Desert Habitat

Miss E, 1st Grade, Epi Kardia, Unit 1

Ancient Egypt, Joseph, Moses and the Exodus, The Nile River... all of this leads up to DESERTS!
To see our history activities around Ancient Egypt, click here.

One of the kids' favorite sites is brainpopjr.com. They love learning with Moby. I also get excited when there is a video on one of the topics we are discussing because I can utilize their worksheets and quizzes. I say that I'm lazy, but really I think it comes down to not reinventing the wheel so to speak.

I logged into the brainpopjr and let both kids watch the science video on desert habitats. I wanted Miss E to do both the quiz and the activity from the desert section. She was able to do the quiz by herself while I printed off the worksheet activity. Miss E labeled and colored the desert animals and plants. Little Man (pre-k) just colored the picture.

She still thinks animals need to be colored like a rainbow.

We took two days and made a desert mural with paint. The first day I had Miss E paint only the vegetation that would be found in the desert. We read the book Storm on the Desert and we discussed the types of plants would be found in the dessert based on the book.

The second day she added the animals after discussing desert animals from our book.

I purchased a Desert Biodome. I thought it would be fun for both of the kids to watch different cacti and succulents grow. They had fun making their little biodome. Now we watch and wait for our plants to grow.

**Update: We are more than a week into our biodome and we have not seen anything sprout. I don't know if it is user error or if our window just is not hot enough. Maybe it is not a good idea to start a biodome the end of September. We'll keep an eye on it and keep you posted.

Blessings,

Elizabeth

Ancient Egypt

Miss E, 1st Grade, Epi Kardia, Unit 1

Joseph, Moses, The Nile River, Africa, the Exodus, Deserts...ANCIENT EGYPT!
To see our science study on Deserts, click here.

This section of the study of the ancients was full of exciting things. We first read of the story of Joseph and how he saved the Egyptians and his family during the famines. We then read about Moses and how he saved the Israelites from the oppression in Egypt. Thrown in there we also read about King Tut, Mummies, and a fun story about the Nile River.

Modern Rhymes About Ancient Times: Ancient Egypt is a pretty cool book about all things Egypt. One of the rhymes is all about the hieroglyphics. Miss E recreated the hieroglyphics from that page.

BrainPopJr also has a unit on Ancient Egypt. I had both kids watch the video and I had Miss E take the quiz after the video. I also printed off the activity and her decipher the hieroglyphics.

Blessings,
Elizabeth

Creation

Miss E, 1st grade, Epi Kardia, Unit 1

Little Man, Pre-K, God's Little Explorers, Week 2

Picture from from Google Images
http://godordirt.com/

"In the beginning God..." Creation is probably my favorite science subject. I love how we start our year off focused on our Lord as creator God.

1st Grade

We read the Biblical account of Creation from the Bible and a book called Song of Creation by Paul Goble. I have a children's story Bible, but it is terrible when it comes to the Creation story. I was disappointed, so we read Genesis 1:1 - 2:3 straight from the Bible. Miss E made a lapbook on creation, her first big project.

We took our time putting the lapbook together. We read the account of each day, Miss E memorized a sentence in regard to what was created that day, and then made a mini book to represent the day with her own picture. On the inside of the mini book is a verse that corresponds with that day.

Here is the completed lapbook.

The sentences she has memorized about each day of creation.

Day 1 - God created day and night.

Day 2 - God created the sky, land and sea.

Day 3 - God created plants and trees.

Day 4 - God created the sun, moon, stars and seasons.

Day 5 - God created birds and fish.

Day 6 - God created animals and man.

Day 7 - God rested. 

Her completed timeline of creation.

Pre-K

In Little Man's curriculum there is a lot more going on with week 2 than just creation. I'm just highlighting the creation part here.

Both kids created a sticky book on creation. Like I did with Miss E, we read from the Bible the account of creation and then they made their book pages themselves.

(Pictures to come)

For Fun

With the help of a friend, I found this site. I used her creation printable to make magnets and we retold the creation story on our magnetic board. Miss E used her memorized sentences and Little Man used his own words to retell the story.

Blessings,

Elizabeth

Old Testament History

Miss E, 1st Grade, Epi Kardia, Unit 1

Unit 1 history is all about the Ancients.

We start our history study off with creation and then move forward from there. We did a more in depth study of creation in science, see the post here.

Our primary text for ancient history is the Bible. We used a Children's Story Bible to read abridged, although not very good, stories from the Old Testament. Mostly we read Genesis and Exodus; creation through the building of the Tabernacle. I'm not too worried about the 'overview' as we are reading a Chronological Bible Daily. As we read though the Bible we talk about where that fits into the timeline we are creating. 

I made the timeline cards and had Miss E paste them onto a timeline. I laid out the cards in a random order and we talked about the timeline. With the help of Little Man, the kids were able to piece the events together and then Miss E pasted the cards onto the long timeline. We are not concerned with dates, just the order in which events happened.

Blessings,
Elizabeth

Reality Check

I have many, many friends who homeschool their children. Some are like me and are entering their second year and others are further down the road. I had heard it said that 1st grade was a lot more work than Kindergarten ever would be. I nodded my head, said I can understand that, and continued on in the shelter of my own mind, working to finish Kindergarten. I think in my head I knew 1st grade was going to be more, I just had no idea how much more until we started a week and a half ago.

OH MY WORD!! I have yet to complete our first weeks worth of work. It has been 8 weekdays and we are barely on day 4. To be fair I did take Miss E into her school to take the MAPS test and then I had a workshop that pretty much took up a day and then we had a play date with friends we had not seen all summer; we lost several days with those activities. So, maybe it really isn't as bad as I think it is but for a planner, this is bad!

I talked with a very wise friend and she reminded me again that 1st grade is a lot more demanding and that until you start it you have no idea. I was very encouraged after I talked with her. It is funny how sometimes you hear things, thoughts run through your head, but until you have that one-on-one conversation things don't really 'sink in'. It is like when you tell your kids something over and over and they still do it, but when a third party comes in and tells them the exact same thing they 'understand', my conversation with my friend was exactly that!

So, I'm going to have to squash the box that I hold homeschool in, in my head. The plan that worked for Kindergarten is not going to work for 1st grade. How I planned last year is not going to work this year. Our curriculum is broken up into weeks which amount to 5 days, however for us it might take just a little bit longer. Not because Miss E is slow or anything, we just have other commitments that will take up time. One of the beauties of homechooling is the flexibility one has to teach their own children.

Our first day went great! I'm praying that we find the rhythm that makes most of our days successful both for Miss E and for Little Man. Letting go of the 'calendar' is going to be tough, but I think it is something God wants me to work on. I know that HE called me to this adventure and He will help me get through it as long as I trust in Him.

Blessings,
Elizabeth

The Start of Year Number Two

Today, August 28, 2013 is the official start of our second year of home schooling.

My 1st grader - EpiKardia 1

My Pre-Ker - God's Little Explorer

**To see more about our curriculum choices, see my post here
.

We started our day with Bible and prayer.

We did our calendar notebook. This is going to be a work in progress for the next few days if not weeks. Once I get our routine nailed down, I'll post more details. Right now we are just filing out a calendar with the correct date. We are also counting the number of days we are in school and are making that number with coin money.

Miss E and I did math while Little Man decorated the cover page to his ABC binder.

I had Miss E take a break from her stuff and we read Going on a Bear Hunt, which comes from Little Man's Pre-K. This morning before the kids woke up, I took our Children's Story Bible and wrapped it in paper. I hid it along with a few school supplies around the house. After we read the Bear Hunt book, I told the kids that I had hidden school supplies around the house and that they were going on a treasure hunt. The 'treasures' were hidden in draws and cabinets with an 'x'; 'x' marks the spot!! They had fun looking around the house for the 'x' and brought what they found to the table. Together they opened the special treasure and we talked about how the Bible IS a treasure book and how important it is going to be to our school day. 

While the kids had a little snack, I read a couple of stories from the Children's Bible. We then defined 'science' and talked about some science vocabulary words. 

The kids were ready for another break, so I had them make their very own binoculars. They had a lot of fun with stickers!

Miss E and I wrapped up her day with our memory verse, spelling words, and copy work.

We took roughly 3 hours this morning. Not too bad for putting more into our day that we are used to. Little Man did well with his stuff which made me happy and Miss E is a pro!! We made it through without tears which is always good in my book!!

I can't wait to see how everything meshes together and to watch them learn.

Blessings,

Elizabeth