Week 4!

With a new baby on the way shortly (I am 34 weeks pg already!), I decided to start school a little early. The kids were a little unhappy about the idea at first, but as we quickly fell into a rhythym, everyone has been enjoying the new structure that school gives to our days.

Z is in grade 1 already, and is doing a fantastic job of all of his work, although he detests reading lessons (but we are persevering because we know that there is a light at the end of the tunnle and he is improving every day).

E is in grade 4 (can't believe how old she is getting). She has been enjoying her schoolwork this year too.

H is in preschool and is learning new things all the time. She loves letters and enjoys copying words from all over the house, and making up her own words.

The twins... well, let's just not talk about them right now LOL. They are quite a pair, and enjoy getting into mischeif. This is a whole new post of its own.

Here's our plans for this year... i'll start with grade 4 and do grade 1 when i have more time.

Grade 4

Math: Horizons 4 (still working great for us)

Spelling: All About Spelling (starting at level one for review and working through the rest of the

4 books as time allows... the kis LOVE this new spelling program and look forward to it each day)

Copywork: Memoria Press Cursive copywork book. (E is just practicing her cursive formation here)

Latin: Latina Christiana 1 (this is going great this year).

Writing/grammar: Writing Tales 2 (we love this program... I wish I had found it last year, and I wish she would write higher levels of the program... it's a great gentle introduction to writing).

History: History odyssey level 1, Early Modern Times

Science: Exploring Creation with Astronomy (2009 is the International Year of Astronomy and we are having fun already... posts on this to follow)

Art/nature study: Hearts and Tress Kits (more on this later... we are loving these mom-friendly kits for nature and art study. )

Ancient Egypt

we are just about done our unit on Ancient Egypt, and these are some of the crafts that we have done. We also made some Lego pyramids, but they were destroyed by some tomb robbers, so unfortunately, I can't show those to you.

This is an ancient Egyptian throwing stick. The young boys used them to practice hunting, and would throw them at small animals and play games by trying to knock down things they set up. It's painted like a serpent's head.

This is an Ancient Egyptian bed, complete with a headrest. They didn't have pillows, they slept with their heads on these 'headrests'. Doesn't look too comfortable to me.

These are our Ancient Egyptian Paddle dolls. They are made out of wood, and are painted. The hair has been tied onto a hole that I drilled with daddy's drill. (shhh! don't' tell him I'm teaching woodworking without him LOL). Z insisted that his boy doll was not supposed to wear a shirt, so he repainted the top of his skin color and gave him some nipples and a bellybutton. Very nice :-) I did the little one in the middle and E did the girl on the left.

Here they are sleeping on their beds.
I think we'll finish up the unit with a lapbook, and then move on across the Red Sea with Moses and the Israelite gang into Canaan.

Ancient egypt

We have been enjoying school work this week again after a 2 week break. It feels good to get back into some routines.

Yesterday we did:

Fast math (2min drill)
Math test chapter 6
2 more pages in her prayer book
2 stories read to me out of Little Angel reader
spelling: page two of unit 13

and we spent a good chunck of time on history:
we read:
Ms Frizzles' Egyptian adventures
Ancient Egypt voyage book
Old Testament Days

and we did some fun crafts:
an ancient egyptian paddle doll (pictures to come when I get new batteries) and
an ancient egyptian throwing stick

Today, we have accomplished our fair share of school work again:

math: fast math
Religion: chapter 6 in Faith and Life on the Holy Family, and a chapter in our other religion book on baptism.
Spelling: quiz on lesson 13
Grammar: abbreviations and titles of respect, review poem memorization

and we are doing history again today:

E just read to me a book about King Tut, and we are going to start on an Egypt lapbook, make a pyramid out of blocks, and maybe sew an egyptian head covering hat thingy. Pictures to follow soon. :-)

preschool history

I have started a wall timeline for the kids. So far, it's pretty boring. A long line on the wall, with creation written at the beginning.

I guess Z wanted to make his own because I found him working very hard on this in the office this afternoon:

The world is at the beginning, and then the stick figures are as follows from left to right: Noah, noah's boat, Moses, David and Goliath. Cute!! (he told me he though that he was drawing Goliath first, and then david, but when he looked at them the second guy looked mean, so he is goliath.)

egyptian wall murals

We're always doing art lessons every day. Most are spontaneous bouts of creativity straight from E's imagination.

This one is actually from our art curriculum that I paid money for (why did I buy it when she apparently just teaches herself?). Anyways, we were learning about Egyptian wall murals, and when it was her turn to draw about what she had learned, she began this large drawing of Pharoh. I was amazed at how quickly she can draw, and the details and perspective she adds to her pictures.


The bottom picture is also a mural, but it is a palm tree with a coconut falling down. Notice the detail of where the land is and the water. If I were to draw this picture, I would have the ground be a simple line along the bottom of the page, but she has figured out how to draw dimensional perspective into her pictures with the background at an angle.

She should teach me a few things!!

building the nile

Another homeschooling project that had to go on a vacation while we were selling the house: The Nile River!

We've been learning about ancient history off and on this year, and one weekend we were feeling sort of crafty so decided to make this Nile River diorama. It was lots of fun. We learned that most of the land in Egypt is a desert and not much can grow there, but along the banks of the river, there is fertile soil and lots of water to help everything grow very lush.


We also had fun making clay pyramids to put on the desert.

The kids planted grass seeds in the dirt and we waited for them to spout. Unfortunately, while we were still waiting, we had to let the river have a sleepover at grandma's house due to putting our house on the market so we missed being able to check on it every day.


The excitement when we got it back looking so green and full of life was worth it though! Look at our jungle paradise :-)