December 8, 2010

In the Begining, God created....

We began our investigation of the History of the Old Testament this year with Creation. Our text is the Bible and the reader of that is Dad. I began these notebooking pages a week or so after they had heard the story from Dad as a fun way to illustrate and narrate what God created on each day. We did a couple of pages a week adding copy work to them to record the story and give more practice to handwriting. The above selections of work were done by my oldest son Max.

Day One by T.J. He just had to add people and a house!

Day Two by Max.

Day Three by Zak.

Day Four by Max. "You will notice," says Max as he is drawing, "That the sun in real life really has no rays. So my sun is just a round blob."

Day Five by Zak. You will notice that one of the dolphins has some red on it...yes it is blood. Zak says that a shark from the waters below has taken a bite out of the dolphin and the dolphin is swimming away. Run dolphin run!
Day Six by Max.

Day Seven by Zak. He made two earths because he wanted to. Then God was soooo tired after that, he laid down on his pillow to rest.

Intermittantly we did a few science experiments to look more closely at the things God had created. We began with light on the first day.

Zak here is making fire with his magnifying glass. I was a little reluctant to show them this little trick but in the end their patience wore thin and they grew very weary of waiting for the sun to burn the paper. I got it to burn so they did see it work but it would take more wait than they have just now. PHEW!
It was a cool lesson from Genesis For Kids....in this lesson we learned that Archidmedes once defended his city by using the power of the sun and mirrors. When the enemy ships appeared in the bay near the city the soldiers stood their ground, each with a mirror shining the light from the sun onto the ships. Eventually the ships were burned up before they could attack the city and the city was saved!!

We then looked at air on the second day. We did another experiment with a candle, vinegar, a bottle and baking soda. We lit a candle...then put baking soda and vinegar in the bottle. Quickly we put the mouth of the bottle near the candle and the CO2 put the flame out!

We also made balloon cars from this fun website!

Genesis for kids has alot of great ideas but for my little guys they were a bit too hard. We put the book aside for a while until it sparks more interest.

A few days after we were finished with the notebooking pages I began to form little activities to serve as a review of the days of creation ensuring that in the end they will know what was created on what day as easily as they know their names. It is part of my attempt this year to implement The Law of Reviews into my teaching plans.
The first review we did was this 7 days of creation worksheet.

I can not remember where I found this worksheet, but the small pictures are cut from flash cards I found here.

Then I found these coloring pages here and colored them making them into story boards. I used them to retell the story by reading the account from Genesis on each page. Following the story was a fun game I read about some where to learn phonics called flashlight phonics. In this case, "flash light creation." To begin, we closed off a portion of the house to make it as dark as possible. Then with the boys out of the dark room I "hid" the days in different spots. Some under the table some high on the wall, some near the ground and some half hidden etc. Then, when the boys come into the dark room with their flash lights I call out one of the days..."day 1" and they look for the picture that describes day one, then day two etc. We did this several times relocating pictures to new places and doing the days in order and out of order etc. We will probably play it again some time in the future for it is a great way for kinestic learners (boys) to connect with facts and ideas.


This week to review the days of creation we did this work sheet......

.......and these Flash cards.....

.....and these puppets which we used while we listened to the creation song by Veritas Press. It is in the first part of the Old Testament and Ancient times song CD.

The above Days were made by Zak.
Day 6 was made by Max.
As they were making the puppets I could see that they are really getting it down. So we will move on to Dinosaurs from here and periodically use one of these activities to keep the information sinking into their brains.

December 6, 2010

Why?...Why Not?

Recently Jessica left me a comment after reading this post I made last year about latin. She is part of a team of parents producing a new line of latin teaching products called Visual Latin. You can find a description of their philosophy and products here.

Zak making his Latin puppets.

I was looking it all over (and very impressed) when I stumbled upon this post that encouraged and inspired me yet again to keep on with our own latin study. Dwayne posted this quote by Kristin who was answering the question: "Why do you want to learn latin?

"I suppose one of the greatest and most mind blowing realizations that has occurred to me since embarking on the homeschooling path is that there really isn’t an end to the limitless teaching opportunities available for the truly dedicated parent. My children and I are free to make life our school house. The world is literally our classroom and therefore everything that it holds, has held, and might one day contain are awaiting our eager exploration.

To me this is where Latin fits in. Some may try to argue against the time and energy spent learning a “dead” language when there are so many currently-spoken forms to choose from. For these assertions I could counter with a litany of responses that any Latin lover knows offhand:
-increased reading comprehension
-greater vocabulary
-fosters a keen attention to detail
-builds a foundation for understanding even the most obscure grammar rules
-higher SAT scores
-easier transition when attempting to learn Romance languages
-instills confidence when learning terms and phrases in numerous fields including science, academia, religion, and law
Any one of these examples could stand on its own merit as a reason to continue the tradition of keeping Latin alive. For me, the choice to teach my children Latin derived from a sincere appreciation for humanity’s rich history and a deep-rooted admiration for its infinite possibilities. I view Latin as a way for my children to connect with the past while glimpsing the underlying tapestry that leads us to today.
Latin: rich in history; teeming with grammatical insights; a gateway to the classics; a doorway to the future."


Why Latin?


Why not!

The pictures in this post are from our current study of the family and people titles from Song school Latin. It is a wonderfully easy and fun curriculum. The songs are delightful and easy going so we play them as the kids fall asleep in bed.

A look at Edgar Degas

"Jockeys" by Edgar Degas
We are looking at the Impressionists this year, Edgar Degas is our first artist to study from this period. I have always enjoyed his sketchy work and his rich colors....what was new for me to discover is that he did quite a few paintings of the horse races as well as dancers and cabaras. My boys liked these pictures of the horses and jockeys the best of all his work...not surprising they were not too intersted in dancers. Max did however like many of the paintings of circus performers.


I found this artist bio notebooking page at homeschooling with index cards in her FREE notebooking forms section. It is a great way to begin documenting our discoveries of a new artist. The small works of art are Dover art stickers. Just the right size to fit in the box...that is except for the paintings which are in landscape view. The black and white picture of Degas I found on the internet and printed, cut out, and glued to the sheet.


We learned about Edward Degas via these picture books:
Degas and The Little Dancer by Laurence Anholt
Edgar Degas Paintings that Dance (a smart about art book) by Maryann Cocoa-Leffler 
The Impressionist Art Book by Wenda O'Reilly
the Art Book is accompanied by a go fish card game introducing the impressionist artists. Since there are four prints for each artist you can play game like rummy, or concentration as well. The Art book and the cards are sold together under the name of The Impressionists Art Game. We played the go fish game alot!


There were four pictures in The Impressionists Art Book that we used for picture study. The book told us about how the paintings were painted and more about why Degas painted in certain ways. It was short and easy for a 5 year old and a 7 year old to understand and attend to, without getting boring. But at the same time it gave us good insights into the works of art Degas produced and how he went about producing them.
With some of our pictures from old calendars and art museum pamplets we put the pictures we were doing a picture study into this picture study form.


We also colored a few pictures from The Impressionist Coloring book. This is T.J's rendition of "Jockey's in the Rain."
Some helpful websites for further discovery: