The Civil War Muster 2010

Hotter than Heck! 96 degrees...

Care for a shave and some blood letting from the Mayor?

The Mayor and Noah shooting the breeze about blood letting.

The Battle of Jonesboro. August 31, 1864

The Confederate Army surrenders!

Noah and other kids playing Civil War...

Charge the hill!

Right after I took this photo that kid in the back ground shot me. I guess he didn't realise that I am a Yankee Mama!

Noah's New Union Soldier Uniform

Ready for duty, sir!

Noah was asked to be in the play Stone Soup this weekend at the Renagade Festival in Old Town and play a soldier. We've misplaced the jacket from his old uniform so I went to the thrift store and found the perfect jacket. I sewed on some misc. brass buttons, altered the collars and used all of the rest of his Union uniform items that he had already owned. He'll also wear it to the Muster in Jackson next weekend and he's decided to be a soldier for Halloween again. Ha! I killed three birds with one stone and all for $4.20, I love it!

The 26th annual Civil War Muster Jackson, Michigan August 28th & 29th

www.civilwarmuster.org/

Train Robbery!

All Aboard!

Photos by Autumn

Today we traveled to Coldwater, MI to ride The Little River Railroad steam engine train.
We settled in our seats and we noticed some Civil War soldiers were on the train. Noah was told by a soldier to be sure to hide his money (they had given some of the passengers big dollar bills.)


because he heard bandits were in the area. Noah hid his money under his Union hat for safe keeping! The train traveled along peacefully to the town of Quincy and that's when the trouble started.

Sure enough bandits were trying to rob the train!!! The soldier that sat with Noah laid dead near the tracks, as he and other soldiers bravely protected the train from the bandits!

After the bandits were warded off. We headed back to Coldwater. Noah's money still safe under his hat. (don't worry the soldier wasn't really dead, he rode the train back to the station.)

Here's Autumn taking a photo of me, taking a photo of her;)

Brad; my sweetheart, on the back of the caboose.

Kevin

After the train ride we had a nice steak/buffet dinner. Then stopped at an antique village and a farmers market where I bought three little pumpkins and a huge basket of mums. I'm getting ready for fall!

Off to Camp. Reporting for Duty... Sir!

Noah is at Civil War Camp today. He's one excited boy!

This is serious business... to learn and experience all he can about the Civil War. Next weekend in the Civil War Muster in Jackson, MI. Then on Sept. 12th we are riding the Civil War train in at the Little River Railroad in Coldwater. We've stocked up on more Civil War books from the library. His favorite subject to start the year with!
He wants to be a reenactor someday. I'll help him pursue his dreams in any way I can. It's funny how certain things become passions for certain people. He really loves history in general.
He tells me he's thinking of become a college history professor and make documentaries.
Not bad:) umm... but what happened to running for President? That's okay, I would worry too much if he ever was President.
Now, I'm off to come up with some Civil War math and writing activities for next week. Have a great weekend!~

Worksheet update*

I wanted to share what I came up with for some Civil War math and activities. I find a on-line word search puzzle maker and type in some Civil War words to generate a puzzle, then I save it to Word Pad and add some Civil War clip art to it.
Next I made up a Civil War math sheet using some fictional scenarios and some factual scenarios. Such as how many soldiers in a battle? Which I used reference books for the actual numbers. Then I added clip art to this.
Lastly I found a Civil War slang vocab list on-line and printed it out just for fun. This all took about a half hour to make. The possibilities are really endless. You can do this any subject that interest your child. I like to call in interest led homeschooling. I've done this for The Revolution, medieval times, Colonial times, Dragons and Harry Potter... whatever he's into at the moment. Actually we don't use many dittos in our homeschool, he's a hands-on kind of guy. But Noah likes these interest led ones.

Nincompoop notes: I noticed that I spelled the word soldiers wrong on the work sheets, Ugh! What a dope. I corrected and reprinted them before Noah will see them. He'd nail me on that one for sure! Teachers and moms make mistakes too:)

History Channel Civil War Video Game

Noah bought the History Channel's Civil War video game for playstation 2. He had saved some birthday money for this game, it just came out. He is so excited about it. Yes, there's lots of shooting and killing in it. But... I'm leaning towards "it's history, right?" Also it is from the History Channel, so I feel good about that. The kid just loves the Civil War and video games. So we'll see how it goes. It is rated T for teens, YiKeS!