American Artists - Thomas Jefferson

We are on our second week of Great American Artists and learned about Thomas Jefferson - not a founding father of America, but as an architect and designer. We learned that he developed the dumbwaiter (great scene in the movie Zathura using a dumbwaiter) and that he even invented folding chairs as well as swivel chairs. He was an architect who was fascinated with columns and arches from Greek and Roman buildings. He even redesigned Monticello using the same concepts!

The art project for the week was to re-create an arch from some of his architectural designs. It was suggested that we make the blocks for the arch....I thought this would be too complicated considering all of the blocks needed to be the same size and such. Then I found Home Birth Mom and Almost Unschoolers (links below). They both used ice cube trays to make their arches.

I gave J a bowl full of ice cubes that I froze earlier. Here was our problem- the tray wasn't the correct type of ice cube tray. Who knew there were different types of ice cube trays? They didn't line up and make an arch as we were hoping. But, even though we didn't succeed, we laughed about it and had fun.

My next idea was to discuss the different types of columns in architecture. Rumphius Romp gave me the idea for her to re-create a column of her choice from clay. Her choice was a Doric column. Kaleb kept asking about her "Dork" column. :)

She then made her own type of column - a twistie version, pretty cool, huh? Still enjoying this curriculum and learning about the American Artists.

Lastly, we tested the strength of the arch using cracked eggs. This idea came from Education.com(link below). We learned just how strong egg shells can be - stronger than we thought! Look at how many books they can hold - wow!

Links

Home Birth Mom - has an arch project using an ice cube tray.

Almost Unschoolers - has another take on the arch project using ice cubes instead.

Education.com - has a science project idea using eggs.

Rumphius Romp - has a great hands on project using quick drying clay, make the different columns.

Tot Tuesday

One thing I truly missed while living over-seas was real sour cream. It sounds silly, I know, and I was able to use ingredients from the country to make sour-cream-like stuff but it just wasn't the same. I think Riley has developed a love for it as well.

Not one spoon but two...

He is very pleased.

Sour cream and 2 spoons at dinner time....hmmm, it's good:)

Character Training - Compassion with free printable

We are working on character education this year as a supplement to our regular Bible curriculum. We started our Virtue Training Bible with the lesson of compassion.

J couldn't believe that I was going to let her highlight in her bible as well as add sticky tabs! Each virtue is designated with a color. She looks up the verse, highlights it with the correct color, and then adds a sticky tab so she can find the verses that reference compassion later. The hardest part of this is lining up the sticky tabs! To aid in her learning about each virtue, I am creating mini notebook pages to add to a spiral notebook. If you would like these notebook pages, link is below.

First, I had her look up the definition of compassion in the dictionary. She wrote the definition under the compassion heading of my notebook page.

Then we looked up several of the verses offered for compassion in her bible. She highlighted each verse with the correct color marker. There are so many verses for each character trait that we worked on compassion for the entire week.

I found some free videos about compassion and a song taught in sign language from Character First Education (link below). We watched the videos and learn the sign language song. (This prompted her to ask to learn sign language.)

We also listened to An Adventure in Odyssey episode called The Drop Box. I found it at a Christian bookstore and thought it was a great example of showing compassion. This prompted J to ask to see the movie which we bought from I-Tunes. The Drop Box film is about a Korean pastor who takes in unwanted children that parents feel like they can't take care of. He made a box that opens in his house so babies can be dropped off without shaming the parents. It was an emotional film to see all of these unwanted babies but J loved it. Pastor Lee and his family are tremendous people.

She made a mini book about several ways we can show compassion. She drew her own way that she can show compassion - by helping her baby brother when he cries.

She wrote the ways she can show compassion in her notebook.

She learned that zebras are compassionate because they take care of the young, sick, and old. She made her own zebra craft by cutting strips of black and white paper and gluing them to the zebra outline (template came from Character First -link below).

Here is her completed Compassion page for her notebook. The Compassion header at the top of the notebook page under which she wrote the definition of the word. Ways I can be compassionate header which she wrote several ways she was going to try to be compassionate. Then she added her favorite verse that she learned this week - Jesus, you are my compassionate shepherd. On the back of the notebook page, she glued the mini book she made.

Here is the finished Compassion virtue ring. We will add to this each time we study a virtue. There is a bible verse on the back. For Compassion, I had her color a letter every time I saw her show compassion. We did this for a week and discussed each way she showed compassion and ways she could have shown compassion (especially to her brother Kaleb).

The notebook pages I made are simple. I kept it to a front and back of a notebook page. I created tabs to keep the virtues separated and once we make it to the end of the page, we will start over again at the top.

Download the Compassion Notebook Pages HERE.

Links

Character First Education - free downloads and craft ideas plus videos and songs to help teach about compassion.

Meaningful Mama -  the idea for the virtue ring cards came from here as well as the I will statements for each virtue. This is a great website if you are looking for virtue/character training ideas.

The Drop Box - trailer and film.

Adventures in Odyssey - an episode called The Drop Box. I couldn't find the episode here but I did find it on Amazon (link below).

Adventures in Odyssey - The Drop Box episode on CD.

Science Week 3 - The Earth

We are in our third week of Considering God's Creation and we were covering weekly lesson 5 - The Earth.

We started our lesson out learning the colors of the rainbow - ROY G BIV (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet). J worked on her notebook page from the lesson.

She made a pop-up page of the rainbow colors. She wasn't sure it was going to pop up but she was pleased that it did.

We discovered what colors made up white light by using a prism and a flash light. Then, I gave J some color paddles. She discovered what colors mixed together made other colors.

She worked on a notebook page that I made for the lesson. If you would like the notebook pages, please contact me and I will send them to you. I made several for this lesson - vocabulary flip books, rainbow color flip book, and some review pages.

The next lesson was about the layers of the earth. She worked on her vocabulary pages that I created. We discussed volcanoes, crust, core, etc...

She made a layers of the earth mini book for her notebook.

She made a 3D version of the layers of the earth. I found this idea from Deceptively Educational (link below). This was relatively easy to do and I really like the way it turned out.

Then, J used play dough to make a model of the earth layers. This craft idea came from The Chaos and Clutter (link below). I didn't go into detail about the layers. We just talked about the core, the mantle, and the crust. We did investigate the inner/outer core and the inner/outer mantle but I just want her to remember the main parts of the layers.

Here is her finished project. She labeled each layer. We used play dough from the Dollar Store so we will keep the model out for display for a while. She was happy about that. We didn't finish the week out - we have one more lesson for Week 5 - layers of the atmosphere. Just not enough time in the week :( J still asks for Science so she is truly liking this program. I like that it is simple enough and doesn't require a ton of prep work (unless you want). Her notebook is coming together as well. I know she will love the finished product.

Again, if you would like the notebook pages that I created, please contact me and I will send them. Have a great weekend. See you soon.

Links

The Chaos and Clutter - has the craft idea of using play dough to create the layers of the earth.

Deceptively Educational - has the idea of the layers of the earth 3-D model.

Social Studies - Week 2

As you know, we are using Sonlight Core D in our homeschool. It is the first year of a two year program that focuses on American History. J was somewhat disappointed with her first week. We read a ton of books (yes, I knew Sonlight is reader intensive which I love their books). But J mentioned that she missed the hands-on activities that we were doing towards the end of our last school year.

So, I had to make a last minute change with our program. I cut back on a few of the chapter books which we will read later. And I added the hands-on program of Homeschool in the Woods to our week. We are currently using the New World Explorers to aid in our reading about Columbus and the New World Discovery. What I love about this program is that it includes all of the lesson reading as well as hands-on projects and lap book templates. I do not have to find any extra books or information, if I don't want to.

We are still reading most of the books from the Sonlight program but I am adding a hands on aspect that J loves. I have used New World Explorers before and loved it. I am hoping that J will love it as well.

J began her Explorer unit by reviewing the continents and oceans on a world map. (We learned this last year.) She told me what they were and I wrote them for her on a lap board so she could spell them correctly on the map. She colored the map to add to her notebook.

Since we started reading about Pocahontas, I thought J would enjoy making tipi's. This project was not included in our Explorer unit but it tied in nicely with our readings. She used pictures from some of the books to decorate her tipi's.

She loved the tipi so much, she made three more for her Playmobil's!

I found a rope tying game called Knot So Fast! from a thrift store and it was perfect to try know tying as they did on the ships. J got some what frustrated with the rope tying - it is more of a logic game, working on knots without directions - just pictures. But she was able to master a few of the beginner knots.

We made hard tack - a hard biscuit that the sailors ate on board the ship. These biscuits hardly ever went bad. It is a simple recipe of salt, flour, and water. I added a few cut-up gummies to represent weevils and worms - extra protein for the sailor!

That night, they became limeys - they drank lime juice that they squeezed themselves and ate hardtack. The lime juice was to ward off scurvy. As you can see, they weren't impressed with the lime juice.

She was all excited when I said her craft was going to be a ship-in-a-bottle. Then, she was disappointed that it wasn't a real ship in a bottle! I found this cute craft from Teach A Roo TPT store (link below). It is super cute finished. One thing I changed is that she drew her own ship and Columbus rather than using the print-out ( a little art included).

So, how is that for hands-on? We made hardtack, limeys, a ship-in-a-bottle, tipi's, and learned how to tie knots. All while learning about New World Explorers. We finished lessons 1 thru 3 from Homeschool in the Woods. This is all tying in nicely with the chapter books we are reading currently. I love when things work out!  I can honestly say that she enjoyed this week a whole lot more! I did too.

Links

Teach A Roo - Columbus Day - ship in a bottle freebie craft idea.

That Artist Woman - has the free templates for the tipi's.

Noggins and Nonsense - has a cute idea to make ships in a bottle using a 2-liter bottle, complete with printable ships. We are definitely doing this next week!

American Artists - first week

Since J is working through American History these next two years, we are also taking the time to study American Artists. We are using Great American Artists for Kids as our base curriculum. There are enough artists to study once a week for the next two years. The projects are not labor intensive and if I feel I have time, I will add more to our art program.

Our first artist was John Singleton Copley. We read the artist description in the book. I found some art of Copley on the Internet for J to see. J filled out a notebook page for John S. Copley to add to her art notebook and she added his photo to her timeline.

She looked at the paintings on the Internet. Her favorite was Watson and the Shark, 1778. She couldn't believe that Brooke Watson survived the shark attack! The painting shows sailors trying to rescue Watson in the water while fighting off the shark. Wow! Watson lost only his leg...not his life!

The project suggestion in the book was to create Narrative Drama based on an event from history or from your life. She was so impressed with the rescue of Watson from the shark, she drew her own rescue scene. (No, this is not from her life!)

Her Narrative Drama was a rescue scene from the ocean using a helicopter. I love the person on the stretcher, outside the copter. Not too bad for the first week of art...we can do this:)

Links

Homeschool Arts - has an article one of Copley's famous paintings of Paul Revere.

BBC - has a slide show of some of Copley's art.

Kahn Academy - has an article about Copley's family portrait and it significance.

Art Curator for Kids - has a free pdf about Copley which includes several photos of his paintings and ideas how to create a Charlotte Mason study of this artist.

We also read about Copley from a library book that I found by Catherine Nichols - Early American Culture. 

Tot Tuesday

I missed Tot Tuesday last week - sorry:( It has been extremely difficult to get the time to blog with all that has been happening lately. When I finally sit down, my day is over. I am trying to blog faithfully. I just ask that you bear with me in this transition time and I promise to get better.

Since living over-seas, we have adopted our other country's custom of taking our shoes off  at the front door. It really aids in keeping much of the dirt from the outside....well, outside. To do this, we have a shoe basket by our door. Easy to grab your shoes and put them on when you leave.

Riley was quiet.....a clue that something was up....He loved the shoe basket! He has a blast taking every shoe out of the basket.

When I asked him what he had done....this is what he had to say....

What a face!

What could I say to that? Have a great day.

Jesus Gives Rest to the Weary

Last year we didn't have the chance to finish Telling God's Story book 1 because of, basically, life :) Rather than move on, because of our love of this Bible program, I decided to finish Book 1 this year before moving on to Book 2. Our first lesson of the school year was Jesus Gives Rest to the Weary.

We started with a quick review of the books of the New Testament. I found a Books of the Bible border at the Dollar Store and cut it up to make it a game. She puts the New Testament books in order while saying repeating them.

She colored the story sheet while I read the story from the Bible. It was a picture of two ox in a yoke.

One of the project ideas was to create a life-sized version of the Ten Commandments. Since it was our first week of school, I just didn't want to take the time to make the tablets from salt dough.  I found a free printable sort for the Ten Commandments from Second Grade Learning TPT store (link below).

She finished her Bible lesson by creating a yoke complete with twine rings for her oxen. Usually we take a week to complete a Bible lesson but I added the Virtue Training Bible to our Bible time and I wanted to spend some time on our first virtue - compassion. Hope to see you soon.


Links

Second Grade Learning TPT store - free printable sort for the Ten Commandments.

Science - Week 1

We are using Considering God's Creation for our Science program this year. J chose this program because of the hands-on notebook pages with mini books and such. Because we studied the planets last year, we flew through the first few lessons quickly.

This summer I took the opportunity to create vocab mini-books and review sheets for each lesson in Considering God's Creation. I made simple flip books for J to write the definitions for the vocabulary words. Each book will be added to the pages from the notebook.

She learned that creation of the world couldn't happen by chance.

She made a creation flip book to review the days and what was created.

She made a 3-D paper version of the Solar System for her Science Notebook.

This is a photo of her finished notebook page.

She made a constellation light box that we used in our closet. She punched holes in each of the constellation cards and added to the end of a box.

J then worked through the review sheets that I created and took the Crossword Test for the end of Lessons 1 thru 4. We wouldn't typically go through the lessons this fast but we already learned about the planets. We will slow up and continue through one lesson per week that Considering God's Creation has accounted for. I love that I am able to use this curriculum again. J loves it and if she has a choice, she asks for Science first!

If you would like the Review files that I created for Lessons 1 thru 4, please feel free to contact me and I will send them to you. I do not feel right in offering them freely here since I am using their curriculum/vocab to create the files.