Keep Digging!

This week we visited the other side of the world...China!  We talked about the various dynasties and about how China's natural borders on all sides kept them fairly isolated, and thus culturally unique.

One of the many special things about China is silk.  We scoured the house looking for something 100% silk, and the only items we found were Daddy's ties.

This has nothing to do with China, but isn't this rainbow picture awesome?!

Israel

One of my favorite things about the history curriculum we're using is that it includes a lot of information about Israel's history.  Of course, we know a lot of the stories from church, but it's fun to get a little more detail, and to do more hands-on learning.

For example, the kids created bricks and built structures out of play dough as part of the lesson about the Israelites in slavery in Egypt.

They built the Ark of the Covenant out of Legos.

Everyone's favorite was a traditional Jewish feast.

We had flat bread, grapes, cheese, dates, and more.  These are some of our favorite foods, as it turns out.  And what kid doesn't like eating on the floor!

Food, Glorious Food!

In general, we try not to indulge ourselves too much, food-wise.  However, last week was just one of those food-focused weeks for us.

As part of our study of Jacob and Esau, we made "fruit stew", which was warm apricot-orange pudding with bananas (Grandma's recipe).  It was good enough that we could almost imagine selling our birthrights for it.  Almost.

Of course, Joseph's story inspired us to decorate coat-of-many-color cookies.  With sprinkles.

Also, you can't go on a fantastic Great Harvest field trip with your co-op and not buy a few of their giant cookies.  By the way, I highly recommend this Great Harvest in McMinnville, both as a store and as a field trip destination.  The owner did a great job teaching the kids about nutrition and showing them the equipment they use to make their products.  The kids each got their own lump of dough to form into rolls, which the owner baked for us to take home.  Some of the kids combined their dough to make a cute dough boy.

And finally, though it wasn't technically part of school, it's worth mentioning that we went to Olive Garden for Daddy's birthday and ate homemade pear pie and ice cream.

I guess we should be extra healthy this week! =)

Mummy Dearest

We're experiencing a little bit of deja vu around here.  Our history curriculum covered early Egypt this week, so we got to revisit a lot of the things we learned earlier in the school year.  This time around, the kids got to "mummify" teddy bears and build pyramids out of Legos.

We also talked about Stonehenge, so the kids built their own versions with rocks on paper plates.

Finally, we visited the Egypt exhibit at OMSI this weekend, and we saw a real mummy!  It was a great way to wrap up our study of Egypt.

Sumertime

No, I'm not confused about what season it is, nor am I a poor speller.  We recently studied the Sumerians!  The kids got to make clay tablets and write "cuneiform" on them.

We've also learned about Noah and the Flood, the ice age, dinosaurs, the Tower of Babel, and the Epic of Gilgamesh.  It's been a full couple of weeks!

It has been full in other ways, too.  I love that homeschool gives us the flexibility to do non-school things as well. For example, playing with Legos...

...playing in the snow...

...or sharing Black Forest Cake with Grandma and Grandpa...

We're looking forward to seeing what next week holds!