Did you know that 8 US Presidents were born and lived in Virginia?

Sunshine's cousin's class did a Flat Stanley unit, so to help her out we took Flat Stanley to visit Thomas Jefferson’s home Monticello, James Madison’s home Montpelier, James Monroe’s home Ash Lawn-Highland, and Zachary Taylor’s birthplace Montebello. Since I put it off till the last week of school, we didn't have time to visit the rest of the houses, but we did manage half of them.

1^st George Washington- born at his father’s plantation near Colonial Beach, VA. He inherited Mount Vernon when his older half brother died and he lived there the last 45 years of his life.

3^rd Thomas Jefferson –born in Shadwell, VA. Started building Monticello when he was 26 and was constantly working on it and expanding it throughout the rest of his life.

4^th James Madison- born in Port Conway, VA. Spent most of his life at Montpelier, which his father built and he expanded.

5^th James Monroe- born in Westmoreland County, VA. Lived in various locations around Virginia and Europe. Lived at Ash Lawn-Highland (which is just a couple miles from Monticello) for 24 years.

9^th William Henry Harrison- born at Berkeley Plantation in Charles City County, VA, where he spent his childhood.

10^th John Tyler- born at Greenway Plantation in Charles City County, VA. He spent his childhood there and a number of years as an adult after inheriting it from his father. He later purchased Sherwood Forest Plantation and renovated and expanded it. The house is still owned by his grandson.

12^th Zachary Taylor- his family was traveling from Virginia to Kentucky when some in the group came down with measles and they had to be quarantined. He was born at Montebello while they were in quarantine (the actual house he was born in is no longer around).

28^th Woodrow Wilson- was born at The Manse in Staunton, VA, but left at one year old when his father accepted a job with a church in Georgia. He spent childhood summer vacations with relatives in Staunton and briefly attended the University of Virginia in Charlottesville.

We have lots of field trips planned for the next two years as we study the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, and other more recent historic events. We spent the last two years studying ancient and medieval history and have now moved to the more modern stuff, which gives fun field trips a bit more context. So along with early Pilgrim settlements and Civil War battlegrounds, we'll also be visiting the houses we haven't gotten to yet.

Do you like visiting old houses?