Well, I thought I'd let you know what I am up to in my language arts classes. (I'm really social studies at heart!)

In sixth-grade, we are reading HOLES by Louis Sachar. There is a great deal of genealogy involved, so I have all those kids tracing their family trees.

In seventh-grade, we are reading ACROSS FIVE APRILS, a civil war novel set in the Newton-Hidalgo area of Illinois. In addition, we have been looking up veterans on the Illinois Civil War Veterans Database at the Secretary of State's website. The database gives one access to the histories of each regiment, naming battles and other places of interest. Then, I take them to other sites to check marriages or census records to see if the soldier was single, married, with children, etc.

The site is located at www.sos.state.il.us/departme...ivil.html