visited often when he was a child. When he was married, he and his wife lived in little Monticello which was a small house while Thomas Jefferson built the real one. He said that he loved tearing things down and building up again. The house was constantly under construction. 

Jefferson never had formal architecture training. He learned it from books. And he had some unusual viewpoints. LIke he didn't think stairs should be the main point of the house. So this house has two very narrow and very steep stairs that seem to be hidden. 

The thing I like most about Thomas Jefferson is that he had so many interests and pursued all of them. The house is full of inventions by him. And the grounds are full of his hobbies. (Of course he had about 200 slaves to help him pursue all his interests.)

My favorite part of the grounds was the garden. It was huge. I would say at least 2 or 3 football fields long. The garden is still kept today and has every single type of vegetable and herb you can think of is planted there. 

Thomas Jefferson and most of his family is buried on the grounds. The cemetery is still used today and descendants can still be buried there. He wrote the words on the tombstone which shows us what he felt his most important accomplishments are. "Author of the Declaration of American Independence, of the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom and the Father of University of Virginia."

You can see the University of Virginia from the top of Monticello. Jefferson wanted to be known as the "father" and not the "founder" because he was so involved and really put his all into the design and set up of the school. 

Jefferson and his wife were only married for 10 years before she died; he never remarried. And only one of his children lived to adulthood. He also only bought a handful of slaves in his lifetime. Most of them he inherited from his father and father-in-law. When he bought slaves it was to complete a family or because he needed a specific trade done at Monticello. It was a place that was mostly self-sufficient. However, Jefferson did eventually go into debt because he bought so many books.  

And finally, Jefferson argued for the elimination of slavery, but only freed a handful of slaves in his lifetime. 

Tiring Week

This year I was a part of the Teaching American History grant. All year I participated in lectures about the Civil War and Reconstruction. At the end of the year, we took a trip to tour Civil War sites and some other history sites because if you are there, why not go?

This is the map of our travels. 8 days, 7 nights starting in Baltimore and ending in Baltimore. We went to three states and D.C. I learned a lot and it was fun, just really really long. And I missed Chris loads.

I'll hit my favorite sites later.