Busy Week

We have had a busy week with some fun activities!  They did not accomplish as much as I would have liked but we are making progress.  Here are some of the highlights:

The Olympic lapbooks are just about complete with all the mini books in place.  The only thing they have left to do is fill the gold winners in for each event which they will complete by Monday.  Doing these lapbooks has really made the Olympics a lot more fun to watch.  And competing with each other on the Wii Winter Olympics game is a blast!  The kids love the figure skating and me and Mike like the Curling.

We continue to work on History studying the Greeks and Israel during the Exile.  Emily drew a picture of one of the Wonders of the World, the Hanging Gardens and copied information about how and why it was built. 

They also completed a map of Greece by filling in the major cities and surrounding countries.

Christopher and Emily also attempted to make clay tablets which the Greek people would write on but with one variation.  Instead of using clay they used sugar cookie dough.  The dough was rolled out and then they used toothpicks to write on the dough.  It was fun for them to make but unfortunately everything they wrote disappeared after being baked.  But they were not to upset since they got to eat them.

They also had a fieldtrip this week where they attended a talk about Dogsledding and the Iditarod race in Alaska.  Mr. Dan taught them all about dogsledding clothes, equipment, dangers, and the dogs.

It really was a busy but fun week!  Hopefully next week we will be finished with the Zoology 2 book, Olympic lapbook and Unit 8 The Exile in history.  We have a lot of history projects to complete but hopefully we can get them done. 

Platonic Bodies

Pythagoras was a Greek mathematician around 600 B.C who had followers that called themselves Pythagoreans.  They discovered that there were five figures that had all sides and angles equal and they called them Platonic Bodies.   

The shapes were made by printing a copy of the pattern from the book and folding and glueing it together.  It was a little fustrating at times to get them glued together but with the help of a little tape we were able to finish them.  I think they turned out pretty nice!

History and Science

The work continues on the lapbooks.  A little slower than I planned but we are making progress.  Today we read that the first Olympics was held in Olympia which is in the southern part of Greece near the Ionian Sea.  This was important so that people coming to the games could travel by boat.  One very interesting fact we learned is that one month prior to the games all wars must stop so that everyone can travel to the games safely.  If someone broke this ban they were not allowed to compete in the games. 

We have two more chapters left of the God King book and it has been really exciting.  Taharka is attempting to reclaim his position as Pharoah of Egypt.   I hope to begin working on some Greek projects tomorrow and into next week.  Will be posting pictures once they are complete. 

For science we just completed a chapter on echinoderms which includes star fish, sea urchin, sand dollars, sea cucumbers, etc.  It was a pretty fun chapter to read.  The kids learned that star fish will attach themselves to clams or other bivalves and pull them appart with the suction cups on there rays.  Then their stomach will come out of there mouth and squeeze into the shell of the clam.  It will then start to ingest the clam into his stomach.  Once it is all in the stomach it will withdrawal back into the starfish.  We also did a fun science experiment making a brittle star with salt crystals.  First we boiled water and then added salt until it would not dissolve anymore.  Than we poured it into a glass measuring cup.  We then took 5 short strings and tied them together at the end.  The knot was then put into the water with the ends of the strings hanging over the edge.  After two or three days this was the result.

Olympic Lapbook

Today we started a new project.  Since we are currently studying ancient Greece who started the first Olympics and the Winter Olympics are about to start in a couple of weeks I decided to do an Olympic study using lapbooking.  I purchased a downloadable lapbook from the internet which comes with the lessons, mini books to be put together and filled out and instructions.  We are using three file folders which were folded and glued together.  Then I read a short lesson to them and using that information they fill out a mini book and glue it into the file folders. It should be a fun project and ties in really well with our history studies.

We are still reading the book God King and it has gotten very exciting.  I love when the kids tell me not to stop reading! But unfortunately it is just me and Christopher who love the book.  I think Emily likes it but won't admit it.