Unit 11: Preparing

History: This week we continued learning about the time period of the Kings. We learned about the nation of Israel dividing into the northern and southern kingdoms, each with their own king. We read our stories this week mostly from our "Grandpa's Box" book, and then we also read the real accounts from the Bible. Most of our stories focused on King Ahab and his wickedness in leading Israel to worship Baal. In addition to reading our history text sis did a research assignment on king Ahab and Jezebel using the internet. We also learned about Elijah and Elisha, and how even during a time of great rebellion and sinfulness, they were faithful to the one true God. 

Sis' history project was to make a flip-book of the story of Elijah and the prophets of Baal on Mount Carmel. The flip-book was 10 pages long. It showed the alter and sacrifice being drenched with water and then fire coming down and consuming it.

Our vocabulary words for this week were: obliged, archer, obsidian, summoned, and luxuries. Our weekly vocab words are taken from whatever history text we are using that week. Sis looks them up in her dictionary and adds the definition to her vocabulary journal w/ an illustration and example sentence.

In our Draw and Write Through History Sis drew a Phoenician ship. Last week we learned about the Phoenicians, ancient Greece, and all the Greek gods they worshiped. This week we learned that Jezebel the wicked wife of King Ahab came from that area, she brought to Israel with her the false gods.

Reading: This week we started our mystery book for our reading curriculum. For our "genre kickoff" we played a mystery guessing game. We took turn hiding an item in a shoe box with a lid, then giving clues about what was in the box. Then the other one had to try to guess. The book I chose was "The Doll People." This book is thicker than the others we've read so far this year, but I knew right away that Sis would like it. First, she loves mystery books. Second, it just sounded cute! It's about a family of miniature dolls who live in a doll house. Much like Toy Story the little girl who owns them is unaware that her dolls are alive and only move around when she is asleep or not home. It's also a mystery though, Aunt Sara Doll went missing many years ago. Annabell Doll finds clues to Aunt Sara's disappearance. So far we're enjoying reading this together ( Sis reads her reading books aloud to me and Boo.) I just discovered that there are more Doll People books. We might have to get those later to read just for fun.  
  
Language & Math: I don't blog much about LA, spelling, and math because there's never really anything too exciting about them. Still we do them every day. Sis has a 16 word list of spelling words that she learns each week and takes a spelling test every Friday. This year in math she is learning division using MathUsee Delta. This week we learned about figuring averages though. We also use First Language Lessons for the Well Trained Mind. Sis does 4 lessons a week from this book. This week we practiced diagramming subjects and verbs, direct and indirect objects and memorized the list of "subject pronouns" and "object pronouns."

Science: This week we started a unit on nutrition! It's very interesting, but also convicting! Ch 1. started out by saying it's important that we study nutrition and the human body, so that we know how to take care of the bodies God gave us and know how the food we eat effects us. We learned the main nutrients that our body needs to survive. We looked at the difference between eating an apple and a candy bar or food with little nutrients. I have to admit that we love our desserts and junk food. If nothing else, I think just learning the technicality of what happens to the foods we put in our bodies will motivate us to try to eat healthier!

I won't be posting a blog for first grade this week since Boo is taking some time for review. She has been working really hard on her reading  though.We've been using a lot of online phonics games and books like Starfall.com for extra practice.

I want to do some special Thanksgiving activities next week with Boo instead of our regular curriculum. Since it will be a short week anyway, and we're excited to be going out of town for the holiday, we'll probably wait until after Thanksgiving before we move forward with Boo's curriculum.