ECC Weeks 33-34 - Antarctica and Penguins

We started off our studies in this unit the way we have with every unit by my having the kids bring their passports to the 'border' and having them stamped.  This time they decided to dress for the Antarctic weather.  They donned their winter coats and snow boots and 'flew' in to have their passports stamped.  I took a picture and was planning to include it here but then I realized they had their passports opened revealing their personal information so I had to crop the picture.  Now it mainly only reveals their eyes.  It's still cute. 

The kids watched another portion of the Nat Geo Deep Sea Dive DVD.  Chapter 6 is about Antarctica and Chapter 7 is about whales.

I realized that there is another portion of this video, in the bonus features, that includes animals of Asia.  We could have watched that during our Asia studies.  (Mental note:  Next time around with Roo watch bonus features.  ;)  )

We did the experiment in the Properties of Ecosystems book and learned how 90% of an iceberg is below the surface of the water which explains why they have caused so many accidents involving ships.

We also did an experiment involving ice water (from the experiment above) plastic bags and Crisco.  The kids put a plastic bag 'glove' on one hand.  Then they each stuck their other hand in a seperate bag filled with Crisco.  They covered their bagged hand with the Crisco to make it sort of like a mitten.  They stuck both their covered and uncovered hand in the ice cold water.  The purpose of this experiment was to show how a penguin's layer of fat keeps them warm in the icy cold waters.  They were both surprised at how well the 'fat' kept their covered hands warm.

 I found a couple of books about penguins we really enjoyed.

During our reading we used toy penguins I purchased  in one of those 'Toobs' you find at Michael's and the two books pictured above to see if we could identify the different penguins that came in the Toob.  The kids really enjoyed this activity.  (I did leave out the page in the Gail Gibbins book about evolution during my reading.)  I didn't read the text in the picture book so I can't comment on the content but the pictures were beautiful. 

Gail Gibbons book is pictured with Toob Penguins

We also enjoyed some other books about Antarctica and penguins.  I only read the last two chapters of the book 'Magic Tree House Research Guide:  Penguins and Antarctica'.  They were Famous Antarctic Explorers and Antarctica Today.

  

This unit they made ice sculptures with sugar cubes and white frosting.  Beau said he couldn't make an igloo because there are no igloos in Antarctica so he dubbed his an outpost.  They both added the Toob penguin toys to their sculptures and their sculptures became penguin outposts.
  

I purchased wooden penguins they painted.  They love to 'play' in the paint so they enjoy these types of activities.

 We did the glacier experiment listed in the World Geography book, twice.  I froze some of our 'sand' from a previous experiment and water in a Taco Bell cup since I didn't have a small milk carton and we made a mound of dirt for our 'mountain' in an unfinished corner of our back yard.  Our first glacier was, well, knocked off our 'mountain'.  I found puppy prints on the 'mountain' and the glacier lying nearby.  I think our new Cocker Spaniel pup got thirsty.  The second attempt went better and resulted in a debris field of broken shells and rock.  I thought it would have dug more of a path but it was still more successful than our first attempt. 
  

  

During lunch and into the afternoon one day we listened to and reviewed the Wee Sing around the world CD.  We remembered and enjoyed some of our favorite songs including the Omaha Indian (U.S.) song 'The Crooked Path', 'Tingalayo' from the West Indies and "Kookaburra' from Australia to name a few.
  

We also listened to 'Mr. Popper's Penguins' on CD.  The kids enjoyed it immensely.  I found out that a movie has been made about this book and is scheduled to be released in theaters in June but I was disappointed to find out the lead actor is Jim Carrey so I'm not sure it's one I'd want my kids to see.  :(  I'll be checking with Focus on the Family's pluggedin.com for their reviews on this one for sure. 

Our lapbooks were focused on penguins this time.  I created the cover with clip art and a scrapbook program.  

Antarctica does not have a flag so my kids did the 'design your own flag' activity.  We included these in their lapbooks also.

Beaus's is on the left and Roo's is on the right

We did the end of year review to see how many countries we remember on the map.  Roo only knew 2 at the beginning of the year and now knows 11.  Beau knew 15 and can now recall 26.  I think he knew more but was so excited that he remembered any at all that I couldn't seem to keep him on task.  If we would have been more faithful to the geography game included in our curriculum they would have known more for sure.  They were still both pleased and felt they learned a lot.  :)

I can't believe our year is now over.  I am already in planning mode for next year.

This summer we plan to do a mini study and lapbook on Independence day.  I think it will be a lot of fun.

Fair Entries

Well, I entered a few of my kid's activities from the school year in the fair.  They both took first with their mountains and fabric bowls and second with their weaving project.  They both received a check for $6.00 each.  I took them into the bank to cash their first checks.  They were so excited that you might have thought they won $1,000.00 or something.  It was fun to see their excitement.

Beau & Roo with their projects and ribbons

Recent findings I thought I would share

I just discovered a series that's new, at least to me, that I thought I would pass on to anyone interested. It's so difficult to find non-fiction books about animals without an evolutionary tone so when I came across this series I was so excited. It’s the ZonderKids I Can Read! series level 2 books called Made By God. Some of the books in the series include the following titles:

Cats, Dogs, Hamsters and Horses
Spiders, Snakes, Bees and Bats
Big Bugs, Little Bugs
Barnyard Critters

And some of the titles I think would go well as book basket books for ECC are:

Rainforest Friends
Sea Creatures
Polar Pals
Curious Creatures Down Under
Forest Friends

I also found a lap and notebook series available through currclick.com that I think would go well with ECC. It’s called Discovering the Continents: Animals of …   It’s pretty reasonably priced. It’s also available in a bundle package at a discounted price.

For ECC this year I researched and put together my own lapbooks, for the most part. This series looks like it may have made my life a lot easier. I’m making a note in my TM for the next time around.

I'll be posting about our end of year activities very soon.

ECC Weeks 31-32 - Australia and Coral Reefs

We started our studies of Australia with coral reefs and finished with animals of Australia.  This was a fun study but it seemed to go by too quickly.  I think it seemed that way because we spent three weeks on Russia.  Albeit they were spread out over a holiday and other activities going on in our lives.  :)

We included the following two books during our coral reef studies.  The Coral Reefs book went along really well with the information we learned in our Properties of Ecosystems science book.  The book One Night in the Coral Sea was another one we really enjoyed.  It describes how the coral reproduce in detail.

Did you know:
1. Coral are actually the skeletons of  soft animals called polyps and they make their own skeletons to protect themselves.
2. Coral only reproduce one time a year in late spring a few days after the full moon.  My ds was so excited a couple of nights ago when he realized it's spring and it's almost time for a full moon.  He is aware that Australia's seasons are opposite ours but he also knows there are coral reefs in the Caribbean.
3.  The polyps release their eggs and sperm into the ocean.  Then it is up to the sperm to find the right species of egg to fertilize.

 We also watched the following DVD's.  The kids watched the Great Barrier Reef section of the Nat Geo DVD Deep Sea Dive during our coral reef study.  During our Australian animals study they watched the Australia section of the Animal Atlas Animal Passport DVD. 

For fun the kids watched an old Crocodile Hunter DVD and the Disney Movie Rescuers Down Under.  Both movies I requested from Netflix.  I attempted to have them watch the Disney movie Finding Nemo but apparently it just wasn't meant to be.  We couldn't find our copy and the copy I got from Netflix was damaged.  :(

We also added a few easy to read animal science books pictured below in addition to the Big Book of Animals Australia section.

And I added the Look What Came From Australia book as well.  I love those books.  :)

Our science this unit was to plant seeds from a kiwi fruit.  It's supposed to take about a month for them to sprout.  I've been known to not have a green thumb so we'll see.  I can keep just about any kind of animal alive but plants are a different story.  :(

We made the Koala Treats from our Global Art book.  They were made from powdered sugar and peanut butter mixed together and then rolled in cocoa powder.  The eyes, ears and legs were raisins.  The more Beau worked on his the more squashed his became.  It was too funny.  Both kids enjoyed their treats when they were completed and photographed.  The treats did not photograph well but were really cute in 'real life'.

Roo's Koala Treat

Beau's squashed  Koala Treat

An art project I added from the ZooBooks Kangaroo book was called Bark Art.  It's designed to mimic aboriginal bark paintings.

You need a paper bag, a spoon or popsicle stick and a yellow, orange and dark brown crayon.  Tear an 8X8 inch square out of the bag.  Color one side with a thick layer of yellow crayon.  Color over the yellow with an orange crayon.  Use a dark brown crayon to color over the orange and cover the remaining spaces.  Design an animal on a piece of scratch paper.  Then carefully etch your design in the crayon layers using the handle of a spoon or  a popsicle stick.

Beau etched a platypus and Roo etched an emu.  Again, these look better in 'real life'.  These were added to their lapbooks.

Beau's platypus and Roo's emu bark art

We did one big lapbook for Australia.  It included Australia facts, animals and coral reef animals.  These components came from homeschoolshare.com.  They were a combination of the Austrailia lapbook, marsupial lapbook and coral reef lapbook.  We also included pictures of kangaroos and an emu I took while we were on our zoo field trip I blogged about last week.  The stickers were from various sources.

Beau's lapbook pages are on top
and Roo's are on the bottom
of each picture above

 The picture books we enjoyed this time are pictured below.  Roo got a kick out of the Who's Upside Down book.  The Old Woman Who Loved to Read was cute.  The Pumpkin Runner had a great message about kindness and giving to others.  My favorite.

Now on to Antarctica and penguins.

ECC - Kingdom Tales and Christian Bios

We have all truly enjoyed all the read alouds we have read during our studies this year and I wanted to share some of my thoughts about them here.

We have just finished the allegory, Kingdom Tales.  What a wonderful grouping of stories.  We all loved them greatly and I believe it may actually have been the first time my children were sad when a book concluded.  They even asked if I could read it again!

I really loved the thought provoking questions that My Father's World added to the end of each chapter.  My son especially was frequently able to see the parallels between the stories in this book and the Bible.

I know that some have had reservations about reading this book but I would highly recommend it.  It was a beautiful story.  For me, the only story I really wasn't crazy about was The Carnival Daughter but in the end it was still a beautiful story of overcoming fears and bad experiences in our lives with the help of 'The King'.  (Christ)

We also really enjoyed Hero Tales.  The bite sized biographies were perfect introductions to many heroes of the faith.  I need to go through and read the ones that were not scheduled in the Teacher's Manual as we finish out our school year.

We have read all the missionary stories, the six book set Christian Heroes: Then and Now, from the deluxe package portion of our curriculum from this year's studies.  They were all such powerful biographies.  I definitely think it was worth it to spend the extra for the deluxe package items.

My favorite was by far the story of Nate Saint.  It was a beautiful story of how God took such a tragic event and used it for His good.

Beau's favorite books were Amy Carmichael and Cameron Townsend.  He really has a love for India and did have before we ever started our India studies.  He now even plans, when he marries and has children, to name a daughter Amy after Amy Carmichael. 

Roo's favorites were Amy Carmichael and Gladys Aylward.  I think they were her favorites because they were women.  A first grader's logic.  ;)

Nate Saint is missing from the picture below because my mom currently has it.

I added six DVD's from the Torchlighters series.  We would watch these on the Friday evening as a family as part of our end of unit celebrations where they fit appropriately. We all, including Dad, highly enjoyed this series.

The order that I added them to our studies was as follows:

Jim Elloitt during South America after reading Nate Saint's bio
William Tyndale during Europe
Richard Wurmbrandt during Europe
Amy Charmichael during India after reading her bio
Eric Liddell during China
Gladys Aylward during China after reading her bio

Beau's favorite was the Wurmbrant story because of how he stood for his faith even while in prison and how that stand even caused one of the guards to accept Christ.

Roo's favorite was the Amy Charmichael story because of how she rescued girls and adopted them as her own.

My favorite was the Jim Elliott story for the same reasons I loved Nate Saint's story.  They were both two of the five men martered for their faith yet God later brought in Nate's sister and Jim's wife and child to live among the same people who murdered their loved ones.  The forgiveness and love these women showed to these people brought many to Christ.

I believe these books and DVD's have been life changing for our family and a big reason we chose to use My Father's World.  Our family's desire is to serve Christ and our decision to homeschool and to homeschool using My Father's World has been the best decisions, aside from each of us accepting Christ, we as a family have ever made.

Our Saudi Arabia weaving project is finally complete

When we were studying Saudi Arabia and we were working on a camels lapbook I ran across a project in a Camels magazine by Zoo Books.  One of the things the magazine talked about was how camel hair is sometimes used to make blankets, rugs, etc.  The book also gave instructions on how to create your own mock loom to weave a pot holder or coaster.  The project was called 'weaving on a loom'.

(I really like most of the content in the Zoo Books series but they also have a very strong evolutionary message so I am careful to either omit it or discuss it with my kids.)

This project took much longer than I anticipated but I was very proud of my kids for being willing to complete it.  My son especially has a hard time completing projects but has really shown a lot of growth this year in this area.  They were both very proud of their finished product and their hard work.


Roo's is on the left.  Beau's is on the right.

The instructions for these projects are sometimes torn out of the magazines as they are usually in the center section so I thought I would add the instructions here for anyone interested.

You will need a 6X6 inch piece of cardboard, a ruler, a pencil, scissors, colored yarn, string (optional).

1.  Mark the top edge of the cardboard every 1/4 inch.  Make a small cut where each mark is.  Now do the same with the bottom edge of the cardboard.

2.  Tightly wind string (or yarn) around the cardboard.  Each loop of string goes into a cut in the cardboard.  Tightly tie together the two ends to hold them in place (these tied ends are at the back of the loom).

3.  Think about the pattern you want to have.  Choose the colors of yarn that you will use.  Cut the yarn into 12 inch lengths.

4.  Weave the first piece of yarn into the string on the cardboard loom.  The yarn goes over the first piece of string and under the next.  Put it under and over each remaining string on the loom.

5.  The next piece of yarn goes opposite the first one.  It goes over and under the pieces of string on the loom.

6.  Be sure to keep the pieces of yarn that you weave close together.  After weaving a piece, push it close to the others that you have woven.

7.  When you have filled the loom with your weaving, turn it over.  Cut the strings on the back in half.  Tie each loose string to a loose piece of yarn that is nearby.  This will form fringe.  Trim the fringe so that it is even.

Your finished weaving can hang on the wall as art or be used as a pot holder or coaster.

Zoo Field Trip

Our latest field trip with our homeschool group was to the zoo.  My kids never want to miss an opportunity to go to the zoo.  :)

We started out with a guided tour for about an hour.  After the tour we had a picnic lunch in the park.  Then we reentered the zoo and watched the bird show.  After the bird show we had free time to just roam the zoo.  We stayed until both kids had seen every single thing they wanted to see and were ready to come home.  We were all exhausted when we returned home.

During the tour, the guide informed the kids that they were mammals.  All the kids turned to look at the parents.  Being Christians, we believe that we are higher than the animals and that having a soul sets us apart.  One of these days I am going to have the boldness to make that statement when those types of comments are made.

The tour was still very informative.  I think the guide started to become a little annoyed with my son though, because he knew the answers to most of her questions and that seemed to throw her off.  I think she was expecting the kids to not know the answers to most of her questions. When her questions were answered correctly she seemed to get a little lost as to where to take the conversation next.   She even made the statement a few times that my son knew more than she did about many of the animals.

He does love and has always loved animal science so our school studies this year have been right up his alley.  He has stated many times that when he grows up he would love to be able to work at a Christian zoo where he could teach about God's creation.

Following are some of the picture highlights from our trip:

At the Entrance

At the Bird Show

Up close and personal with a few of the birds

At the Manta Ray Touch Pool

At the Rain Forest exhibit

Up close to a turtle at the Rain Forest exhibit

 

My kid's favorite statue at this zoo

It's been a good but tiring week.  Now to finish our Australia studies.

Happy Mother's Day to all!!

ECC Weeks 29-30 - Russia & Arctic Tundra (And Minister's Convention)

We have taken three weeks to complete our Russia and Tundra studies due to the holiday, appointments and a minister's convention but we are finally finished.

Speaking of the minister's convention, my husband is now an officially ordained minister with the Assemblies of God organization.  We are very proud of him for accomplishing this goal in his life.  I am very proud!  He didn't think he was ever going to get there.  Now his goal is to be in ministry full time.  :)

Presentation of the Ordination Certificate

Our family after the Ordination Service

Getting back to our school studies. 


Here are pictures of our permafrost experiment.  This experiment demonstrates how the earth stays frozen year round in the Arctic.  I used orange jello to represent the frozen earth, or permafrost layer and topped it with chocolate chip cookies (instead of dirt that the book called for) to represent the thin layer of thawed dirt.  The kids covered the 'dirt' with a layer of crushed ice or 'snow'.  I didn't think to take a picture of the ice until it was already melting.

Melting "Snow"

Mud and slush created by the 'permafrost',
thawed dirt and melted snow. 

Permafrost is the layer of ground that stays frozen even in summer.

We also did both experiments in our Properties of Ecosystems science book listed on page 75.

Our first experiment was the 'Two Layers of Fur' experiment.  The purpose was to demonstrate how two layers of fur protects the Arctic animals from the cold.  One hand was covered with two layers of gloves and the other hand was gloveless.  They stuck both hands in a bowl of ice. Their gloveless hand didn't stay in for long!  Beau said that his double gloved hand could have stayed in for hours.

Our two layers of 'fur'

Beau with his hands in the ice

Roo with her hands in the ice

Our second experiment from page 75 of POE was the 'Animals Changing Colors' experiment.  The purpose of this experiment was to appreciate how white fur or feathers provide protection for tundra animals.
 
The kids each decorated a box with cotton balls and added pictures of animals with white fur or feathers.  Sort of a diorama.  When the project was complete they stepped back to see how the animals blended in with their surroundings.  They really enjoyed this project.

Beau's Box

Roo's Box

 Our favorite books while studying  the Arctic Tundra:

Our art for Russia included jeweled eggs and paper Matryushka (nesting) dolls.

After reading about the first Faberge' or jeweled eggs the kids each created their own jeweled egg.  They used Crayola Model Magic for the eggs.  They then decorated the eggs with sequins, plastic jewels and rick rack.

Beau & Roo's eggs

We enjoyed reading the following while our jeweled eggs were drying:

We also enjoyed the following books about Maytryushka Dolls:

After enjoying stories about the Matryushka Dolls the kids made paper Matryushka dolls.  Beau didn't want to color his dolls whereas Roo took two days to color and assemble hers.  Both sets came out really cute.

Beau & Roo's Matryushka Families

The printouts for the paper Matryushka dolls can be found here:

http://www.mssscrafts.com/crafts/matryushka/

Another favorite book we enjoyed while studying Russia:

We also enjoyed the following DVD.  It wasn't directly related to the arctic, though.  It did briefly mention Polar Bears.  :)

We finished our studies by assembling our Russia lapbooks.  The components came from homeschoolshare.com.  Most came from the Russia Lapbook.  Part also came from the Polar Animals lapbook.  The stickers were from a couple of little Dover sticker books called Polar Animals .

Beau's lapbook is on the top
Roo's is on the bottom
Her's has some of the flaps opened

I will share our Australia and Coral Reef studies soon.