Week 1 of Homeschooling

Instead of beginning with Egypt, we decided to start at the very, very beginning.



We started with creation. The book that we read was really quite pretty with great illustrations. And on one of the pages (the day God created the animals) there was a great picture of a frog! So I thought it would be great to tie in our own awesome frogs, the creek filled with frogs, and lots of fun games derived from there....

Then, we read the story of Adam and Eve (also a retelling in the same book) and in Usborne's 50 things to make and do, I found a fun (and easy, and cheap) idea to make a Shadow Puppet to re-tell the story we read.

Here's K telling the story (the shadow puppet is a snake.... kind of...)


So if you know your book of Genesis, we are now at Noah's Ark.

We spent two days on this story, because my kids had so, so, so many questions on this (where did the animal poo go? was my favorite) We re-enacted the story. D was Noah (of course) and C was one of his sons, K was a wife, and I was God. Sweeeeeet! It was really quite amusing. Don't worry I have it on video.

Every day, we have to incorporate some type of "experiment" because D LOVES experiments.


This was our experiment of the day, also from the Usborne book. You take paper, fold it up and cut it like a flower. Then cut out a little animal to place inside of the flower. When you put it in water, the paper absorbs the water and expands, and like magic, the petals open up to reveal your little animal inside. My kids were **AMAZED***  D chose this one out of our book because he thought it went well with the story of Noah's Ark.

We also had fun creating a lego city in the bathtub and flooding it. Don't worry, Noah and his family survived in our popcorn bowl... er, Ark.

This picture is actually pretty adorable. After the flood waters receded, D actually took Noah out of the Ark and made an altar, and sacrificed ("Mom, what smells better to God, a sheep or a goat on the altar?") a sheep to God to thank Him.

And since my children LOVE experiments, we also did a water/oil experiment that is a little different than the normal one. We first added food coloring to plain water and made observations. Then we added food coloring to oil and made observations. THEN, we took syringes and added the food coloring + oil mixed together, into the clear water. What happens is that the oil protects the food coloring for several minutes and then you see little "fireworks" of bursting color happen.

"Look mom! It's diffusing!" (that is a direct quote from my 3 year old)

D's drawing in his journal

K's science journal
 
There were other fun activities that we did this week too, and I can't say enough good things about the math curriculum we are using (Math U See)  But for now, I'll sign out.  After all, I am supposed to be cleaning today!! 
 
:-)

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