Unit 7: Preparing

We ended up taking an unexpected week off due to sickness and other things that came up last week, so this was our week back after a little break.

History: I think that this will be our last week in Ancient Egypt. It seems like we've been learning about Egyptians forever now! The two books that we have been reading for history are "Grandpa's Box" and "Tirzah." In both stories we are now reading about the Exodus...the Hebrew people leaving Egypt and their time in the desert. Next week will begin studying the time period when the Israelite's moved into the promised land. We've had a lot of fun learning about Egypt though and I'm kind of sad it's ending. This week Sis did some further internet research on Pharaohs. She learned that Pharaoh's were considered gods. We read about the most famous pharaohs (mostly Tut,) how a person got to become a pharaoh, what they wore, who the youngest Pharaoh was, etc. We also added the Exodus to our history timeline.

Her history project for this week was to make an Egyptian pyramid out of white paper. This was by far the most frustrating project we've tried this year. We went through 4 sheets of paper trying to get the dimensions right. Every time, our lines were off and our pyramid walls didn't line up!!! We persevered and finally got a pyramid that looked half way decent. For those of you trying this one, I suggest using an extra large sheet of paper, a ruler, and making a perfect square instead of a diamond. Since real pyramids were originally covered with limestone our second step was to paint our pyramid with a diluted glue and sprinkle with sugar. Next we added a ground colored like sand, used a flashlight to cast a shadow, and shaded the shadowed area. Lastly, we painted the tip of our pyramid "gold," like the Great Pyramid of Giza. 

In her Draw and Write Through History Sis drew Moses parting the Red Sea, a frog and locust (plagues), and a quail.  

Reading: In reading we began a new genre, Adventure! For our adventure kickoff we talked about some characteristics of an adventure story then did an activity where Sis had to pull 3 items out of a bag and make up a story that includes those 3 items. We did this a few times. Her first 3 items were a ring, turtle, and a camera. Next a map, car and horse. She did pretty good although all of her adventure stories also quickly turn into fantasy.lol. On day 2 we began our Adventure book, "Toliver's Secret." I chose this book because it is said to be an unusually good historical adventure book for kids. While it also falls into the category of historical fiction, it is definitely an adventure book. This adventure is fast paced and keeps her attention. It's about a young girl on a journey disguised as a boy to deliver a message to General Washington for her grandfather who is a patriot spy. She finds herself on a boat full of British soldiers and in the wrong town! So far Sis is really enjoying reading it. 


Science:

In science we are learning about muscles. We learned the different types of muscles. The names of some muscles. What makes muscles grow and why they are important to our bodies. Sis made made a newspaper article about some of the things she learned. We also did several experiments. One was to see how long she could hold her arms out straight before her muscles tired out. Another, while learning about smooth muscles she tried to push a clay ball through a nylon demonstrating how the smooth muscles have to contract and squeeze to push the food and waste through our intestines.

We also added muscles to our "personal person" project.

Not too much exciting to note about all our other subjects. We're finding the area of parallelograms and doing division in math.Sis is flying through her 5th grade spelling (hardly ever misses a word.) She's wanting to be part of some sort of spelling bee, I might have to look into that in the future. We're practicing adverbs and still diagramming sentences in Language. In Bible we're reading a chapter called "How can I know what is true." That's been really good. Other than that Christmas shopping is in full swing over here (Yes I said Christmas!gasp!) I'm already planning out our holiday breaks and activities. It is quickly approaching! I'm also working on trying to fit in some fun and educational field trips soon. We shall see.