Unit 8: Preparing

History: This week's focus was on the Promised Land. After 4 weeks we finally finished reading Tirzah. We enjoyed reading all about this young girl's adventure as she leaves Egypt and travels through the desert with Moses and the rest of the Israelites. The book ended as God gives the news that only Caleb, Joshua, and those under age 20 will make it to the Promised Land. Tirzah has many years in the desert ahead of her, but has hope that she will one day see the land Yahweh has promised.  In Grandpa's box we covered a lot of history. We read about Joshua, Jericho, battles in Canaan, Ruth, and an intro to David!. Our own box is filling up with the figures that Sis has been drawing. We add 1-2 every chapter.

We also learned about the 12 tribes of Israel. Sis already knew that the Israelites were God's chosen people, that they came from Abraham's family, that Israel had 12 sons, and that God gave them the promised land. She's never learned or understood though that they were divided into tribes or what that means. We did internet research on the 12 tribes (I found this great website for kids 12 Tribes of Israel. ) 
We learned the names of the tribes. We also talked a little about the Levite's special jobs with the tabernacle and learned about the Ark of the Covenant. We talked about Jesus coming from the tribe of Judah.
Sis's history project was to make a map showing the 12 tribes and the land that was allotted to each one. We color coded it by family groups.... one color for all the sons of Rachel, another for Leah, etc.

In her Draw and Write book Sis drew the Ark of the Covenant. At the end of the week she drew David as an introduction to next weeks history ( we will be learning about the time of David and the Greeks.)

Science:We finished up our unit on muscles with an experiment that is going to take 2 weeks to finish. Every other day for 2 weeks Sis is suppose to time herself to see how many times she can open and close a clothespin in one min, then how long it takes her to write her name 30 times. We're recording the times on a chart. Her hypothesis is that over the next 2 weeks her times will improve bc by using those muscles more they will increase in strength. I guess at the end of 2 weeks we will see if she is right.

We also started unit 4 on the digestive system. We're learning what exactly happens to a piece of food after it is swallowed!

We learned that digestion doesn't begin when you swallow, but actually begins in your mouth. Teeth chewing up your food is an important part, also saliva contains chemicals that help break down your food. We learned about the teeth and the names of them. We also did a saliva experiment that required putting a saltine cracker on her tongue.


Not too much else new to blog about this week...We did take a trip to the pumpkin farm. We got to watch a huge pumpkin be catapulted into the air and try apple cider slushies!mmmmm.