Our National Anthem....

I love homeschooling my kids! The girls and I have a good time learning new things together. Most days we concentrate on the basics...reading, writing and arithmetic...but at least once a week we try to add some science, geography and/or history. The girls especially like these days and I have to admit, so do I! I find that I am relearning a lot of things right along with them. Oh how much we forget in our "old age."

Today we were spending some time on our America study. We have been learning about national holidays, prominent people in American history, patriotic songs & how they evolved and the like. This time we read about Francis Scott Key and the circumstances around which he penned The Star Spangled Banner. It was quite interesting to the girls and we enjoyed looking up Baltimore, Maryland on the map, finding pictures of Fort McHenry on the Internet and of course belting out the national anthem, with much patriotism I must add.

Before we read through the words together, I asked Bethany and Sarah to sing what they knew of the song for me. It was so entertaining, but at the same time made me realize that "Hey, we had better work on this one!" I got such a kick out of it that I quickly ran to the computer to jot down their version. Bet you didn't know it is really called....

"The Star Bangled Banner"

O say can you see

By the dawn's bird we light

What so proud can we hail

At the twilight's last gleaming

And the rockets red blare

The bombs bursting in air

Gave proof to the night

That our flag was still there

O say that star bangled banner yet waves

For the land of the brave
And the home of the free.

Not too terribly bad for my elementary students who have never attended any professional sporting events!