Week 26-28

History: Sis is ending the school year with a study of Rome. She's got about 6 weeks of that left and then we will be finishing up this school year!

We started reading a really good book together this week called "Traveling the Way." Again, this is another book that I never would have chosen on my own and that doesn't look very interesting, but is actually a great story! It's about a gentile slave boy who lives during the time of the apostles and runs away from his harsh master. On his journey he's faced with a question of religions...pagan, Jew, or Christian. Who was right?  I love books like this that are not only entertaining and exciting for kids, but have some real meat. Unlike a lot of the "fluff" books out there for kids that are just non-sense. Those books can be fun and it's great to get kids excited about reading period. However, I'd rather have my kids reading something that's not only exciting but teaches them something too or helps them grow spiritually rather than reading Captain Underpants all day...ya know? Charlotte Mason calls these real living books...books with depth. Thank you Heart of Dakota for all of your awesome book choices!

Sis only had one Draw and Write through History project over the 3 weeks and she drew a Roman soldier with a horse an chariot.

 One of her projects was to make a paper doll of a Roman soldier. She had to learn each piece of clothing that they wore and make the entire outfit.

Boo has been learning about Abraham Lincoln in U.S. history. We read national Geographic Kids Abraham Lincoln and we looked at the pictures of Abe and the Lincoln Memorial on the penny and $5 bill. 
We also read a book together called "Who Was Abraham Lincoln? We learned a lot of facts about Abe's life. We also learned a little about the Civil war.

A project we did was to read "Abe Lincoln's Hat." We learned how Abe always kept all of his important papers in his tall hat so that he would not forget about them. Then Boo had to write about what she would keep in in her hat if she had a hat like Abe. We made a cute craft out of construction paper and crayons. The flap on the hat opens to show show what she would keep inside.


We also added a few states to our map...we're getting pretty close to the end now!

***I feel a little bad that most of the pictures this post are of Boo, but there was not really too much to take pictures of Sis' work.

 Science: We took a little break from our regular science and we spent a week on magnets. The Fun with Magnets kit was included with Boo's My Father's World curriculum. All of the girls wanted to participate though, so we just did this instead of Science In The Beginning. The kit comes with cards that have activities and info on them we've done 3 cards front and back so far. One of our projects was to make a compass using a bar magnet. We also tested different kinds of magnets to see where the strongest point of pull was. Boo discovered that the ends are the strongest.

Reading: Boo has been reading Arnold Lobel books for her reading time. She is doing really well in reading now. His books are my most favorite books for early readers. Boo read all of the Frog and Toad books and then we moved to the Mouse and Owl books. I love that these stories are not only easy for her to read, but they are just plain fun to read. She begs for reading time because she can't wait to see what funny thing she will read about next.

Sis doesn't have a formal "reading time" anymore but there's not a day that goes by that she doesn't have her nose in a book, so she gets plenty of reading practice. Her biggest problem is life is that she never has enough books to read though. I'm constantly looking for books for her. This past week I found a winner that made her cry, not because the story was sad....because it ended with a cliff hanger and she doesn't have book 2! HAHA! She loved this book.  It's the first of a 15 book series by Jerry B. Jenkins called "Red Rock Mysteries."  It's fast paced adventure and mystery (her favorite kind) so she finished one in 2 days. Apparently all of these books leave you hanging, so you have to buy the next one. That's kind of annoying to me, but I think I at least found her some new books that are clean and exciting. These are "tween" books I would say for 11-14ish so some are intense and some subject matter is for older kids.

We haven't done much art lately. We have been so busy lately that we've skipped a lot of our paintings. The girl's did dye Easter eggs one day though. That counts as art right?