Week 4, Ancient Egypt

This week began our travels back in time to ancient Egypt. We will spend quite a bit of this year studying Egypt's history. So far, it's been fascinating! In our history studies, we have learned about life in Ancient Egypt - how they farmed, where they lived, and how they dealt with the Nile River floods.
(Here they colored pictures of an Egyptian tool called a shaduf which helped move water to the fields)

We learned about how they traveled on the Nile, using the current to go one way and the winds to go the other way. It made for very easy travel. We made these little reed boats one day as a craft.

We studied about the unification of Upper and Lower Egypt in 3100 BC by King Menes. The girls had a great time acting out this story! I'm sure they will always remember it!

In science, we studied pyramids. The girls made pyramids and cubes out of straws to see how a pyramid is stronger.

We also drew pyramids one day and tried to make them look 3D.

As a read aloud right now, we are reading The Golden Goblet. I wasn't sure if it would keep their attention, but they are LOVING it! They beg for extra chapters to be read. We got through 3 chapters yesterday because they kept wanting more and more. They keep trying to solve the mystery in the book and decide what they would do in the main character's place! I love seeing them take a real interest in the story. It really gives us a good insight into life in Ancient Egypt.

In art, we are still learning the basics as we are beginning this 4 year study. One day this week we were practicing how to draw circles. To be honest, this is probably our least favorite subject of MFW, but it's short and only 2 days a week so we are plodding through. We do lots of other arts and craft type of activities to satisfy my creative kiddos, so I figure we can get through this. I think it's going to be a good thing in the long run and really teach them a lot about the techniques of HOW to draw things, as well as teach them about art history.

In music this week we continued our study of Vivaldi. We listened to part of his Four Seasons piece - Spring. Next week we will continue that. They notebooked about what they had learned about the life of Vivaldi to include in their history notebooks.

We also watched Kaylin's dance recital piece from a year ago because they danced to the Four Seasons. Kaylin's group was Fall, but the whole piece was included in the recital. How fun to relate something they remembered from real life to what they were learning about Vivaldi!

Of course, we did our other studies also. They are all seeming to do very well in Math this year, which I am excited about. Annlee has caught on quickly to division and Kaylin (gasp) is LOVING fractions! Maryella had her first real "challenge" with Math this week but after a few minutes she got the concept of estimating and rounding and was doing it in her head with ease.
We are moving right along in Language Arts as well. Kaylin is reading a book about Pharaohs right now that's on a pretty high reading level and Annlee is actually enjoying reading a Flat Stanley chapter book about his adventures in Egypt. It's on a 4th grade level, and even though that's a little under her actual reading level, I'm just glad she's reading! Maryella is still coming along with her reading. She had a very good day yesterday where she really worked hard and had a great attitude. Reading time went smoothly for the first time in a while.
They are all still working through their Rod and Staff English books and WriteShop curriculum. Kaylin and Annlee have been studying how to include humor in their writing and we've had a few quite funny days, to say the least. Maryella is learning about biographies (she's read about Helen Keller and Clara Barton so far) and is in the process of writing a short little piece about herself. I just love this list of things she came up with for what makes her special...
I am special because...
I am a preacher's kid.
I love elephants!
I like to do art.
I love to eat sweets!

We are progressing in All About Spelling and Kaylin and Annlee are almost done with book 3. We will start book 4 in about a week and a half, I think.
The girls are all enjoying Rosetta Stone Spanish on the computer. They are all doing pretty well. The older two are moving pretty quickly through it.
Their favorite part of the day is probably practicing guitar. I love listening to them working at that!
They've done an awesome job learning the books of the Old Testament. Even Elianna can sing the song that we've learned. I shold probably record that! Although, I still haven't figured out how to get my videos on here.
And I guess the last thing we are learning is our Greek Vocabulary. So far, we've learned biblos (book), photos (light), sauros (lizard), and graph (to write or draw). We will be adding one more every week.

And because of the nature and freedom of homeschooling, we are taking off next week for another family beach vacation. This one won't be quite as long, as we need to get back for the girls' dance classes, church activities, and a dental appointment, but it will still be fun! I hope everyone has a great week and may God bless you!

Weeks 2 and 3

Our second two weeks of school passed by in a flash! And that's a good thing, because after those two weeks were over we took a break for a week at the beach! It was our 6th annual extended family beach trip - and what a perfect trip it was!

But before we could enjoy our beach trip, we had two weeks of school to complete. In science, we talked more about light with Genesis For Kids. We did some cool experiments. Here is one where we took a tin can and poked a hole in it. By filling it with water, turning out the lights, and shining a flash light in the can, you can see how light travels through the water much like through a tube (this is similar to fiber optic type of stuff!)

We watched how light shining through water can be divided into colors. We made this little rainbow...

We also did the old trick of using a magnifying glass and the sun to burn a hole in paper.

Annlee took it a little further and burned her initials in the paper!

We are also doing Apologia's Flying Creatures for science this year. We completed chapter 1 during these two weeks. Here we are doing a glider experiment to test which type of wings are more aerodynamic. The long, skinny wings worked better than shorter, wider ones.

This experiment helped us understand about how a bird is able to fly. We took a full glass of water with a straw in it and then blew through another straw across the top of the first straw. The air moving across the water inside the straw creates less pressure on the water inside the straw and it travels up through the straw and out. The first time we did the experiment ended up with Maryella getting a face full of water, haha!

Here is the inside of Kaylin's lapbook that she completed. I'm so glad we are doing the lapbooks along with Apologia. The girls love them and it really helps them to review and understand what they have learned.

In history we covered Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, Noah, and the Tower of Babel. The girls listen while I read about the stories and histories we are studying and then they write on their notebooking pages in their own words about what we just heard.

This is what Maryella dictated to me after we read about Adam and Eve. I was so impressed with what she remembered!

Here is a little visual aid we put together when talking about Cain and Abel.

And here we are measuring how big Noah's ark is! We loved this activity! In the second picture, can you see the girls in the distance by the white car. I was standing at one end of the "ark" taking the picture and they ran back to the other end. You can barely see them. That's a BIG boat!!!

We also learned about about Ancient Sumeria and Mesopotamia. This was a pretty neat and interesting little video we watched.

We learned about cunieform writing. The girls practiced writing their names on "clay tablets" made out of cookie dough.

Those were some pretty tasty clay tablets!

We are learning the books of the Old Testament and the girls are doing a fabulous job! Mostly, that's because we are listening to a song on youtube by Worship for Kids. It's a catchy tune that we've all had stuck in our heads. But we also have a few games we are playing to help with the memorization. Here, Kaylin is velcroing the books in order on a poster I made.

Annlee is putting clothspins in order around the lampshade.

And here they are all racing to put flashcards in order.

Here are a few more pictures from our week. I just had to take this first picture. This is how Annlee sits at the computer. How is that comfortable? Haha!

Guitar practice while Baxter listens.

Maryella and Elianna work on a Noah's Ark puzzle I found at the Dollar Tree.

Week 1, Scheduling Thoughts, and the Sabbath

Ok, I just have to say... our first week FLEW by! I can't believe how fast that went! I've been anticipating this first week for months now and it's hard to believe that it's behind us. It was a great week, with ups and downs, but mostly ups. We learned a lot, got back into a semi routine, and found a few kinks that needed to be worked out. These first three weeks are a bit of a strange thing. We've got our annual big family beach trip coming up at the end of the month and then Elianna will start preschool when we get back home. At that point, more things, like dance classes and Wednesday night church, will be added to our schedule. These first 3 weeks are kind of an easing back in to our school schedule. I'm very glad we did it this way, I think it would be hard to have so many new things thrown back into our lives all at once.

Something I'm thinking about once Elianna starts back to preschool, which is just 8-11:30, is to switch up our schedule. Right now, we do all our core subjects in the morning and then we do our My Father's World (history, science, Bible, art, music) after lunch. That last part, while definitely our favorite, can be hard for Elianna to sit through most of the time. I think we will try flipping things and doing the MFW first thing after she goes to school. It has been taking us about 2 hours to get through it most days (I'm adding a few things to what comes with the curriculum). Once we are done with that, we'll get a snack and then move on to the core stuff. My plan is to let Kaylin and Annlee do their independent work and computer work while I do everything I need to do with Maryella. I've still got to get that girl reading like she needs to be! It's going to be a challenge, but I know she'll get it. She wants to, she just isn't wanting to put forth the effort to get it done. Many days end in tears, unfortunately. Anyway, we can get all that done in the mornings and then go get Elianna from preschool. We can come home and eat, then I can let Maryella work on her seat work and computer work, do English with the big girls, and still be able to work with Elianna a little bit if she doesn't need a nap (naps are becoming fewer and farther between these days). I would love to get through the book Teach Your Child To Read in 100 Easy Lessons with her this year. So, we shall see how that schedule goes when we get back from the beach.

So, if you've made it this far, I know you are ready for a report of our first week with pictures! What an amazing week it was! Everyone did their first chapters in Math U See and did well on their tests. They all seem to enjoy the new Rosetta Stone Spanish they are doing. Annlee does a really good job with it! Spelling went well and they all breezed through that. We're trying a different approach to that this year. They are each working through All About Spelling levels. For their tests each week, I pull words they've learned new rules for in that, plus add in words from our history and science units, as well as words they have had trouble with in the past. I think it will work out really well once we get going in that. They all completed several English lessons in Rod and Staff English. Maryella is even doing it this year. It's a very gentle introduction to grammar, but certainly thorough. They all began working in our new Write Shop curriculum. It's pretty basic right now, but I think it's going to be great and really give them solid foundations in writing. Here is a brainstorm that Maryella had to do one day. The assignment was to come up with all her favorite kinds of animals and we will work with this list in the upcoming lessons. I love the vast array of animals she thought of as her favorites!

One thing I really wanted to do this year was to add in music lessons for the girls. I would love to do piano eventually, but it's just not in the budget right now. So since Jeff knows how to play guitar and already owns three of them (leftover from his youth ministry days!), he said he was willing to give it a try teaching the girls! They were beyond excited to get started! How cute are these pictures of them during their first lesson! Love it! They are in the process of learning to play He's Got the Whole World in His Hands. (I'm learning too so I can help them with practice sessions during the week. I've always wanted to learn how to play!) I'm going to give them a week to practice and then try to video it to include in next week's post. Kaylin almost has it already and Maryella is doing a really good job as well. Annlee is doing well, but she's spending most of her time complaining about her fingers hurting, haha!

In My Father's World, we began at the very beginning of time. Creation. I loved all that we learned this week about that first week! You think you know all there is to know about those first 7 days, but there is so much to really dig into! Maryella and Elianna colored and decorated big numbers with the things God created on the corresponding day. These will decorate our school room for awhile.

The three big girls are creating history notebooks this year that will take us from creation through the ancient Greeks. These are the first pages that they created for those notebooks.

And we also made these pictures to add to the notebooks. I'm using a book called Draw and Write Through History to help us with some fun extra pages this year. And, yes, I had to do one also!

We watched these vidoes this week that went along with our studies. The first dvd of the What's in The Bible With Buck Denver series was so funny, yet very educational. The girls loved it! (It also gave us an opportunity to talk about how even some Christians disagree about certain things!) We watched several sections of God of Wonders. I got that dvd for free at the homeschool convention. What a freebie! That dvd is AWESOME! And the girls are glued to it and beg to watch it all the time - huge plus! We also watched Magic School Bus Gets a Bright Idea to go along with our science studies on light.

To finish our week, we celebrated our first Jewish feast - Sabbath. I can not even begin to describe what a blessing this was. I'll let the pictures tell most of the story...

Annlee made our Sabbath table centerpiece. She cut stars to make candles that would float in oil in a plate. One candle for each person in the family.

Maryella and Elianna decorated spice boxes. I know, you are only supposed to have 1. But we really needed two, haha.

Kaylin made our challah (bread) cover. I was blown away by what a good job she did.

They were each so proud of their special projects and it made the meal that much more special for them.

On Friday, the girls helped me make the challah. It's a braided bread used in the Sabbath meal. Elianna stuck with me from beginning to end.

She loved adding the poppy seeds to symbolize all the stars God created that we can't even count!

And when it was done, the house smelled AH-mazing!

We got the table all ready and the girls couldn't wait to get started. They each got bathed and dressed in nice clothes (their own idea) because we had read about a Jewish family doing that in a book.

Check out that great centerpiece Annlee made for us! It looked so pretty all lit in the middle of the table!

And the challah cover was perfect as well!

We lit the candles, I said the prayer and explained the meaning of the two candles (creation and redemption), then Jeff went around and said a blessing over each one of the girls. That was so precious.

We sang a song together, Jeff blessed the wine (Mots for Tots Grape Juice, haha) and everyone took a sip.

We washed our hands after Jeff said another blessing.

Jeff said the blessing over the bread and explained why there are two loaves (because of the double portion of manna during the exodus) and everyone broke off a piece of bread.

We then enjoyed our dinner, said the grace after the meal, then had a wonderful evening together as a family playing games and reading stories. Saturday was a day we all spent together having fun and laughing and resting from our busy lives. We took a break from all electronics and it was so nice! We enjoyed leftovers of our soup and bread for lunch and then had a light and easy but delicious dinner. We enjoyed the Havdalah, the close of the Sabbath together.

There are some really neat things in this meal also! First of all, I just love the havdalah candle! ( I ordered it from Amazon for less than $2!) The twisted blue and white candles also represent creation and redemption and how they are linked together through Christ.

The wine(juice) is poured until it overflows so we will remember God's overflowing blessings for us as well as the blood that flowed from Christ on the cross.

The Havdalah candle is extinguished in that wine as a symbol of the darkness that came over the world when Jesus died on the cross.

Then the spice box(boxes, haha) is passed around so we will remember the sweetness of the Sabbath.

We ended with a sweet dessert as well, as is the Jewish custom. I'm not sure Jewish tradition involves chocolate pudding cups, but hey, you go with you have!

It was such a sweet, special time for our family. We are definitely going to do this again! I think next time we will start on Saturday night and end on Sunday night. I know that's not Jewish custom, but since our "sabbath" is really Sunday, it just seems to make more sense for us. We also are looking forward to celebrating after the time changes so we can incorporate the finding three stars in the sky to end the Havdalah meal and close Sabbath. We skipped that part since it doesn't get dark until almost 9:00 right now and we've got to get 4 girls up for church in the morning!

So, that was our first week! Whew! It was wonderful and we are all looking forward to another great year of school!