Our Fall Activities 2011

We have had a busy but fun month of October.  We were able to participate in some really fun activities.

Early in October we went on a field trip with our homeschool group.  It was actually two field trips in one day.

Our first stop was the Bass Pro Shop.  The group had a tour guide take us through the store.  Who knew you would ever need a guide to take you through a store??  The tour guide even gave them free play at their laser shooting range for about 15-20 minutes.  The kids (and their dad) loved it!
   

Our next stop was at a huge pumpkin patch.  In addition to pumpkins, they had all kinds of other activities.  The kids participated in many of them.  Some of which are pictured below.

 Here the kids are on petal powered racers.

This was serious business.  ;)

This activity was called pillow jumping.

It was basically a giant, air filled, outside bounce house.

This activity was called Pumpkin Blasters.

The pumpkins were shot out of a cannon

like apparatus at around 100 mph!

 Here the kids are on the zip line.

Roo is in the orange shirt.

Beau is in the black.

 A few weeks later we took the kids to an annual event held at a nearby zoo.  The zoo opens their gates in the evening and allows kids to wear costumes.  There are vendors throughout the zoo handing out candy.  We enjoy this event as the kids get to collect candy, wear a costume and see the nocturnal animals when they are the most active. 

This year Roo was the Nile Princess that drew Moses from the water.  Beau was the adult version of Moses.  This fit in perfectly with our CTG studies.

Here are Roo and Beau in costume

Here the kids are posing with their cousin K,

who dressed as a 'nerd'.

 The kids observing the elephants.

Fun was had by all.

CTG Weeks 7-8

Here are the highlights of our CTG weeks 7-8. 

  

 When we were making a cartouche we used Crayola Model Magic and rubber stamps from the book and stamp set called Fun with Hieroglyphs.  (Picture from Amazon.com)  Beau decided he wanted to write a message and not stamp his name so he didn't actually make a cartouche.  Roo did both a message and her name.  Beau's message says 'Beware of Hippos and Crocs' and Roo's says 'I love dogs' followed by her 'cartouche'. 

While reading about Lot we did a lapbook piece that turned Lot's wife into salt.  That made a big impression on my kids.  It was a very good visual that brought lots of questions such as why Lot's wife might have looked back.

We also did a lapbook piece of Abraham, Sarah and Issac.  The outside was covered in stars to represent God's promise to Abraham.

Beau was having a hard time with telling the difference between Lot and Abraham when I was reading about them but it finally clicked with him when we watched the cartoon Greatest Heroes and Legends of the Bible: Sodom and Gomorrah from Netflix.

We also watched and enjoyed the Nest Entertainment DVD Abraham and Issac.

Our version of the tomb wall paintings included Crayola Model Magic, Fun with Egyptian Stencils by Dover, paint and blotter.  We made the 'tomb tile' from the Model Magic on the day we did the cartouche project.  After it dried we taped stencils to the 'tile' and blotted the stencil with paint.  We then let them dry and the project was done.

 

We also did the wax seal project.  We didn't make our own out of a potato but I had these small, wood decorative pieces that we used.  We also used the beeswax that we used last year during our ECC program.  I placed the wax in warm water to soften it.  While it was softening, the kids wrote notes on the inside of their 'letters'.   We then put some of the wax on the outside and pushed the wood decorative piece into the wax.  The wood stuck a little so I sprayed a little Pam cooking spray on it to make it easier to pull out of the wax.  :)

I served Lentil Soup in bread bowls after we learned how Esau sold Jacob his birthright.  The kids thought it was very good but not good enough to sell someone's birthright for it.  lol 

As I've mentioned before, our science this year is Apologia Exploring Creation with Zoology 3 - Land Animals of the Sixth Day (Zoo 3).  The kids are LOVING it!!!

In addition to the reading, we completed a lapbook page and the experiment for lesson 1.

The experiment was about animals and camouflage.  We tore up and threw in our laundry basket red, orange and green construction paper.  We then threw in M&M's, the same amount of each color.  The kids then had 2 minutes to find as many M&M's as possible.  The last picture I have posted shows our results.  I think since they were both hunting for the M&M's I should have cut the time in half.  They still enjoyed the experiment and understood the purpose.

 Our weeks 9-10 are almost complete.  Hopefully, I'll be able to post about them soon.  :)

Ancient Egyptian Death Mask Directions

The following includes my directions for creating an Ancient Egyptian Death Mask.

Materials needed:

Foam board

Paper mache' mask (mine were from orientaltrading.com)

(I think a plastic mask, such as the ones Michael's carries, might also work)

Elastic cord for mask (if mask doesn't come with one.  Ours didn't but we had a few from another project.)

Gold acrylic paint

Blue acrylic paint

Black acrylic paint (for details)

Light blue and red acrylic paints (for female mask details) 

White card stock (for beard on male mask) 

Supplies needed:

Box cutter or large x-acto knife (box cutter was easier to use)

Large piece of cardboard (to use as cutting board under masks)

Masking tape

White glue

1" foam paint brushes

Thin paint brush (for details)

Other various paint brush sizes (for female mask details)

Pencil

Directions:

Draw an outline of the paper mache' mask in the center of the foam board.  (The paper mache' masks I used had a lip all the way around so I drew another outline about 1/4" - 1/2" in from the original outline.

Free hand the basic shape of a death mask with a pencil around the paper mache' mask outline. 

Lay cardboard under the foam board when cutting to protect your work surface.

Use a box cutter to cut around the death mask shape and smaller center area.

Use white glue to glue on paper mache' mask and secure with masking tape.

If making a male mask, make a cone shape out of white card stock.  Glue with white glue and secure back corners with masking tape.

With a pencil draw lines for sun rays.

Let glue dry overnight.

Paint paper mache' mask and every other penciled line on foam board with gold acrylic paint using a 1" foam brush.  Start painting lines at the top so that the top middle section is gold.  It may take 3 to 4 layers of gold paint to cover gold areas completely.

Fill in the remaining areas with blue acrylic paint.

Let paint dry overnight.

With a small tipped paintbrush paint on details around eyes, eyebrows, nostrils and criss cross pattern on beard (for male mask) with black acrylic paint.

For female mask use appropriate sized paint brushes to paint eyelids with light blue acrylic paint and lips with red acrylic paint.

Let paint dry overnight. 

This project probably took about three hours total, not counting drying times.  Plan for this project to be completed over a three day period due to the drying times.

Foam board with outline drawing.
(This was my second one so I was able
to trace from the first one and start at the top
to cut down a little of my cutting time.)

Foam board cut out

Foam board cut out with mask from front view

Foam board cut out with mask from back view

Foam board cut out with lines drawn - female mask

Foam board cut out with lines and beard - male mask

Painting sun rays - female mask

Painting sun rays - male mask

Painting details - female mask

Painting details - male mask

Completed masks

Kids with their completed masks

CTG Weeks 4 - 6

EDIT TO ADD --  It took me so long to post about weeks 4 and 5 that I didn't realize I added in our week 6 activities as well.

I'm finally posting about our Creation to the Greeks weeks 4 & 5 activities.  We completed some fun and interesting projects those two weeks.

We did two Nile River projects.  One was a lapbook piece from homeschoolshare.com listed under 'Ancient Egypt'.  We are completing different pieces of this lapbook as they fit into our studies.

We also completed a cute Nile River project that included an alligator from the Evan-Moor History Pockets book Ancient Civilizations.  The kids really enjoyed letting their alligators roam up and down their 'Nile'.

I purchased a kit called Lift the Lid on Mummies.

The Mummies kit was more difficult than I anticipated.  There was barely enough gauze that came with the project so we ended up using gauze from our second mummy project.  And the canopic jars were supposed to be glued but that was impossible.  After much frustration from me, Beau finally said, "Mom, why don't you just use tape?"  Why didn't I think of that!!

It was still an interesting project.  The mummy opened into two pieces and we removed the vital organs, except the heart.  We then wrapped the mummy, putting (sticker) charms between the layers.  We cut out and assembled the cardboard canopic jars and placed the plastic tops on them.  We then laid the mummy back into the case (Sarcophagus) and placed on the paper death mask.  I did NOT make the enclosed cardboard cat mummy.

We also completed a simple mummy project that the kids really enjoyed.  I got the idea from the Countries Around the World project book I got from Michael's this past summer.  My modified directions are listed below.

Materials list:

• Wood Clothespin
• All Purpose Glue
• Wiggle Eyes
• Scissors
• Sticky gauze

Directions:

Wrap 1" sticky gauze over clothespin and press down with fingers. Glue on two wiggle eyes.  Done!

Yet another mummy project we completed was called "Where's My Mummy?" from our Ancient Egypt History Pockets projects book.   The kids decided to add foam 'amulets' to the toilet paper covered mummy.  You can see a couple peaking out from under the toilet paper on one of the mummies.  

I also added an Egyptian Tomb Dig & Play project that the kids really enjoyed.  We have completed dinosaur digs in the past and they are always a hit around here so I knew they'd like this one.  This kit was a little different in that it was a dig AND a game. 

Having done similar projects in the past we had some extra digging tools so that both kids could work at the same time.  The kits we've done in the past had safety glasses.  This one did not but the kids felt they needed them so they pulled out their sunglasses.  lol   When we got about half way through the project I was able to break the 'brick' in half so that each of them was able to work a little more independently.

After the dig was completed and cleaned up, the game began.  :)

Two more projects we completed from our History Pockets Ancient Egypt project books was 'The Great Pyramid at Giza' and 'Inside a Tomb'. 

 

We viewed a cool online panoramic view of the Sphinx and the pyramids at Giza.  There is also a quiz at the end.  The kids loved it.  If this link works you can view it here:   http://www.childrensuniversity.manchester.ac.uk/interactives/history/egypt/pyramid_panorama.asp 

We also completed some activities and created a lapbook page from homeschoolsare.com listed under Ancient Egypt.  See below.

A favorite book we found for this unit was a find at our local library.  It is a pop up/pull tab type of a book entitled Tutankhamen's Tomb.  The kids have really enjoyed referring to this book over and over again.  Each time we learn something about mummies or tombs they pull the book out again and refer to what it was that they learned.

We completed death masks that came out really cool. 

I'll be adding directions to these very soon.  I hope.   :)