15 Miles on the Erie Canal

We are almost finished with this portion of American History we'll call Core 3 (and I mean that loosely, since we've really not followed Core 3 at all)

Recently we did a little trek down the Erie Canal.

We read The Amazing, Impossible Erie Canal and i found it to be a fairly annoying book. I really thought i would like it better, but something about all the extra text in the pictures bugged me. Necessary, I suppose, to illustrate the building of a canal which takes place over time AND space, but it annoyed me nonetheless. Maybe next time we'll stick with Sonlight's Erie Canal book.

Online, we found some cool resources

The Boss singing that song we all learned in music class so many years ago. At this site, you get the lyrics, The Boss singing it (scroll down to the player on the right), and yes, you get the whole song! and you can even download a ringtone (I didn't)

If you want to do a driving tour of the Erie Canal today, go here (well, really, you need to go to New York, but if you click there, it will give you a map and directions!)

Who needs a book? This site has all the history, all the songs, all the pictures and all the information you could ever want about the Erie Canal.

And last, but not least, this site has more postcards, more music and a virtual tour of the Erie Canal throughout history (via postcards)

Really, I might just sell my whole library. The interactiveness of the internet amazes me. I think it's so cool to listen not only read about something in history, but to also then listen to music and look at photographs, play games, solve puzzles. All the work is done for me.

Me and Google, homeschooling the Buds together.