Friday, April 29, 2011

Jacob's New Sword


For the past few months Jacob had the plan of crafting his own sword. I was skeptical, since we are not metal workers. He persisted and got his Grandpa, who happened to have a piece of aluminum on hand, on board with the idea. They went into Grandpa's workshop and came out with a pretty nice weapon!


Spring Break!


We needed Spring break this year! It's funny how tiring and challenging it is, day in and day out, with homeschooling, keeping up with the house, taking care of sick children....

And yet it's our last day of break and I can't wait to get back to our
school routine!

Last week two of the kids had strep throat so our schedule was a bit off. However, we managed to keep up with history (Africa in the Middle Ages) and science (the moon). We ended the week with a big African cooking day. We made chapatis, a very oily, pan-fried, flat bread/pancake, curried chicken, vermicelli and raisins for dessert, and a snack made of mashed black-eyed peas and shrimp, which we fried in oil (I can't remember what it is called). We ate everything, but will probably not make any of it again!


Jacob stirring up the Chapatis dough




The unnamed black-eyed-peas/shrimp snack




Vermicelli with Raisins
(I thought this was delicious -- full of raisins, dates, nuts, and cardamom)





Jacob and Grace playing Mancala -- a very fun game!



Kayla wasn't feeling up to school so she got out her bag of crafty fun stuff and made clothes for her beloved spoon dolls, Rachel and Charlotte -- they really are beloved to her!




Grace even fit in a bit of cello practice.



Sunday, April 17, 2011

Sparks AWANA Grand Prix Winner!

WEEK 26

We had yet another full week of living and learning together -- even with Mom being sick! It's amazing what strength God gives us in our weakness.

Our history studies brought us to a sad point -- the capture of Constantinople by the Ottoman Turks in 1453. The Byzantine Empire is gone forever! We learned about Suleiman the Lawgiver and the rise of the massive Ottoman Empire.

King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella have entered the stage and Prince Henry the Navigator, of Portugal, encourages exploration of the coast of Africa.

We expanded our science unit Earth for an extra week. There was a lot to learn and I didn't want to rush it. I found a Yahoo group for the Exploring Creation series and some kind homeschooling mom put together quizzes for each unit. The kids retained everything and were able to experience test-taking, since we don't usually give written tests.


I also found a bunch of supplementary pages for the science notebooks here. The kids reviewed the unit by putting together over twenty mini-books. Here is an example of a few:



Since we were finishing up our study on Mozart we focused heavily on his life and music this week. In addition to the materials included in the RTR Teacher's Manual and the CD narrating Mozart's biography, I used this book:

This book is mostly about Mozart's childhood and contains many musical examples. We also read from Lives of the Musicians Good Times, Bad Times (and What the Neighbors Thought).
I picked out five of Mozart's most famous pieces, from different genres, and we had a listening quiz. The kids enjoyed this and did very well. These are the pieces we studied:


Kindergarten was all about Penguins. We read about penguins, watched The March of the Penguins, and made a penguin craft all out of hearts:

This is also the week in the Kindergarten program where the money cup comes in. So much fun! We start with a penny each day and substitute with a nickel when we hit five. Then continue until ten and replace with a dime, and so on. No quarters yet, though. I found a workbook I had stashed away and off she went! We worked on counting by 5's, too.


For our Bible time we have been reading through the book of Philippians and memorizing chapter 2. We are learning what it means to "let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus" -- humility and servanthood to the extreme.



Friday, April 8, 2011

AWANA Grand Prix Winners!



Congratulations!
Winners of the Boy's T&T
and
Girl's T&T
AWANA Grand Prix 2011!!!

And a special thanks to Daddy who put in a lot of time
making the speediest wheels ever!

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