http://www.enchantedlearning.com/crafts/july4/ Activities and crafts for July 4th http://www.homeschoolzone.com/PP/fourthofjuly.htm Fourth of July http://www.kidsdomain.com/craft/_4th.html Independence Day crafts http://www.apples4theteacher.com/holidays/fourth-of-july/index.html Fourth of July Activities and Games http://www.dltk-kids.com/usa/ General USA and Fourth crafts
We are BBQ'n , lighting a few of our fireworks, watching the neighbors fireworks and the grand finale is watching the casinos fireworks! The Stratosphere Casino's fireworks display alone is worth staying up late!!! At 1149 feet it is the tallest building west of the Mississippi!! Then we have to be at the airport by 6 AM the next morning because my 2 babies are flying alone (cry,cry) to Grandma and Grandpas house in Northern California. I'll be alone for 10 days (cry,cry)!! I have a huge stack of library books that I am planning to go read though. My plan is 1 book a day!!
www.History.com has several Independence Day videos to watch. I had the link but it wouldn't let me paste, will try again later.
4th Books: A is for America by Devin Scillian A Fourth of July on the Plains by Jean Leeuwen America the Beautiful by Katharine Bates Apple Pie Fourth of July by Janet Wong Beat the Drum, Independence Day Has Come by Tomie dePaola Celebrate America by Jill Hauser Fireworks, Picnics, and Flags: The Story of the Fourth of July Symbols by James Giblin Fourth of July Mice by Bethany Robers Fourth of July, Sparkly Sky by Joan Holub God Bless America by Irving Berlin Happy 4th of July Jenny Sweeney, by Leslie Kimmelman Hats Off for the Fourth of July by Harriet Ziefert Independence Day by Nancy Sanders John Hancock: Independent Boy by Kathryn Sisson Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Jellybeans: A Fourth of July Story by Heather Henry My Country Tis of Thee by Samuel Smith One Final Firecracker by Gregory Maguire Stars and Stripes: The Story of the American Flag by Sarah Thomson Snickerdoodles Star-Spangles Fourth of July by Clare Grosgebauer The Fourth of July Story by Alice Dalgliesh The Star Spangles Banner by Francis Key This Land is Your Land by Woody Guthrie Will You Sign Here, John Hancock? by Jean Fritz The Fourth of July Encyclopedia by James Heintze
OOHH for those with little kids don't forget this one is cute for little ones: Biscuit's Fourth of July by Alyssa Capucilli
Flag Cake Margarine/Butter Flour 1 package (2-layer size) white cake mix (plus ingredients to make cake-listed on box) 1 package (4-serving size) JELL-O brand gelatin, any red flavor 1 C boiling water 1/2 C cold water 3 1/2 Cs (8-ounce container) Cool Whip brand whipped topping, thawed 1 pint strawberries, washed and sliced 1 Cp blueberries, washed 1 C miniature marshmallows Grease 13 x 9 pan with margarine and dust lightly with flour. Prepare, mix and bake cake mix according to package directions. Cool cake for 15 minutes. With large fork, make holes in cake about every 1/2 inch. Pour gelatin into mixing bowl. Add cup of boiling water and use scraper to mix thoroughly until gelatin is completely dissolved. Use measuring cup to pour gelatin over cake. (It will run down into holes, making sliced cake have red stripes.) Chill cake in refrigerator 3 to 4 hours. Cover tray with aluminum foil. Put about one inch of warm water in kitchen sink. Take pan out of refrigerator and dip bottom (don't let water come up over sides) into water for about 10 seconds. Put large tray on top of cake, and invert. Frost sides and top with whipped topping. Arrange strawberries and marshmallows in alternating rows for stripes, leaving upper left for field of blueberries. Chill again until time to serve.
Red, White & Blue Chocolate Cupcakes 2 c Sugar 1 3/4 c flour 3/4 c Hershey's cocoa 1 1/2 ts Baking powder 1 1/2 ts Baking soda 1 ts Salt 2 Eggs 1 c Milk 1/2 c Vegetable oil 2 ts Vanilla extract 1 c Boiling water Vanilla Buttercream Frosting 5 T butter or margarine 4 c powdered sugar 1/4 c milk 1 t vanilla extract Fresh blueberries and strawberries Heat oven to 350 F. Line muffin cups. In large bowl, stir together sugar, flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Add eggs, milk, oil and vanilla; beat on medium speed of electric mixer 2 minutes. Stir in boiling water, batter will be thin. Fill muffin cups. Bake 20-25 min or until wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Remove from pan to wire rack. Cool completely. Frost cupcakes with Vanilla Buttercream Frosting. Garnish with blueberries and strawberries. Vanilla Buttercream Frosting: In medium bowl, cream together the butter and powdered sugar. Add the milk and vanilla extract, beating until frosting is of spreading consistency. Makes about 2 cups of frosting.
All-American Ice Cream Cake Vanilla Ice Cream 1 1/2 cups sugar 1 c oil 2 eggs 1 c buttermilk 2 tablespoons red food coloring 2 tablespoons cocoa powder 1 teaspoon salt 2 1/4 cups cake flour 1 tablespoon vinegar 1 teaspoon baking soda 2 pounds cream cheese, softened 1/2 to 1 1/2 cups powdered sugar, to taste 1 teaspoon vanilla extract Blackberry jam Preheat oven to 375° F. Grease and flour a 10-inch springform pan. In a large bowl, beat together sugar, oil and eggs. Whisk in buttermilk. In a small bowl, combine food coloring and cocoa. Add to egg mixture. Sift salt and flour into batter and mix well. Combine vinegar and baking soda in a small bowl and add to batter. Immediately pour batter into prepared pan and bake 30-40 minutes. Cool cake in the pan for 10 minutes, then remove from pan and cool completely. Whip cream cheese until light and fluffy. Add sugar and vanilla. Mix well. Slice cake horizontally into three equal layers. Place bottom layer back into springform pan. Spread with approximately 1 cup of softened ice cream to make a 1-inch layer. Freeze until solid. Spread blackberry jam on top of ice cream layer and place second cake layer on top. Spread with another layer of ice cream and freeze. Top with jam and last cake layer. Freeze until solid. Unmold the cake onto a platter and coat with cream cheese frosting. Freeze until 15 minutes before serving time. Use a knife dipped in hot water to cut slices. Serves 16-20.
American Flag Cookies 1 c Unsalted butter, softened 1 Egg white -- whipped 2 ts Pure vanilla extract 2 1/2 c Unbleached flour 1 1/2 c Sugar 1 1/2 ts Baking powder 1 ts Red food coloring 1 ts Blue food coloring Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. In a mixing bowl, combine margarine, egg white, and vanilla extract. In a separate bowl, combine flour, sugar, and baking powder. Mix wet ingredients with dry until just moistened. Divide cookie dough into three equal portions. Tint 1 portion with the red food coloring; and another portion with the blue food coloring. Mix thoroughly. Form each portion into long bars and stack bars on top of each other using alternating colors (red, white, blue). Wrap finished cookies in waxed paper and place in the refrigerator for about an hour. Cut cookies into 1/4" thick bars. Place on greased baking sheet and bake for 10 to 12 minutes.
In CONGRESS, July 4, 1776. The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America. When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands, which have connected them with another, and to assume, among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed, by their Creator, with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let the Facts be submitted to a candid world. He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good. He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them. He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only. He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures. He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness of his invasions on the rights of the people. He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within. He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands. He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers. He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries. He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance. He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures. He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power. He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation: For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us: For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States: For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world: For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent: For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury: For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences: For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments: For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever. He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us. He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people. He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation. He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands. He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions. In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people. Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends. We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these united Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor. New Hampshire: Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple, Matthew Thornton Massachusetts: Samuel Adams, John Adams, John Hancock, Robert Treat Paine, Elbridge Gerry Rhode Island: Stephen Hopkins, William Ellery Connecticut: Roger Sherman, Samuel Huntington, William Williams, Oliver Wolcott New York: William Floyd, Philip Livingston, Francis Lewis, Lewis Morris New Jersey: Richard Stockton, John Witherspoon, Francis Hopkinson, John Hart, Abraham Clark Pennsylvania: Robert Morris, Benjamin Rush, Benjamin Franklin, John Morton, George Clymer, James Smith, George Taylor, James Wilson, George Ross Delaware: George Read, Caesar Rodney, Thomas McKean Maryland: Samuel Chase, William Paca, Thomas Stone, Charles Carroll of Carrollton Virginia: George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Harrison, Thomas Nelson, Jr., Francis Lightfoot Lee, Carter Braxton North Carolina: William Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn South Carolina: Edward Rutledge, Thomas Heyward, Jr., Thomas Lynch, Jr., Arthur Middleton Georgia: Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, George Walton
I pledge Allegiance to the flag, of the United States of America, and to the Republic, for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with Liberty, and Justice for all Congress first authorized the United States Flag on June 14, 1777, the day we currently celebrate Flag Day in America. This date is also significant in that it qualifies our flag as the third oldest of the National Standards of the world, even older than Britain’s Union Jack. First flown from Fort Stanwix, on the site of the present city of Rome, New York, on August 3, 1777, the flag had a tumultuous beginning, going through the Battle of Oriskany when it was only three days old on August 6, 1777. The flag's original design called for a star and a stripe for each state, making thirteen of each, to correspond to the original thirteen colonies. In 1791, Vermont was admitted to the union, followed by Kentucky in 1792. The number of stars and stripes was accordingly raised to fifteen. As other states joined, it was clear something would have to be done about the ever-expanding flag. An act of Congress in 1818 reduced and restricted the number of stripes on the flag to thirteen. A star would be added for each new state. The individual stars depicting the states represent the power of our Federal Constitution, which reserves to the States their individual sovereignty, except as to rights delegated by them to the Federal Government. George Washington said of the flag’s symbolism, "We take the stars from Heaven, the red from our mother country, separating it by white stripes, thus showing that we have separated from her, and the white stripes shall go down to posterity representing Liberty."
The Star Spangled Banner By Francis Scott Key Oh, say can you see by the dawn's early light What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming? Whose broad stripes and bright stars thru the perilous fight, O'er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming? And the rocket's red glare, the bombs bursting in air, Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there. Oh, say does that star-spangled banner yet wave O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave? On the shore, dimly seen through the mists of the deep, Where the foe's haughty host in dread silence reposes, What is that which the breeze, o'er the towering steep, As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses? Now it catches the gleam of the morning's first beam, In full glory reflected now shines in the stream: 'Tis the star-spangled banner! Oh long may it wave O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave! And where is that band who so vauntingly swore That the havoc of war and the battle's confusion, A home and a country should leave us no more! Their blood has washed out their foul footsteps' pollution. No refuge could save the hireling and slave From the terror of flight, or the gloom of the grave: And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave! Oh! thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand Between their loved home and the war's desolation! Blest with victory and peace, may the heav'n rescued land Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation. Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just, And this be our motto: "In God is our trust." And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!
Popsicle Rockets red juice (red raspberry, cherry, cranberry) blue juice (blue Kool Aid, Gatorade, blue raspberry) white juice (lemonade, coconut juice drink) red string licorice for fuse 3 oz. paper cups Popsicle Sticks baking sheet Line up several 3 oz. paper cups on a baking sheet. Pour 2 tablespoons of red juice into each cup. Freeze 2-3 hours until firm-slushy. Remove from freezer and poke a popsicle stick into the center of each cup of juice. Add 2 tablespoons of white juice and freeze 2-3 hours. Remove from freezer. Top off with blue juice and freeze 1-2 hours until slushy. Remove from freezer and insert a 2 or 3-inch string of licorice into each popsicle. Freeze until hard. Peel off paper cups to serve.
http://home.nycap.rr.com/content/us_bio.html All about Uncle Sam Be sure to click on the 'Next' button at the top.
