The Highlights of Homeschooling History Literature Unit Study The Titanic Created by Teresa Ives Lilly Sold by www.hshighlights.com
INTRODUCTION This history/literature study guide is created to use in three week sessions. Each unit contains a historical story, a daily journal question and one other daily activity. These activities are: Bible Verse Activities Vocabulary Skills Interpretation Skills Sequencing Poetry Skills Drawing Craft Activity Map Skills Comprehension Skills Cause and Effect Skills Encyclopedia Skills Creative Writing Science Activity Report Writing We suggest the student read the story in it s completion before beginning the study guide. One skill area a day will allow the unit to be completed in three weeks. Your children can learn History and Literature skills at the same time. Look ahead, because you may need to collect some items for the Science or Art projects.
The Titanic - A Majestic Dream It s an amazing ship! thought Captain Edward J. Smith as he stared at the crowds that gathered to watch the 2200 passengers board the Titanic on April 10, 1912. The Titanic was ready for it s maiden voyage from England to America. A ship large enough to have a swimming pool inside, Squash courts and a whole gym could only be the most amazing thing these people would ever see, he concluded. Boarding the ship were the richest people in the world. They had paid a huge sum to get their tickets for fun and adventure. There were also very poor families and individuals who had scrimped and saved money to be included as passengers on the Titanic. They wanted to get to America to begin a new life. For them, there would be no pools, gyms or on board restaurants. The poor would simply stay below. For them, to be on board, was the greatest adventure of all. The passengers stood at the railing and waved as the band on the docks played. It was the beginning of the greatest party any of them had ever participated in. Some people walked around the ship s decks, while others wrote letters. The rich played, swam, ate or took advantage of the beauty salon on board. Everyone was happy to be one of the passengers on the unsinkable ship. Yes, it s unsinkable, the Captain agreed when passengers asked him, There are two bottoms with a set of 16 chambers that can fill up with water and still be locked tightly. Even then the ship would never sink. Thomas Andrews, the ship s designer, agreed. He was sailing on this first voyage. The passengers went to sleep at night, lulled by the waves and the silence of the ocean. Even on the night of April 14, 1912, at midnight, while most of the passengers slept, the Captain still felt secure that the Titanic was completely unsinkable However, in the foggy distance danger loomed. Frederick Fleet, the sailor in the crow s-nest, saw a shape begin to form on the horizon. It was hard to see at first because he had no binoculars. Suddenly he realized that it was a massive ice mountain! Frederick warned the first officer, William Murdoch, of the impending doom. But it was too late to stop the impact. Murdoch tried to turn the ship away from the iceberg. He was unable to. A scraping sound barely broke through the quiet of the evening. The Captain was sure there was no serious damage done to the ship. When he went below to check for damage, he realized in a moment that the Unsinkable ship would indeed sink!
The four compartments were already full of water and even closing the steel doors that should have kept the water in those sections didn t help. The water flowed over into five and six compartments. The iceberg had caused a 200 foot hole on the side of the ship. With hope the Captain sent orders to prepare all the passengers to evacuate the ship. Getting over 2200 people awake and on deck was a huge job. The poor people below didn t know how to find their way up to the deck, so many of them huddle together where they were and waited for the water to over take them. If only the telegraph operator had listened to the message sent by the Californian ship earlier in the evening. It had tried to warn the Titanic about the ice ahead. However, the operator had been so over run with meaningless messages being sent to and from the passengers on the ship, that he failed to realize the importance of the warning. The crew was sure that they could get radio contact again with the Californian and get it to return, but the ship had it s radio turned off for the evening. Even when the Titanic sent up rockets, signals for help, the Californian didn t understand the message because they weren t the right type of rockets. At one point the Californian did try to signal to the Titanic with a Morse code lamp. The Titanic did not respond. Without ever sensing a problem, the Californian drifted away from the sinking ship. The Captain saw passengers in their pajamas. There were not enough life jackets for everyone. He knew that there was only enough space on the lifeboats for 1000 people. Have the band play, he thought, that will keep everyone calm. So with danger mounting, the band played on. People didn t understand the danger. Some played on deck, laughing innocently. Women and children were put into the lifeboats. The crew was never taught how to launch the lifeboats properly, so as the danger grew, the lifeboats pushed away from the ship only half full. Mostly, women and children survived and only a few men. In just a short time, the ship began to tilt. People slid across the decks. Some jumped off and tried to swim to the lifeboats. Not all of them made it. The water was icy cold. Some people never even tried to leave the ship. An older couple, who would not be separated, sat on the deck chairs together until the end came. Thomas Andrew, the designer was never seen again. Captain Smith never left the ship. He watched the ship sway. One end completely submerged in the water. The other end pointed towards Heaven in a final attempt to stay afloat. The Unsinkable ship only took three hours to sink. The people in the lifeboats were the only survivors. They cried as they watched the ship s final point sink below the surface. Relatives, friends and personal belongings, all gone.
There was no more music to break the silence of the empty night. The memory of the final hymn the band played lingered in everyone s mind. Hours passed by, the survivors were freezing. It seemed like no help would ever come. Finally, from almost sixty miles away, the Carpathia arrived. It was the closest ship to respond to the S.O.S ( CDQ) signal of the Titanic. One ship to rescue them all, but all is so few. Only about 700 survivors were brought on ship. Even the lifeboats hadn t saved them. Some lifeboats had turned over and at least thirty people died before being rescued. The Captain never saw New York, or the forty thousand people who gathered in crowds to see the survivors and hear the story for themselves. The crowd was sad to hear of the great loss of lives. Everyone mourned the loss of the Great Ship. Everyone had hoped it was true that it was Unsinkable. What did the future hold now? New laws to make ships safer. No ship would ever have their radios turned off again. There had to be enough lifeboats for everyone. There would be practices on the ships for emergencies. But that didn t help Captain Smith and the 1500 passengers who all went to their watery graves that day. The Titanic rested on the floor of the ocean near Newfoundland in a silence that was not broken for over 70 years until a scientist named Robert Ballard discovered the Titanic and unlocked it s secrets. Robert Ballard read all about the Titanic. He wanted to find it. He built a special robot that could take video pictures of the ocean floor. In his submarine called Alvin, Robert Ballard found the Titanic. Although it had only been a story to many people, to Robert, the Titanic was as real as it had been in 1912. Robert and other scientists returned to the Titanic with a submarine that could go inside the ship. They discovered many things about that fateful voyage, the people and the problems of the ship. Robert however, wanted other scientists and treasure hunters to leave the Titanic alone. He wanted it to stay as it was, a never forgotten story of majestic dreams.
Daily Journal Questions Here are journal questions for each day. Write the answers on another paper or in a journal book. 1. If you could go on a boat trip, where would you go and why? 2. If you had been on the Titanic, what would you have liked to have seen first and why? 3. Do you think you would have been a rich person or a poor person on the Titanic and why? 4. Knowing yourself, would you have jumped off the ship into the water or stayed on the ship as it sunk? 5. Who would you have considered the most important people on the ship to get into the lifeboats first,why? 6. Tell about a trip you went on that didn t turn out as you had hoped. 7. What have you studied that you would like to find out more about, like Robert Ballard did? 8. How would you rather travel: ship, submarine, airplane, train or car? 9. Have you ever been in an emergency? What did you do? 10. If you had been on the Titanic and allowed to take one personal belonging off with you, what would you choose and why? 11. Why do you think someone wanted to build such a large ship? 12. Would you have given up your seat in the lifeboat for someone else? 13. Do you think all the Christians on the Titanic were rescued? 14. What color would you have painted the Titanic and why? 15. What equipment should the Captain have had on the ship?
Bible Verse Activity The Titanic was considered the Unsinkable Ship. This was a prideful and arrogant view. Even the name Titanic is arrogant. It refers to the Titans who, in Greek myths, were supposed to have ruled the earth in ancient times. How does the Bible verse reflect on what happened to the Titanic? Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall. Proverbs 16:18 Copy the Bible verse here in your best handwriting. Find other verses in the Bible about PRIDE. Write them here.
Vocabulary Titanic ocean watertight compartment passengers frosted iceberg unsinkable lifeboat rescued survivors crow s nest Write each word and it s definition: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12.
Comprehension 1. True or False: Write T if statement is true; write F if it is false. a. Not many people heard about the Titanic before it sailed. b. Robert Ballard wanted people to leave the Titanic alone. c. All the lifeboats were completely filled up. d. People could go swimming on the Titanic. e. There were only 500 survivors from the Titanic. 2. Multiple Choice: Circle the correct letter. The Titanic s first trip took place on: A. April 1900 B. May 12, 1902 C. April 12, 1912 D. None of the above On the Titanic there were: A. only rich people B. rich and poor people C. only poor people D. only adults The Californian ship: A. could have saved the Titanic B. had it s radio turned off C. did not understand the rockets D. all of the above The Captain: A. was sure the ship would not sink B. made sure everyone had a life jacket C. got on the last lifeboat D. was the last one to die About how many people were rescued? A. 2200 B. 705 C. 2227 D. 1100
3. Fill in the blank with a word from the story. a. Everyone thought the Titanic would not sink because it was. b. People were wearing their when they got on the lifeboats. c. The Californian could have all the people. d. The damaged the Titanic. e. The Titanic sunk off the coast of. 4. Questions and Answers; Write full sentences. a. Why did the captain assume that the ship would never sink? b. Why did the poor people stay below? c. Why did some people jump into the water? d. Why did they think the ship was Unsinkable?