Twas The Night Before Christmas!

I have just discovered two blogs which specialize in linking others to public domain materials which you can use to create anything you want for sharing or selling. There is a wealth of wonderful creative tools on these blogs. I hope you find them as enjoable as I have. I have this much fun only when shopping in second hand stores. You can find gems if you look.

1. Homeschool Commons
2. Happy Hearts at Home Library

Using a public domain book, Denslows the Night Before Chrsitmas from the homeschool commons I created a couple of things to add to my publisher page over at currclick. (In january there will be a wishes come true sale. Anything you have in your wish list fom my homepage will be 50% off)

First, I made a My Copywork Notebook with primary and regular lines.

Then, using velum, I traced 15 of the full page illustrations to make coloring pages. Once they were traced I scanned that image into my computer and laid it out in Publisher, added text etc. Please feel free to snag this coloring page and use it however you like. With the coloring pages is the complete poem laid out so you can print it and bind it as a book.

Merry Chirstmas!

Venus it's hot, hot, hot

Venus title Max

Zak's map drill adding in Venus

Venus is the third planet we have studied so far. We began with the sun, then mercury and now venus. It is a very hot planet and full of volcanos so we decide the pages out to look a bit hot, so we chose orange to shwo this. (We are saving red for Mars).

Our Volcano experiment. Photo taken by Max

We only did one experiment this chapter. It was a very easy one using flour, melted butter a small bowl and a tray. Butter melted flowed down the flour mountain we created much the way lava does on the volcanos on Venus. Then as it hardened we could see how the planet was formed.

Two page spread in Zak's book.

The phases of venus are similar to the phases of the moon.

 

Max's drawing of Mariner.

What we know about venus today is largely due to the voyages of the unmanned spacecrafts of Mariner.

 

Max's drawing of venus and the earth.

Long ago, people believed that venus and the earth were twins. But because of the umanned space crafts who vayaged out into space, we know that venus is covered with a  gaseous atmosphere that makes it uninhabitable for people. Though it is about the same size as the earth it is very different than the earth. They are not twins.

 

Zak's title page.

Venus was a fascinating planet. But now we are onto our investigation of our own world, planet Earth. See you soon!

BTW all or mini books came from these two lapbook packages:

• Journey Through Learning Exploring Creation with Astronomy Lapbook BW pack
• Knowledge Box Central Exploring Creation with Astronomy lapbook pack

(I waited until currclick had their year end sale and bought them half price.)

What did the Pharaohs wear on their heads?

 We have begun a new pocket for the Kings and Queens of Ancient Egypt and we are filling it up rapidly.

Red Crown book

The first thing we did was to look at all of the different crowns and headderesses the Pharaohs wore and what they symbolized. To do this I created books for each one. You can download the PDF for these crown books HERE and create your own.

The crown books contain a cover to decorate and a page for writing and a back cover which is plain.

Zak's Double crown book

Max's White Crown book

T.J.'s war crown book

(nemes crown book? our picture is missing)

Making one of the these books took us about 1 hour. So, while they were coloring and cutting and copying, I read to them from The Pharaohs of Ancient Egypt by Elizabeth  Payne.

Now all the books are tucked nicely away into the Kings and Queens pocket. How to make these pockets HERE.

 But wait there is yet more...This next book is also included in the Crowns book PDF.

Max's Crook and Flail book.

The crook is one of the symbol s the pharaoh is seen with often in reliefs and paintings. It symbolized the role the Pharaoh plays as a shepherd to his people. The Flail is the symbol of power and used against the enemies of Egypt to bring them into submission. Learning this was very enriching, it opened our eye to see how each of the pharaohs were either better with the crook or better with the flail or good at both sides of leadership.

Now, because boys are interested in more active things than writing and coloring, I have interjected many different games and hands on projects in between making these lovely crown books. This was successful in keeping them moving at a nicer pace through our study of Egypt. A pace that all enjoyed. One of these activites is a game called The Egyptians. It is a bit pricey but well worth the money. My dh husband introduced the game to the boys and changed the rules slightly. Instead of the goal of the game to become the conquering pharaoh he set the game up so that the one who was the best shepherd to his people wins. I love it! and so did the boys. We also played Go Fish for Ancient Egypt.

Max's nemes crown

Over at First Pallette I found some fun printables for making egyptian headresses and arm bands, necklaces etc. The boys plan to make all of them, this nemes crown being the first of their collections. They also want me sew a white Egyptain skirt for each of them. Luckily for me, a friend of mine happened to be moving and gave away a lot of fabric. Max scored a wonderful piece of wite shimmery fabric that will make three egyptian skirts easily! We are all thrilled!

Zak's nemes crown

T.J.'s nemes crown

They painted masks of Pharoah. More on that over HERE.

T.J.'s  latest map drill

They did some very cool looking maps with our new water colors we picked up in Sri lanka.

Max's latest map drill

And that wraps up our lastest investigation into Ancient Egypt. Soon more about the pharoahs and queens.

School pictures 2011

It is a little late in the year for this kind of thing, but the opertunity arose so I took it. This morning the boys decided to get dressed-up for church. They looked soooooo handsome I just had to get a few pictures. Then I thought why not just use them for school pictures this year.

This is Max, my oldest, he will be eight years old in a little over a week.

This is T.J. he will be seven years old this summer.

And Zak...the other half of the twins. he will be seven this summer too!

Thanks for posing guys...you are great!