Thankfullness Trees

The kids got together with the rest of the homeschool group and made a Thankfullness tree. It was very cute seeing the things they came up with to be thankfull for. Glorianna was the only one to use all of her leaves. She thought of 90% of the things on her tree. I honestly didn't help her very much, once she got the idea.

Zion is thankful for: God, mom, dad, brother, sister, computer, wii, books, the seasons, the world, Jesus dying on the cross, food, plants, house, friends, water, and birthdays.

Azariah is thankful for: brother, sister, mom, dad, licorice, Christmas, food, God, friends, family, car, and house.

Glorianna is thankful for: shoes, hair, sharptooth (from the land before time movies), mommy, daddy, Zion, Riah, grandma, grandpa, Fiona, Ava, Ella, Sunny, Squeeky (her toy), Ponies, house, trees, swing, Glorianna (yes she insisted she was thankful for herself), and turtles.

School TIme

Well, its that time of year again. The kids have started school. So far , so good. I think having the new school room has really helped. Over the summer, we changed a lot of things around, so that now the school room is just that...only a school room. No more sharing the school room with toys , computers or my sewing table.

Excuse the mess...this was taken at the end of the day, but you get the idea. This used to be Trevor's office. So now his office has been swaped with what used to be the schoolroom...thus making his office in the same room as the exercise stuff, my sewing stuff and the computers. Much much better.

Salt Dough Maps!

For the upcoming historical/geography fair our homeschool group is having, the boys have created a couple of maps of the countries they are studying and presenting.


We made salt-dough, which is basically dough with lots of salt. It makes a playdough like texture, and is easy to mold. You then take carboard and trace out a country's shape. After that you mold the dough to the shape of the country. You make mountains and rivers, and can even make points of interest on the maps, and for fun, you can make those not to scale so they stick out. After you're done molding, comes the painting and tagging. We haven't tagged the maps yet, but we've got them molded and painted.



Here's some videos of the boys talking about their maps. First is Zion, who is doing a map of Brazil.

The next one is Azariah and his map of the United Kingdom.

Mercury

The last few days we've been talking about Mercury. So today at the end of the end of the lesson, we got to make our own version of th planet Mercury.

1 cup of flour

1/4 cup of salt

1/4 water

1 teaspon of oil

...form into a dry ball. Once its a nice firm but dry ball, have your kids make crators all over Mercury by using a marble and a pencil eraser to make different sizes.

Why I Love Apologia Science

We've been studying the planets, using the Apologia Science curriculum "Exploring the Creations Through Astronomy". Its awesome and the boys love it as well. Here's a little demo of just one of the activities that keeps kids interested while learning at the same time.

We Are Thankful For...

Zion: my parents, family, friends, money to buy food with, my house, God, stores to buy food at and food.

Azariah: money and food.

Glorianna: kitty, doggie, baby and blanket.

WigWams and Crowns

I love Bob Jones History. It really covers a lot and has lots of hands on activities which the boys really look forward to.

Today we talked about maps and colored and designed our own.

We also talked about the different types of houses people have lived in, then proceeded to make our own "Wigwams".

Riah decided that his made a much better "crown". How do you like Riah's shirt? He made it himself, during one of the Enrichment classes. He's very proud of it and its become his favorite shirt.