Unit 17: Preparing

Winter has not been nice to us this week. We've been doing our best to stay warm and cozy indoors (well except for Baby Bear who refuses to wear pants or socks no matter how cold it is.) Most of the public schools around us have been having snow days, because of the bad roads. No snow days for us! One thing about homeshooling is that the snow storms don't effect our school days at all. That may sound sad for the kids, but really not at all. The thing that stinks about public school snow days is that the reason there's usually no school is it's dangerously cold out, strong winds, or ice. It's nice to be able to take our own "snow days," on the nicer warmer winter days when there are not advisories. That way we can take a nice day off and build a snowman while everyone else is in school.  Another benefit is not having to wait in the cold for a bus in the winter or even having to get bundled up on freezing mornings to go out at all. I love it! 

Bible: I don't write about our Bible curriculum much, but we are still working our way through Apologia's Who is God book. Right now we are learning all about the trinity. I really recommend this book. It's been a great help in answering Sis questions and helping her better understand God. She answers questions and records Bible verses in the journal that comes with the book. I want to go through this whole series with her. I'm really excited about next year's book which is "Who am I?" A whole year about learning who you are in Christ! What a great topic for any 10 year old to study, especially with all the pressures and insecurities that come with the pre-teen years! 
  
History: This week we started learning about the rise of the Roman Empire. Our daily history lessons are still coming from "Child's History of the World." We continued to read "Fountain of Life," a story about the New Testament days in the time of Jesus. We learned about gladiators, Roman roads, aqueducts, amphitheaters, taxes, etc. We also learned about Hannibal, Julius Caesar (whom our month of July is named after) Cleopatra, Augustus Caesar (where we get 'August.') Now that The Roman Empire has risen and the Romans are on the scene, guess what that means? Next week we get to read about Jesus! It will finally be time to add the birth of Christ to our timeline.

Sis learned about the denarius (Roman money.) Her history project was to make some Roman coins using a recipe for homemade clay. I tried to get store bought air-dry clay instead but wasn't able to. So, we ended up using the clay recipe in our book, which called for bread, glue, and black paint! I thought that was weird, but we tried it anyway. It was the biggest fail of the school year. It just turned into sticky bread mush. Sis ran out of room gagging because it looked and smelled so nasty! So we made up our own coins by covering cardboard circles with aluminum foil and then using a toothpick to engrave pictures of the emperors on them. Much better!

A new book that Sis started reading is "Little Miriam of Galilee." This is a book about a young Jewish girl and her family who are threatened with losing their home in Galilee if they can not pay a dishonest tax collector, when the Romans raise their taxes. God provided them with a miracle, but not at all what they had expected. I really like all of the book choices from heart of Dakota so far, there hasn't been one story that we haven't enjoyed. I think the best part of this curriculum is all of the great literature we get to read. Learning though stories is so much more interesting than just reading a text book.

Science: We're still learning about the respiratory system in Anatomy. This week we learned about the trachea, lungs, and diaphragm. W also looked at what causes colds, asthma, and smoking. There weren't any experiments so sorry no pictures. 

For some reason this has seemed like an extremely long week. I guess because of the cold. Hopefully next week won't seem so bad, since we get to take a school field trip. I will blog all about that when we get back.