Weeks 29-30

Our history studies have included:
King Hezekiah

King Josiah

The prophet Jeremiah

Babylon conquers Assyria

The Babylonian Empire

Judah falls to Babylon

Daniel

King Nebuchadnezzar

Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego in the Fiery Furnace

We have also read about Sparta and Athens.

The girls made Athenian coins.

For science we have started a new book, Archimedes and the Door of Science.

We are also adding to our scheduled science to take advantage of a science lesson God has provided in our own backyard!

Emma found a nest with 4-5 eggs in it.

She has kept an eye on it, and here are the baby birds about 8 days after they hatched.

10 days old.

12 days old

She has had so much fun checking on them daily and keeping track of them on a chart.

This Wednesday she was super excited when she found this!

And she was even more excited on Thursday!

She found another one on Friday......

And one more on Saturday.

She has not laid an egg today, so Emma's wondering if she is finished or if she'll find a few more yet.

Since we have been given this opportunity and the girls, especially Emma, have such an interest in birds, we have started reading in Exploring Creation With Zoology 1--Flying Creatures of the 5th Day by Jeannie Fulbright. We have been reading about different types of nests and how the birds make them. One of the projects was to make a nest.

This is Moriah's nest.

  When Emma would come in from checking on her chicks and eggs, her face would be beaming with excitement! It was yet another reminder of how blessed we are to be a homeschooling family!

Week 28

This week we added Israel taken into captivity by Assyria to our timeline.

We also read about Jonah, King Hezekiah, and the Assyrian Empire.

Here is Emma's page on Jonah.

This is Moriah's page.

While the girls were studying Bible history, Aiden studied the Playmobil catalog.



Scripture Memory: Isaiah 40:21-24

Greek Word: techne--art or skill

Read-aloud: The Children's Homer...still! The girls are really enjoying it!

Emma did great on a grammar test this week!

Moriah has been reviewing the different types of sentences.

Weeks 26-27

Our history studies include:
Elijah

Naboth's Vineyard

Elisha

Naaman

Elisha's Servant

This is Moriah's page on Elijah.

This is Emma's page.

Other studies include:

Scripture Memory: Isaiah 40:21-24

Greek Root Words: chronos--time and para--along, beside, with

Read-aloud: The Children's Homer

Moriah is learning to add and subtract like fractions in math.

Emma is reviewing decimals.

Emma had this poem in one of her grammar lessons.

Three Gates

If you are tempted to reveal

A tale to you someone has told

About another, make it pass,

Before you speak, three gates of gold.

These narrow gates: First, "Is it true?"

Then, "Is it needful?" In your mind

Give truthful answer. And the next

Is last and narrowest, "Is it kind?"

And if to reach your lips at last

It passes through these gateways three,

Then you may tell the tale, nor fear

What the result of speech may be.

Anonymous

Weeks 24-25

With Ryan being back in physical therapy we have to squeeze in school whenever (and wherever!) we can!

Our routine is not very regular right now and we are trying to make the best of it!

Here's a bit of what we covered in history during Weeks 24 and 25.

David and Bathsheba

Absalom

King Solomon

Israel divides into 2 kingdoms

Elijah

This is Moriah's page on King Solomon.

This is Emma's.

Our studies also included:

Scripture Memory: Psalm 1

Read-aloud: The Children's Homer

Greek Root Words: astron--star and dendron-- tree

Passover

"Now this day will be a memorial to you, and you shall celebrate it as a feast to the Lord; throughout your generations you are to celebrate it as a permanent ordinance"

(Exodus 12:14)

In our study of Old Testament history we are celebrating some of the biblical feasts.

The Jewish days begin at sundown, so Passover began at sundown on Good Friday.

That night we were supposed to clean the house and remove any leavened bread.

I broke up an English muffin and left pieces around the kitchen for the kids to find.

They were supposed to hunt for the leavened bread by candlelight and put anything they found into a paper bag.

In the Bible, leaven often symbolized sin (see Matt 16:6, 1 Cor. 5:8.) In the morning, we took our bag of leavened bread outside to the fire pit and we burned it. This was to symbolize the Passover Lamb, Jesus Christ, cleansing us from our sin, making us unleavened.

Later that day we had our Passover meal. Moriah was hoping for lamb, but I haven't done lamb before and I just wasn't up for trying that yet! I decided to have roasted chicken with red potatoes and carrots.

We also made some of the traditional Passover items, like charoseth, which is made from apples, walnuts and brown sugar. It symbolizes the mortar the Israelites worked with as slaves in Egypt.

I also bought matzoh bread (unleavened bread) at the grocery store for our dinner.

The kids all liked it, but the next day Emma was examining the package and found that it was marked

"Not for Passover Use"

Ooops.

As we ate our dinner together that night by candlelight, we talked about the Israelites living in Egypt.

They were living in bondage, as slaves to the Egyptians.

God wanted to remove them from bondage and lead them to a land that He had promised them.

However, Pharoah refused to let them leave Egypt, and God was coming to strike down all the first born in Egypt that night. He told the Israelites to sacrifice a lamb, and put the blood of the lamb on their doorposts. Upon seeing the blood, God would pass over their house and they would be protected from the judgement of death.

It is such a beautiful picture of One who would come to rescue all of mankind out of bondage to sin and protect us from the judgement of death. Christ, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world, came to be our Passover Lamb. For those who choose to stand under the covering of His blood, God will pass over them with His judgement of death. He will free them from bondage to sin, and lead them to His promised land.

Celebrating Passover made our Easter weekend much more meaningful. Our Passover meal was such a beautiful and quiet time together, and it prepared our hearts for the next morning, Resurrection Sunday.



Week 20



This week we added Israel's first king, Saul, to our timeline.

As we read in 1 Samuel about the Israelites asking for a king, God makes it clear why they want a king.

It's because they have rejected Him as king over them.

"The Lord said to Samuel, 'Listen to the voice of the people in regard to all that they say to you,

for they have not rejected you,

but they have rejected Me from being king over them." 1 Samuel 8:7

Samuel then warned the people what a king would do.

He would take their sons and daugthers to serve him.

He would take the best of their fields and vineyards.

He would take their male and female servants.

He would take a tenth of their vineyards, their seed and their flocks, and they themselves would become servants of the king.

Samuel went on to warn them saying, "Then you will cry out in that day because of your king whom you have chosen for yourselves, but the Lord will not answer you in that day." 1 Samuel 8:18

Nevertheless, the people refused to listen to the voice of Samuel, and they said, "No, but there shall be a king over us." 1 Samuel 8:19

People today are still rejecting Him from being king over them. It's so easy to set up our own "government" and make ourselves the king. The thing is we aren't as good as being king as we think we are! I've learned that from personal experience! May I be careful to keep from rejecting Him as king over me again! 

Weeks 18 and 19--Highlights

We covered a lot during these 2 weeks of study including:

Gideon

Samson

Ruth

Samuel

The Hittites

The Minoan Civilization of Crete and

The Myceneans of Greece

I found a book at our library, In Search of Knossos, which describes the discovery and recreation of the Minoan city of Knossos. We read this book together in addition to our regularly reading. The girls really enjoyed this book and it's illustrations.

We also read about the legend of Theseus and the Minotaur. This has sparked an interest in Greek mythology and the girls have been reading many more myths in their free read time. Usborne has a children's book of Greek myths and I found it at our local library.

We've also been reading about cells this week and one of their projects was to try to remove the shell of a raw egg by soaking it in vinegar. After soaking the egg for at least 24hrs the girls used a scrubby to gently remove the shell. The egg then serves as a model of a cell. We only soaked 1 egg per child, and I wish we would have done a few extras. They are really fragile! We had one break, but thankfully one made it through and for some reason, they kept it in a bowl in the fridge for a few days. For some reason they kinda liked that little egg!

Here's Moriah gently scrubbing at her egg, moments before it broke!

And here's Emma's, the one egg that survived! I don't think it was as clear as it was supposed to be. Perhaps we should have soaked it longer.





Weeks 15 and 16--Highlights

In week 15 we learned about the tabernacle, the dwelling place for God among His people.

I found a book at a local bookstore on the tabernacle and it came with a model for the kids to put together.

Oh my, was that a challenge!!

It's a nice looking model, but I was hoping it could be done without much help from me. Instead, I finished it while the kids played out in the snow. Of course that was after I lost my patience and snapped at the kids. Yes, I snapped at the kids while working on a tabernacle model.
A tabernacle model.

There's nothing like being reminded of my desperate need for a Saviour while reconstructing God's dwelling place! As I worked, I thanked God for sending His Son, who was sacrificed for my sins. He has washed me in His blood and in Him I am made righteous.

Here's the finished tabernacle. In the courtyard you can see the altar and the washing basin in front of the tent. There's also 2 little people. One is a priest.

Inside the tent there are little replicas of the lampstand, the showbread, and the altar of incense. There is also a curtain to divide the holy of holies and a mini ark of the covenant. The kit also included and extra ark. It's a bit bigger and comes with manna, stone tablets, and Aaron's rod to put inside the ark. The girls like that.

Once the girls came in from playing in the snow, I made some hot cocoa to warm them up and apologized for my lack of patience with the craft. Thankfully, they are so quick to forgive...and to forget!

In other things:

Week 15 was the last week to work on memorizing the 10 commandments.

Week 16 they began memorizing Psalm23.

We are still really enjoying our read-aloud, Treasures of the Snow.

Highlights from Weeks 8-10

We added Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Joseph to our timeline.

They both added a page on Abraham and Isaac to their history notebook. 

Here's Emma's page on Abraham and Isaac.

And Moriah's.

They both did an Egyptian tomb painting coloring page.

This is Emma's.

And this one is Moriah's.

They made their name with heiroglyphs...this one is Emma's.

And this one is Moriah's

Moriah has been memorizing the poem "I Wandered Lonely As a Cloud" by William Wordsworth.

She has also been introduced to division and equivalent fractions.

She has been learning how to diagram sentences with predicate nominatives and predicate adjectives.

Emma has been studying verbs.

She is reviewing multiplication and division.

They both are memorizing the 10 commandments.

We are reading Star of Light by Patricia St. John as our read aloud.



Week 5

The girls have been doing preschool with Aiden. They are so cute with him! We made a trip to the library for them to pick out some books. They've been teaching him shapes, colors, and letters. This week they had turtle day. They read turtle books and Aiden got a close up look at our pet turtles.

Of course his favorite part of  school is recess!! He's been having fun driving his Jeep and collecting apples.

This week we continued our study of ancient Egypt.  The girls built a pyramid together out of sugar cubes. The large pyramid is the king's. The smaller ones are for his queens.  They added a temple and the Nile River.

This week we celebrated The Feast of Booths, which is a time to remember when the Israelites lived in booths while they were leaving Egypt during the Exodus. It's a time to remember God's protection and provision.  During the Feast of Booths, the family is to build their own booth to celebrate in. Due to time constraints and physical limitations we made a modified version of a booth. I made a trip to the Salvation Army store and bought a couple of bed sheets. We hung those on the back porch around our picnic table and wa la! Our booth!

 The girls did a great job of decorating the booth with pumpkins, apples, pinecones and flowers they found in the yard.

 

According to our book the traditional meal would be something similar to our traditional Thanksgiving dinner. We had a turkey breast roast, mashed potatoes, bread and pumpkin pie.

The girls took this pic of us just before dinner.



During dinner we talked about our home on this earth. Like the booths, it is temporary. But Jesus has gone to prepare a place for us, a place that will last forever. His kingdom will never be shaken! There is only one way to that place, and that is through Jesus Christ. How awesome that our God not only protects us and provides for us here on earth, but He has provided a way for us to be with Him forever!

Week 4

          This week the girls focused light with a magnifying glass to generate heat. They used the sun to burn a small hole in a chocolate bar. The book suggested burning paper or a leaf, but I stole the chocolate bar idea from a previous, similar project.  Someone with my family heritage uses chocolate to replace just about everything! It also makes clean up much more fun!

We also cleaned out the garden to get ready for a frost!!

There was a battle between 2 kings of Egypt. King Menes won (with help from her trusty light saber) and united the 2 Egyptian kingdoms into one. She proudly wore her new crown!

A few more highlights from the week:

The girls are memorizing the books of the Old Testament

They are listening to The Cat of Bubastes by G. A. Henty on CD

We have been reading TheTanglewoods' Secret by Patricia St. John as a read alound. This is such a wonderful book and has become one of my favorite read alouds! The girls love it too, and they always beg for one more chapter!

We ended our week with a feast for Yom Kippur. We made chili, which is not traditonal, but it used up some of the tomatoes from our garden!  A more traditional food is kreplach (?) which is meat and vegetables wrapped in a pastry. That sounded like a Michigan pastie to me, so I stopped at the local bakery and picked up 2 pasties to serve with our meal.

Week 3

 Highlights from our week of school:

We had our first co-op meeting with our homeschooling friends. We meet together for Latin, drama, and Keepers at Home (which is similar to Home Ec.) This week we also had show and tell.  Emma brought a paint by number she recently finished:

Moriah chose a garden stone that she made recently thanks to our friends, J and K!

And of course, little brother had to get in on the action!

He sang his Cheetah song for us!



•  This week Moriah had her 2nd math test and she got a 99%!! Way to go Moriah!!
• The girls learned how to draw a map of the Bible land area freehand.  Later that night Emma called me into the bathroom. After her shower, while the mirror was foggy, she drew her map again. She then went on to point out the Tigris, Euphrates, Persian Gulf, Red Sea and the Mediterranean Sea on her map. She may not have realized it, but she just gave herself a pop quiz....and passed with flying colors!
• We celebrated another feast this week, Rosh Hashanah, or Feast of Trumpets. For our dinner we had fresh fish from Canada, thanks to the excellent fishermen in our family :) We also had a loaf of round bread, thanks to the day old rack at Meijer, along with green peas, grapes, and apples with honey. Rosh Hashanah is the beginning of a new year, a new beginning with the Lord. It is a time to honor God's kingship over the universe, His authority over creation. It's also a time for us to remember our place in this universe, our part in His plan. At Rosh Hashanah a ram's horn, or shofar is blown. The kids each made their own Shofar and they blew it just before I lit the candles at dinner.The shofar comes from the story of Isaac, when Abraham prepared to sacrifice him, and God provided a ram. The ram's horn is blown as call to repentance. A call to search your doings, repent, and to remember your Creator.

Sabbath Celebration

To finish up our first week of school we celebrated with our version of a traditional Jewish Sabbath.
As we study Old Testament history this year we will learn about several biblical feasts and celebrate them(at least in part) in our home.
 To be honest, I am excited to learn about these feasts myself! Last year while studying Revelation I developed an even deeper love and appreciation of the Jewish nation. We touched on the feasts and I remember thinking then that I wanted to learn more.

 Sabbath begins Friday at sundown and ends at sundown on Saturday.

We spent Friday preparing for our Sabbath celebration which begins with a special dinner on Friday evening. Typically a braided bread is served, and the mother prepares the bread on Friday. As she kneads her bread throughout the day she prays for her children. Isn't that beautiful? I couldn't help but think of all the Jewish mothers praying for their precious children. I thought of Mary, praying for her son Jesus.

I will admit I did not knead my dough as I bought frozen bread dough. And praying for your children while steering a shopping cart through a busy store with a 3 yr old in tow is just not the same!
Later that day when the girls saw me attempting to braid the bread, Emma said, "Don't forget to pray for us!"
Again, praying isn't what comes to my mind while working with bread dough. Pretty sure that runs in my family :)

But later, as my bread was baking, I looked out my kitchen window and saw my children in the yard, one running around like a wild, crazy kid, one throwing a ball and the other playing quietly. Finally, at that moment, I said a prayer of thankfulness for those little blessings that God has given us to raise, and for the lessons He has taught us through them. I prayed that each one would know Christ as their Saviour and live a live fully devoted to Him.

We each had a special job to do in order to prepare for the Sabbath. Emma made the centerpiece for our table. She went to see an old friend for some flowers that she made into an arrangement.

As mentioned earlier, I made the braided bread and it came out pretty well for my first time!

Moriah made the special covering for the bread. She colored on a flour sack dish towel that we picked up at the dollar store.

 For dinner we had spaghetti, which isn't traditional, but it's a family favorite here.

For dessert we had frozen yogurt with fresh peaches!! The girls enjoyed our Sabbath, and they have asked if we will do it again. There was something special about that night. Aiden was still a bit loud and boisterous at dinner, but the girls were more quiet and peaceful.

To begin the Sabbath, the mother recites a prayer and lights candles on the table. This is the preparation prayer:

Blessed are you, O Lord our God,
King of the Universe,
You are the Author of peace.
You made the Sabbath holy,
You called us to honor this Sabbath,
enter our home this night.
Almighty God,
Grant us and all our loved ones rest
on this Sabbath day.
May the light of the candles drive out from among us
the spirit of anger,
frustration and fear.
Send your blessing that we may walk
in the ways of Your Word
and Your light.
Enter our hearts this night.
Heavenly Father,
we rejoice in your creation!
It is fromYou we receive every good and perfect gift.
Giver of life and love,
grant us Your peace,
through Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen.

First Day of School 2011!

Today was the first day of school for 5th grade and 3rd grade! 

These girls are the apple of their teacher's eye!!

Their teacher loves them dearly and she is thrilled to be with them for another year!!

We are using curriculum from My Father's World, and this year we'll be studying Creation to the Greeks.

 Our assignment this week is to study the beginning of our world, using the first chapter of Genesis as our text.

Here they are working on their creation worksheet for their history notebook.
I found Haydn's Creation at our local library for them to listen to while they worked on their creation worksheet.

We also began working on our timeline. I used fishing line with Command hooks and we'll use paperclips to hang pictures on the timeline. I'm hoping this works...we'll see! Today we added Genesis 1:1 in Hebrew to our timeline.

We also added Christ coming back to earth at the end of our timeline with question marks since we don't know when that will be. You'll see why I like to send the girls to art classes when you see my work below.

That would be Jesus Christ (the red triangle) on a horse, in the clouds :) I may not be able to teach art, but I just love being able to teach the girls history using the Bible as our frame of reference!

For history we'll also be using:
Victor Journey Through the Bible
Streams of Civilizations, Vol 1
Celebrating Biblical Feasts

For science we have:
Genesis For Kids
Dinousaurs of Eden
Archimedes and the Door of Science
Pyramids

We use Horizons math

We also will study Latin with Latina Christiana I

For art we have God and the History of Art

Looks like we'll have a full and wonderful year of study ahead!