I'm not the best at these, but here's my best guess :) The problem is that you have 5 people mentioned, but only 4 instruments and 4 'sports' are named... so if we assume that one of the people listed ISN'T a red herring, then you're left with Bertha not having a sport and bill's instrument being unnamed, there simply aren't enough sports of instruments listed. Someone has to sit out and not be counted, otherwise you wind up with something like this I think: ^*Betty = Karate Expert = Guitar Player Bertha = Not guitar, accordian, not car racer or parachutist = Flutist? ^*Barry = Accordian = Car Racer ~Bill = Stringed Instrument = Unicyclist ~*Bob = Parachutist = Trumpet Player 1. Betty + Barry First onstage 2. Bill + Bob barely in time / Bertha too late 3. Bertha upset Betty, Barry, & Bob 4. Bertha knocked into Betty / tripped over Barry & knocked into Bob's music stand 5. Bill not disturbed by Bertha & smiled at Betty 6 Barry = accordian embarrassed 7 Bob can't drive not car racer 8 Bill plays a string instrument If we remove Bill from the stage / answers then you're left with: Betty = Karate = Trumpet Bertha = Flutist = Parachutist (knocked over her own music stand?) Bob = Guitar = Unicycle Barry = Accordian = Car Racer Bill = Not on stage, no sport or instrument listed for him 1. Betty & Barry 2. Bob & Betty (needing to recycle Betty but even though she was first on stage there's nothing to say that she actually picked up her instrument then) 3. Bertha upset three --- Bob, Barry, Betty (not bill - see 5) 4. Bertha knocked into Bob, Tripped on Barry, & knocked over HER OWN music stand 5. Bill not disturbed by Bertha & smiled at Betty 6. Barry = accordian 7. Bob can't drive Not one of the first two on stage 8. Bill played a stringed instrument (but it doesn't matter since he wasn't onstage?) Ultimately if you remove Bertha from the orchestra and make her a nuisance instead it simply won't work, because of how everything else aligns it also seems as though she has to be the Flutist. It seems as though everyone is necessary for something.... everyone but Bill. Once you remove Bill, the only thing that's tricky is how specfically Bertha upset Betty if Bertha bumped into her own music stand which we could probably excuse by simply saying that Betty was irritated because Bertha was being disruptive... maybe? The other thing that bothers me is why Bill was playing even though he's not being counted(?!!?), but I suppose that it doesn't say when he played, just that he played, perhaps he was the performer before their set? Who knows :D Good Luck!! Maybe someone else will have a better solution!

I'm not sure how other people have done it, but there was this great pre-Miquon book (short, but filled with games) written by another mom that I would use along with some of the games in the First Grade handbook, and cuisinaire "art" days until Kit was really comfortable with the rods. For the art days we'd make alphabet letters, trains, boats, pyramids, castles, stables and horses (a particular favorite), etc. This was back when we were using Singapore Early Bird. About 1/2 of the way through Early Bird A I began alternating Miquon days with MEP Reception days (it might have been a bit later, it was right after she learned to write her numbers) and then by about 1/2 way through Singapore Early Bird B we switched over to MEP 1 and Miquon Orange. By then it was probably silly to keep using the Singapore book, but it was so easy and MEP and Miquon Orange were right on the edge of what she was able to do that I sort of just used it to keep her confidence up (and to use when we ran into a struggling point in reading, because I've tried to make sure that she's only got one "difficult" subject at a time). All in all Orange was great until we got about 1/2-2/3rds of the way through MEP 1. At first I would assign pages and teach material that weren't based on what we were working on in MEP, but eventually I would just let her choose a page and do her thing. Since I'd read through the 1st grade diary twice and through the annotated labsheets once I was able to just jump in with a lesson if she'd chosen something that she'd never done before. Miquon is very much her experimental math. In it she'll take chances. The first time that she tried to add something to a number with hundreds was in Miquon, and it was because there's always that expectation that you'll try to make up your own problems and forge your own path that's simply embedded into the program. Now that we're starting BA we're alternating that with Miquon Red/Blue and MEP 2B. Mostly to draw out the life of Beast Academy, but also because she's a bit young for BA still, and using it slowly as a supplement allows her to use it as "fun" opt-in math rather than her -I must do this every day- math. It seems like the perfect fit at the moment. We started BA3 around lesson 80 where MEP has a nice little segue about quadrilaterals. Sadly, these days Miquon is our easy / low stress math. But in the end, it's just as useful there as it was when it was her most challenging math, and she still uses the material in Miquon to challenge herself, which makes me love it even more. PS - With my youngest daughter, who is much more visual and tactile, I'm adding Miquon in later. Right now I'm having her work on MEP Reception while she powers through the Singapore EB 'geometry', pattern, and measurement chapters. Once she's up to the addition and subtraction and through reception I'm going to explain all of the mathematics that they're going to want her to do through Miquon, so that she learns it in her strongest learning modality first and then it'll be reinforced through the abstract work in MEP1. We're still negotiating about what to do for Early Bird. Right now she's in measurement and still bored - the negative to letting her listen in to Kit's schooling for the last two years since she dropped her morning nap I guess. So, what I'm trying to say with this digression into the sticky quagmire that is Mim's math "plan" is stay fluid, and respond to what your child needs now, not what worked before, or what someone else did & I'm sure that you guys will have an awesome time doing math!! :) (edited to add) PPS -- Here's the pre-miquon book: www.nurturedbylove.ca/resources/cuisenairebook.pdf - it's short, but with fun games and I found it very easy to expand on the games and ideas in it to get a good grasp on what I could do to help my girls get used to the cuisenaire rods... because I really couldn't think of anything to do with them at first... they just boggled me, I was very slow to warm up to Miquon, but I'm glad that I took the time to understand it, because we wound up loving it.

If you supplement Miquon with a traditional program from the beginning (we use it with MEP at the moment, but everything that people mentioned would work well, they're all great programs), then you won't have to worry about possible holes and maybe (huge maybe ;)) the transtion will be easier. It might feel awkward at first, but once I was comfortable doing both, I was eventually be able to use the elements that I liked from each and carry them over. It's also made it easier for me to be more flexible in my teaching. I feel like I've been able to integrate Miquon's freedom into MEP and use the lesson plans from MEP to supplement Miquon, not to mention the huge influence that the First grade journal had on my approach to teaching Singapore when we first started out. Combining texts might be a bit crazy, but it's really worked for us, math is Kit's favorite subject.

Merry, I just wanted to say thank you too :), your thoughtful posts (both in this thread and others) have convinced me to give AAR a try with my younger daughter. We're pretty excited, it should arrive this week.

Ack!! I totally didn't remember that he'd written about his struggles with addiction in the Stephen King book. Now I'm nervous about the rest of the ones that I'd thought were good - it's been so long since I've read them, you're probably better off just disregarding my post :) Sorry!!

PS - If you're looking to focus on poetry, I just put up a document with my poetry selections for when we cover Music of the Hemispheres if you're looking for additional poems to read :) http://lovelearnplay.wordpress.com/2013/04/30/mct-island-town-level-poetry/

The best writing advice that I've ever read was: write every single day. A natural writer really just needs to write, but a new writer needs practice in how to write. By scheduling it into his day and providing 'deadlines' for written material you would be providing the time, outside of that he might have his own ideas about what he'd like to learn more about or needs help in. It might work to choose one of the following books and work with him at a slow pace to develop his writing further. Perhaps in May he could be working on point of view and then in June he could move to maintaining the same tense throughout a written piece of work (or character creation, character development, plot development, story outlining, story blocking, scene writing, dialog, etc). There are a lot of elements of writing that cross genres (including writing interesting professional papers), so they'll definitely be things for him to work on for a while even if he's not only interested in fiction. I wouldn't expect perfection (since he's 9!! :D), but would spiral through 10-12 items over the course of a few years while you're doing separate spelling and grammar progams. FYI: These are books for adults who want to write fiction, but they're well written and I don't remember them containing material that would be inappropriate for a 9/10 yo. I didn't list a few that were really fun, but dealt with subjects that are probably inappropriate - mostly on developing anti-heros and villans. I don't know much about Junior High and High School writing programs, maybe someone else will have more age appropriate ideas, but there's no good reason why he couldn't work through these if you're willing to guide him through them. General reading about writing fiction: Stephen King, On writing -- It was a really entertaining book, even though I don't enjoy his novels I did enjoy this book. (I seem to remember him using foul language in a casual manner in the book) Targetted Help Books: Sandra Scofield, The Scene Book: A primer for the fiction writer -- pretty much only focuses on writing scenes, but there are many elements of scene writing that touch on other aspects of good writing Jessica Page Morrell, Thanks, But This Isn't For Us -- on the importance of proofing / editing your work, a really great book if he isn't quite seeing the point of all of the grammar and spelling practice. Write Great Fiction Series -- they have books on Plot and Structure, Dialogue, Characters & Viewpoint, I remember the Orson Card one being particularly good Eric & Ann Maisel, What Would Your Character Do? Personality Quizzes for Analyzing Your Characters -- character and scene development, great for scene writing as well Donald Maass, The Fire in Fiction -- techniques to make writing more interesting (he had really nice discussions about his example works) Sol Stein, Stein on Writing -- this is probably the most advanced of the group & may be beyond him, but the author provides apt descriptions & examples of the skills that he's trying to impart I put in only fiction writing books because the only ones that I've read about scientific writing were really pretty boring.

Very very - tentatively - as of Sept 1st: Language Arts: (It sounds like a lot, but I'm hoping to spread the MCT material out over 1st & 2nd grades) MCT Sentence & Practice Island (w/ extra practice pages from KISS grammar), Music of the Hemispheres (w/ daily poetry), Building Language (w/ dictionary practice & Wordly Wise 3000 if we finish too quickly), Mud books for Intro Lit Analysis, A tbd selection of 6 classic children's books for read-a-loud practice, AAS 2, WWE1?? (I bought this jic, but I'll probably drop it since we'll be doing narration & copywork w/ history) Math: we're currently on track to be mostly done with MEP 2, so MEP 3, BA 3, a little Miquon Blue/Green, Smullyan (King Arthur in Search of his Dog) & books about math concepts for fun. Spanish: Salsa Spanish using the lesson plans from Wyoming Dept of Ed; Spanish for Children (both super slowly since we're doing them with her little sister too) ?Latin?: Song School Latin 1 (maybe... if we have time on our hands when we get to learning about Rome in history) Science: BFSU 1, Junior First Lego League & Nature Study History: SOTW 1 & AG (and maybe some related Geography activities if I find the time to pull something fun together). Music: Piano Art: ??? Still looking, she wants to learn to draw... :( It sounds like a lot, but we're already doing everything but the Art & History now. I slowly added/adjusted the others over the past few months to make sure that we weren't doing anything that wasn't fun & engaging (and to make sure that our school days didn't go too long). (edited - arghhhh formatting!)

Kit (the older one) is involved with a junior first lego league club that uses lego mindstorms and she loves them. Our group leader makes exceptions for younger kids to join as long as they're willing to commit to the weekly meetup schedule. She's definitely learned a lot about constructing various types of devices, but not so much about the electronics and coding behind them. Ultimately, I would say that Lego Mindstorms a great first step since they provide reachable goals for children to learn how to put together a simple robotic device... plus it's not like there's anything better on the market today (although K'nex does an electronic control pad now as well: http://www.knex.com/Educators/product.php?pc=79014). Once she's a bit older I'll probably get her these to play around with, but that won't help you much now: Little bits - http://littlebits.cc/ and maybe a MaKey Makey kit as well - http://makeymakey.com/ for fun. Have you considered making simple machines as a first step to robots? That worked out well for us, in fact she's still in love with her K'nex machines and bridges sets. But Kit enjoys the construction of a working object with movable parts as much as a "robot", so your mileage will vary.

My DD (6) is breezing through Grammar Island right now. We started last month and we're about 2/3 done, so we're moving a little slowly, but still faster than I'd wanted to. If your daughter is rule oriented it will probably be a good fit. It's very gentle (as you probably remember from your son) and we're both enjoying it immensely. Kit finds it pretty easy to identify the 6 parts of speech that we've learned so far in sample sentences. We are supplementing with KISS grammar for extra sentences to pick apart because I didn't want to run through the practice book before we'd even started Sentence Island ;). I was sort of hoping to make the rest of the Island level books last longer, but I don't know how I'll manage to spread it out over 2-3 years now :( ... I think that if I'd been smarter I would have hidden them from her because I'd really rather not move past town into voyage until she's in 5th grade (mostly because it looks a bit boring) so perhaps the downside to starting early isn't whether they can handle the work, but -- what will you do from ages 8-10? Edited to add - Oh, I see that I sort of misread your question. I think that if you start now you will probably have to find something to bridge the gap at some point. Because even if she manages voyage you can't just stop writing instruction. As I wrote in my initial post, we're still at the very beginng of this journey, but I'm currently thinking about xtension activities to extend her out over the course of a few years -- perhaps doing a series of bi-monthly writing projects, adding in research topics, maybe doing some work on creative writing with bravewriter, etc to bridge the gap that I see looming for us after town. Perhaps you could do something like that instead of switching programs mid-stream.

Here are a couple of different angles to approach it (in no particular order). Maybe some of them will resonate with your little guys: 1. Not everyone believes in the same gods wihin the same territory even today. 2. People didn't travel as much then as they do now, there weren't cars, airplanes or trains. When someone had to travel they'd go on foot or by horse/ox/cart. 3. Not only were these peoples separated geographically, but they were also separated by hundreds of years. 4. Over time what people believed about the Gods changed. To illustrate this you could trace a diety over time (perhaps Horus, Set or Ra from the Egyptian pantheon or Nammu/Tiamat from the mesopotamian region) not only did their names change, but their powers did as well. 5. You could also find examples of Gods that did cross pantheons (Hectate or Janus), or were absorbed into a pantheon (Buddha into Hinduism) or ones that were worshiped over thousands of years by different civilizations (such as Isis) -- they really didn't just disappear, they were often living alongside many other pantheons. 6. If none of that works you could always blame it on war -- the dominant religion of an area often changed when people were conquered. 7. How long is 1 day, 1 week, 1 month, 1 year, 10 years, 100 years, etc. Perhaps they're having trouble conceptualising the amount of time that has passed between each culture. 8. Although the SOTW does cover several cultures contemporaneously it also tends to cover one group for several hundred (or even a thousand years) before heading backwards and then pushing forward again. That can seem choppy to some children. Make a timeline and put the Jewish single God, Egyptian Gods and Goddesses up with the Roman AND the Hindu pantheon at about 0ad (they were all actively being worshiped in different regions at that point) - it might alleviate the question of where did they go if they see visually that they're all being worshiped together by different people -- then you can pull the map out and talk about which regions 'belonged' to the various pantheons. I hope this helps a little :) Good luck!

Oh wow! This site is great :) Thanks

These were particular favorites of mine as a little girl: The Little White Horse by Elizabeth Goudge Beauty by Robin McKinley Anne of Green Gables (I know it's not a far flung place, but Anne does seem to have a lot of excitement in her life ;)) Anything by Madeline Engle has girls going along on adventures, although I don't remember loving her books, they're classics. Oh! There's also Nancy Drew, she has quite a few adventures, just not in the high fantasy realm. Also, my daughter is enjoying the Guardians series by Joyce at the moment as her read-a-loud. Maybe if you just picked up book 3 (the Toothfairy one) for her?

I both love and hate planning. I love it because it gives me a sense of control and structure, and I hate it because then I feel trapped. I'm also in the color-coded excel spreadsheet club. Luckily, I can always throw the plan out of the window if it gets too stifling (and then... er... make yet another new one ;)). :scared: Now you've got me worrying about it all!! 1. What is the advantage of accelerating in math? Perhaps a leg up on college admissions. I think that for some kids it just sort of happens. If it's happening to your child, why fight it? If it's not, then I don't see the point in pushing a child to get ahead. 2. Should we learn 2, even 3 languages in these early years? We enjoy learning a second language and I believe that it is useful, but I would never say that you *should* do it. It's a nice extra if you have the time and inclination. 3. Should I give more time to art and music instruction? A friend of mine just started music instruction with both of my children. It's been lovely, but if, after a few months they're simply not interested anymore I'd simply have them stop and we'd just go back to having 'dance parties' as our music appreciation. We only manage to do art once in a while because I'm not very crafty, I keep meaning to do more of it as well... :( *sigh* 4. What about habit training- should that take precedence over everything else? I habit train(?) them by asking them to clean their rooms after quiet time and encouraging them to work on difficult problems by reminding them that their brains grow when they work on challenging things. I'm not sure that I know what habit training is. I'm not sure if you should tell me either, because then I might feel like I have to add it too. 5. We all know there is not enough time to focus on everything, so how do you decide what is most important in your homeschool? Reading and Math are our priorities. Everything else is secondary. If I had to rank our secondary projects next year I'd say - that it would go English (Reading, Spelling, Grammar), Math, Science, History, w/ Foreign Language & Music/Art on the same priority level. But luckily I don't have to rank them because the only important things are Reading and Math - lol. Seriously though, you've got to pick something that you're comfortable with. My aim for their K-5 years are to get both girls reading fluently and through the normal arithmatic sequence (adding/subtracting/multiplication/division). Once I've succeeded in those goals everything else that we do is just a nice extra. I don't know if that will help you, but hopefully it will.

You could try these - they might be too old or cover myths that he's already learned about: http://www.theoi.com/ The McElderry Book of Greek Myths Maybe even something like these (even if they do use an inordinant amount of slang and maybe aren't as educational as they could be): Mythlopedia, All in the Family: A Look-it-Up Guide to the In-laws, Outlaws, and Offspring of Mythology; What a Beast!: A Look-it-Up Guide to the Monsters and Mutants of Mythology; She's All That!: A Look-it-Up Guide to the Goddesses of Mythology); Greek And Roman Mythology (Greek and Roman Mythology,3 vols total) http://www.amazon.co.../dp/9810522401/ - This is a manga style option. It appears tamer than the Graphic Myths & Legends Series - however, there were no previews available on any site when I looked at it and my library hasn't gotten it in stock. Atticus the Storyteller's 100 Greek Myths by Lucy Coats - contains most of the best stories toned down quite a bit with fun illustrations, it is not encyclopedic in nature and sorts information in story format similar to the 1001 Arabian Tales --- not by god/goddess Shapeshifters: Tales from Ovid's Metamorphoses - illustrated by alan lee (I liked his illustrations better in this than in the sutcliffe books) There are also comic book style-ish books about the trojan war, but again these might be too old for your son: The Trojan Horse: The Fall of Troy (Graphic Myths & Legends) - this is a comic book The Wrath of Achilles: Follow Your Fate (A Choose your own adventure type book - the others in the series are Journey of Odysseus and Exile of Aeneas) There are some good resources for non-greek / roman pantheons out there too. Is he just interested in sticking with the Greeks/Romans?

I've got some links and unreviewed books / movies that I've picked up while looking for things for year 1 if you'd like me to try to pm them to you. I can't seem post more than 5 links at a time otherwise I'd just paste it in here. Edited to add: & You're totally welcome everyone :) it's my pleasure. I'm glad that other people are finding it useful, it makes me feel less like I'm wasting my time putting it all up, 10/45 are up now.

Pen -- Here are some of the statistics that you were looking for - it's the 1860 census rather than the 1850, but they do have charts with a comparative analysis by decade: From the 1860 Census http://www2.census.g...ts/1860a-15.pdf starting at pp32 of 90 you can find the tables for the statistics on deaf & dumb, blind, insane and idiotic by race & country of origin. The discussion of the revised data set for deaf and dumb begins here: http://www2.census.g...ts/1860a-02.pdf on page 52 of 52 with a continuation of the full review of the data available here: http://www2.census.g...ts/1860a-03.pdf These numbers provide the proportions of the populations being discussed. There are almost twice as many white people who are deaf and dumb, with Free "Colored" people being (far) closer to the white populations in terms of % of deaf/dumb within the overall group - indicating that there was a non-genetic reason for the difference between slaves and whites. It also runs through Blind, Insane with a bit of sifting through the text. Interestingly the blind populations are virtually indistiguishable (although it may still be statistically significant). Unhelpfully the Insane population is not broken out into the same statistical format and the idiotic population seems to be lumped in somewhat with the insane(?) - I didn't take the time to read the whole thing, I just skimmed it.

o.O -- *doh* I just assumed that it was for elementary because we're in the K-8 board!! :leaving: er... continue on then... LOL

My impression after reading through this thread was that people were claiming that their use was so limited that they should not be used for elementary aged school children at all, ie that their use should be limited to the highschool level and above. You wrote: "the WPA slave narratives were frequently used to illustrate bad/faulty history" and "NO ONE has stated that the slave narratives are inherently of no value. No one has said that they are blanketly "refuted" as sources. What has been pointed out over and over is that their utility is limited because of all the reasons listed. [sic] The interviews may be useful for understanding customs, family life, religion, etc., within the black community, but their utility in other ways are very limited. Part of graduate training in history is detailed coursework in how primary sources are to be evaluated." When I read what was written (all of it, not just those two out of context snippets) I was left with the impression that although you and SarahW were not claiming that the narratives were of no value -- you were arguing that they had no place in an elementary curriculum. I am arguing that they can have a place, perhaps even as a counter-point to the idea that freedom equalled an automatic quality of life increase for slaves. I am not saying that they were used correctly in the Sonlight Curriculum, but I am posting for women who might be skimming this thread and thinking - wow, maybe I shouldn't use X curriculum since it uses these terribly suspect sources. I wrote what I did for the mother who looks at the reviews of SoTW on Amazon and says: I'm not going to use this curricula because SWB misrepresents Alcibiades role in the war between Athens and Sparta. History has so many nuances and caveats, and no history for children will be perfect. I do not agree with how Sonlight represents slavery based on the snippets that I've seen on this thread re: how the WPA was used or the conclusions that Holzman reached, however, I do believe that we can use this as an opportunity to discuss -- what whitewashing history is, and whether it's necessary to some extent for your children, and what limits should we impose upon the use of materials for youths, etc.

My argument is simply this: Many children and some few adults seem to be unable to make that distinction. For a child, I'm arguing that I would break the argument down on the physical rather than metaphysical side. I would absolutely discuss whether it is philosophically better to be free than enslaved with a highschooler or a particularly advanced middle-schooler, but in general I'd want an elementary aged student (and most middle school students) to walk away with the idea that there was more than needed to happen for african-americans to achieve "real" freedom (more appropriately termed equality). Ultimately, whether it is better to be free, but live in the bonds of socio-economic slavery or to enslaved in a literal sense (or whether in truth there is much of any difference between the two at all) is a question that I suspect that we could debate for a long time. I believe that there is a difference, but I don't know if I would come to resent my freedom if it significantly hindered my quality of life. I feel that perhaps I would. It reminds me of the Franklin quote: He who surrenders freedom for security deserves neither. It's all well and good to be principled when you're not facing extreme hardship, but I don't know if I can honestly say that I would prefer freedom at any price. I've got a pretty darn cushy life, I might prefer to live as a hareem woman to starving, or worse, watching my children suffer. Am I making sense? I apologize if I derailed the thread. I had only hopped in to say that we shouldn't just throw out the WPA narratives in their entirely and that using them shouldn't be an automatic F for a curriculum.

I would respetfully disagree. I believe that many people in this country have difficulty contexualizing the continuing struggle of minorities towards equality. There seems to be this pervasive idea that "Free" is ALWAYS better, and that it wasn't until "things got worse again" for black people under the jim crow laws that we needed to 'help them out' again. Perhaps it's a regional thing.

I would expect the same. I haven't read the Sonlight 100 teacher guide, and probably never will since I'm happy with our plan to supplement SOTW, my point was to those that claimed that you should never ever use the WPA narratives. They do have a place in elementary history and should not be dismissed out of hand. The slave narratives can easily be put in the larger context of our nation's failure to protect it's most vulnerable citizens (minorities, not just blacks) even for the youngest children. History is about making connections and part of what makes the Civil Rights movement and our continuing struggle to obtain equality for ALL of our citizens is the background of racial oppression and economic slavery within the post-civil war era. Without that background the Civil Rights movement becomes a footnote -- black people were annoyed because they had to ride on the back of the bus (but the child thinks, I love riding in the back, what's the big deal), and couldn't use the same restrooms (so what, I can't use the girls restroom, again what's the big deal) -- because when the Civil Rights movement loses its historical provenance it does begin to sound a bit like much ado about nothing and that is a disservice to the men that were jailed, beaten & those who gave their lives to make sure that african-americans and other people of colour could live freely, as equals, in our great (although occasionally terribly misguided) nation. (edited - forgot to quote the person that I was responding to, sorry! :))

The WPA project had many flaws, but ultimately we are left with a series of narrative accounts that indicate that some former slaves preferred slavery to freedom. This goes beyond the poor methodolgy used to record their narratives. Instead of further denegrating the narratives why don't we take a critical look at what "freedom" entailed for these men and women. The Civil War had decimated the local and state economies of every southern state. Additionally, what little industrialization and infrastructure had sprung up prior to the war was pretty much destroyed. Fortunes had been lost and enormous tracts of land confiscated, not to be given to former slaves, but to white northerners to purchase at incredibly low prices. Black southerners made up 40-50% of the populations of those states and although education efforts were made, they were universally weak. So, now we've got a uneducated, marginalized, skilless segment of the population looking for work in a depressed economy. What we don't tend to talk about is how many of these people had to watch friends and family slowly starve or become sick and be unable to pay for any medical care whatsoever. Although black southerners had legal rights, these rights were systematically stolen from them over the course of 'reconstruction' -- but worse, it's debatable (beyond a few touted examples) how much their 'rights' were respected prior to the jim crow laws going into effect... What I'm trying to say is that if you're going to use the WPA project narratives, please for the love of God, make sure that you put their words in the proper historical perspective. Might a woman who had been raised in a household where there was plenty of food and no one beat or raped her miss those days if after the war she had watched her parents die to an unknown illness, married a shareholder & starved while working 14-16 hour days and then been gang raped by a group of white men out for kicks one night, with no legal recourse? This isn't stockholm syndrome people, it's the reality of life in the south after the civil war. It was actually worse for many black people. I am not appologizing for slavery, I believe that it is an abomination, but please don't act like "Freeing" the slaves was a kindness. I would argue that true freedom didn't happen until the Civil Rights movement -- and that movement needed to happen in both the South and the North. Racism is pervasive, and I will not accept the idea that telling someone that they are free and then leaving them to rot in the chains of hatred and oppression, is acceptable. When we say - well they were free, so their lives were better, we are implicitly condoning the treatment of blacks after the war and marginalising their complaints of unequal treatment post-civilwar and today. (edited - spelling and narrative errors)

Thank you for sharing everyone, so many fun resources. I can't wait to get started with some of them :)

Just in case it's not cartoon animation, but animation that's more on the Pixar (or video game) level, he might find this modeling program more useful: http://pixologic.com/sculptris/ It's free and there are lots of videos on youtube to help them figure out how to use it (just avoid the human body modelling ones if you're sensitive about nudity).