Our Study of Egypt

For our first three weeks we have been studying about Egypt. WOW! There is so much I did not know about this fascinating culture. I have watched a few things on the History Channel over the years. That has pretty much been it. The boys have been studying from a mix of the Bible and other books. We have even done something that some families choose not to do. We have studied about the ancient Egyptian Religion. *GASP* The ancient Egyptians had no clear cut lines between the secular and the sacred. Everything was {in their minds} of the gods, from the gods or for the gods. Studying about their pantheism has caused something to be more clear to me. When Moses was called by God from the burning bush Moses asked God "Who should I say is sending me?" I always thought that sounded strange. Why wouldn't they know when he said "God" he meant "GOD"? But learning just how many gods they had in Egypt, where these Hebrews had lived all their lives, it clicked. All these false gods had names. Yahweh had to have a name among His people. We watched the movie Prince of Egypt tonight to wrap up our studies. There are several things in it that are not exactly the way the Bible says. Overall, we enjoyed it. After studying the Exodus so in depth, I cried like a baby watching the movie. Samuel curled up in my lap. He's a sweetie. We talked about some of the things that are different. I got tickled when it came on. Benjamin said, "Eww, I bet the part about the plagues is going to be gross." Samuel piped up with "Yeah, I can't wait for the plagues!"

We have been introduced to Usborne internet linked books in the past three weeks. Oh, my goodness! I LOVE these things! I had never heard of them before. They are wonderful!!! Some of the internet links are not exactly our cup of tea (such as making a virtual offering to the gods) but for the most part they are ad-free and kid friendly. Samuel enjoyed making a mummy (because he adores all things gross). Nathaniel and Benjamin found a link to a game called Pyramid Challenge that they like.

In other areas of study, the two little guys are studying Botany. It is harder than Astronomy by a long shot. Or maybe we just know more about space to begin with. Benjamin has teetered between whining "This is hard!" and asking "Is it time to do Science yet?!?!?"

Benjamin checking out the moss growing on the side of the building


Samuel going in for a closer look at the lichen in his favorite climbing tree


The tree I am hoping to identify this year. The seed pods turn black and fall off all over the yard every year. They look like broken bike tires when you look out window.

Nathaniel has jr. high science this year. He is doing General Science. There are not enough nice words to say about Apologia. The first chapter goes through a brief history of scientists. He is really thriving. This is not an easy course. I was worried that he would be upset when he did not make 100 on his first test, but he took it alright. I think he was relieved that he made an A. That was a tough test! He has done several experiments so far.

Professor Gilliland consulting his text.


All smiles when his first experiment of the year worked like it was supposed to.

Latin is kind of slow-going. Learning a language is hard, and the boys are working hard at it. Benjamin is a bit jealous that Samuel has a Latin book that has a monkey in it. (go figure) He also thinks his Latin book is "too hard". Yet, until it is time for Latin all I hear out of him is "Is it time to do Latin?!?!?"

Benajmin and Samuel playing Latin Monkey Match.

Overall, the first three weeks have gone smoothly. Sure, there has been some whining. There is whining sometimes in the summer and on the weekends. We deal with it and move on. On the first day of school, just a few minutes before 6:00 am I hear a vehicle outside. It was the roofers. Did I mention that Mark was working night shift that week? UGH! On the ONE DAY I forgot to put my "school in session" sign on the door a Jehovah's witness came to visit. ARG!!! And we really have to keep a close eye on Benjamin because if we don't he likes to sneak off and do this
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What can I say? He's not a morning person. :)

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I tried to put this directly on the page to show off the stuff that the boys have made, but alas, either I am just dumb or photobucket is too full of errors.

"Udderly" Adorable!!!!

Celebrations

Finally getting around to posting the pictures from the end of our year. Hope you enjoy!!

Painting their last day of school rocks


on the couch with their model of the ISS


Singing this. Nathaniel did the speaking part.



Samuel entertained the crowd by singing the Battle of New Orleans, complete with a tennis racket banjo


Then he decided that he needed a microphone


We also went to Susan Moore High School's graduation recently. It was probably the best graduation ceremony I know of recently. Instead of a bunch of adults tooting their own horns the whole focus was on the class and their achievements. The salutatorian was a babbling idiot(let's just say she made a good advertisement for homeschooling!), but the valedictorian was well spoken enough to more than make up for it.




The boys with Uncle Jonathan


Amanda, Jonathan, and Anna Claire


Maybe I enjoyed the graduation since I got to hold Anna Claire during the whole thing!

Homeschooling Heartcheck

Ah, Christmas break. A very nice time to sit back and reflect on the whys and hows of our homeschooling journey. I know some people might think I am still in the "honeymoon phase" but I am seriously so glad that we have been able to start this. There are headaches along the way. I mean, five people being together 24/7 can seem a little cramped. We do get on each others' nerves. I wouldn't have it any way, though.

If we were not homeschooling, we would not be able to pick and choose our own field trips. We would have to do what ever the school deemed appropriate for each age, and the boys would have to go separately. There are countless times that we either had to get a babysitter or only one of us go on a field trip with the kids because siblings were not allowed to come. There have even been a few trips where our kids were the ones with no parent along for the ride because dad had to work and mom could not get a sitter. So now we are able to do things as a family. If we decided to go somewhere, we just do it. We can rearrange our schedule to fit our needs. We have done school at night, and on Saturday, just to be able to do something that we wanted during the day.

This might sound a bit selfish, but I like the fact that our kids are learning from us. They are not being forced to learn boring crap that never gets used in life. Even their word problems in math are something useful such as: there are three boys in the family. Mom cooks nine pieces of bacon. How much bacon does each boy get? Very unlike the the stuff about how one canoe left port A at 5:00 heading north while another canoe left port B at 6:30 heading south. When will the two canoes meet? I have never to this day as an adult used anything to do with canoes or trains leaving separate places and meeting somewhere. Making sure everyone gets the same amount of bacon (or candy or chicken or whatever) is something I do frequently. I don't have to worry about them being told dirty jokes by their teachers. I still remember a joke that my pervert 8th grade history teacher told our class. I think one reason that the joke has stuck with me so long was because I did not get it at first, then when I finally did get it (months later) I had one of those EEEWWWWW moments. And as far as pervert teachers go-I do not have to worry about that. My kids are here.

We have had so many moments that would not have been possible if the guys were at school. Times that are not anything magnificent- just times of laughing together about our new Captain Underpants names (I am Flunky Lizardnose and over there is my husband-Pinky) or watching a movie together, maybe just watching the older boys read a book to Samuel or Samuel read a book to one of his stuffed animal friends. We have just had a lot of good "moments".

For the most part I have been very pleased with our curriculum choices.
Math-I can not imagine ever changing from Math-U-See I have had so many aha! moments myself with it. Like for instance, I always got confused as a kid about area and perimeter. One thing MUS teaches is that a good way to remember perimeter being the rim. peRIMeter-outer edges. Cool, huh?
Science- Once again I can not imagine changing. Apologia has really great books. Nathaniel will be in the more advanced books next year, but I have looked at the sample given on their website and am very impressed. It is not stuffy, boring science. It reads more like a real book (literature) than a text book. Not that I am saying text books are all bad, but most of the time I would not want to just sit and read one like it was something by Charles Dickens. These books are different. I have to hide our science book sometimes because Nathaniel and Benjamin want to read ahead. Who would have ever thought that????
English-Nathaniel is not too wild about Shurley Grammar. He would prefer not to do English at all. So sometimes English with him is quite the chore. I have to set a timer most of the time or he will waste the whole day on a writing assignment or vocabulary words. Benjamin and Samuel, however love it. Samuel is not actually doing it, but he is in the room when I am working with Benjamin. He can spot the subject noun, verb, adjective, adverb, and article adjective sometimes faster that Benjamin. (much to Benj's chagrin)
History/Literature everything else- When I first began researching homeschooling I really like some aspects of Konos and some aspects of Veritas Press I even told Mark what I really wanted was something that had the awesome educational value and classical styling of Veritas, mixed with the unit study style and the hands-on learning approach of Konos. In the end we went with konos because it would not require me to be teaching totally different things to each of the boys at the same time. Now I have found what I was looking for. Tapestry of Grace. It is a unit study that covers k-12. It is classical. They will be exposed to great works of literature of the English-speaking world. Most importantly, it is very Christian. They got the name Tapestry of Grace because they said all of history is like the threads of a great tapestry God is weaving. Everything works according to God's plan. We might not always be able to see what He is weaving into our lives, but we do know it is for His glory. I saw something on a TOG user's blog where you could order a free three week sample. I was blown away! This feels like home, so to speak. It is very teacher involved (ah, dang! no sneaking off for a nap during the middle of the day) and very meaty. The kiddos will be learning stuff I never learned in elementary or middle school. I really think it is awesome. Our first year we are going to be studying creation through the fall of Rome. I like the way they break it down into each year having having four units. Each unit has nine weeks. So it is organized in a way that keeps you on track.

It is late, so I must leave you my blogging buddies. Before I go I would like to ask, if you are homeschooling, what are some of your favorite A) aspects or benefits of homeschooling; B)curriculum choices or curriculum changes that you have made over the years.

Fun Days, Christmas Parties and an Ugly Cake

I always thought that Benjamin was the boy who looked the least like his dad. I, was wrong.

It almost reminds of Arnold Schwarzenegger and Danny Devito in Twins

I know that this is going to seem really weird, especially in light of my post a few days ago about not "doing" Santa anymore. The company that Mark works for has a big Christmas party every year for the employee's kids. Guess who is a special guest that gives all the kids presents????

You know you are out in the country when Santa arrives in the back of a truck!


Benajmin with Santa



Samuel with Santa

Santa at Huhtamaki only buys gifts for kids up to age 10. This was Nathaniel's first year to be a big kid that did not get anything. He got some cars later from Wal-Mart.

Benjamin got a hand-held football video game. (Ha-ha!! I bet Annmarie likes that!!)


Samuel got a helicopter thing. He loves it. It even sounds like a real helicopter!!

Later on that same day we had a birthday party for Jesus at church

The pizza lady had wonderful timing-right in the middle of the Bible story


Nathaniel, Benjamin and Brenton chowing down


Samuel almost always sits close to his buddy Sophia


The girl table


Kavan wanted to sit all by himself


We played Pin the Star in the Sky


And ate a special cake. Notice the cake is round, like the world. And white. White stands for the purity of God. God is perfect and holy.


See the hearts? They represent God's love going all around the world.


Like the Star of David? Jesus was from the family of David. (there was later a candle in the middle of the star, showing how Jesus is the light of the world, but it did not make it into the picture)


Inside, the bottom layer (chocolate) represents the blackness of our sin. The middle layer (Red Velvet) represents the blood of Jesus. The top layer (white) represents our new life in Christ. Cool cake, huh???

So we attended two very different parties today. Afterwords, we came home and I wrapped Christmas presents while the boys played. Mark came into the room where I was (our bedroom) and asked when I wanted to tell the boys about Santa. We decided to do tonight. Now was a good time. So we called them into the room. We told that we hoped they had had a good day. They said they did. Benjamin said he liked the party at church better because it was about Jesus. So we told them we had to apologize to them about something. That we had been lying to them. They did not get upset. They did not freak out. As a matter of fact, Samuel looked at the presents I had been wrapping and "That longest present must be mine. I asked for a lightsaber with spikes and lightsabers are long so that one has to be mine." Then Benjamin figured out that while we had been in Wal-Mart earlier and Mark "had to go look at something" he was getting something without them seeing it. We have some sneaky kids.


The ugly cake: I had no idea what this was supposed to be until my sister looked at it and said "It's a chimney. See, Santa'a legs are sticking out of it." Wow, I thought I was the smart one!!


Benjamin came into my room wanting his picture made because he was looking all silly. He said "Maybe you should blog about this"


Samuel had to join in too. Word to ya mutha. Peace out, dawg!

Fun With The Sun

Wrapping up our sun study was lots of fun. We learned a lot. One thing about our study kind of bothered me. Our science curriculum is written for Christians. So why in the world would we have to waste yummy chocolate by melting it in the sun?!?!?!?!? What kind of person does that?!??!?! (obviously we are just the kind of people to do it)

Wow, I need to work on my figure. That shadow looks like a Sasquatch.


Nathaniel had the biggest spot of sunlight



Benjamin used a medium sized spot of sunlight.


Samuel used a teeny tiny spot of sun. (Part of our experiment was to see how fast the chocolate melted with each size spot.)


Check out the heat radiating from the candy!!


What happens to 1/4 of a chocolate bar when left alone with Nathaniel for nearly an hour with a magnifying glass.


The plate held up pretty well to all that heat. Must be those awesome people who make Chinet so special. ;-}


We made pinhole viewers today. Samuel looks so observant with his, doesn't he?


Cool, huh? It actually worked!!

Wonders of the Universe

We have been working hard on the science so far. Of course the boys think doing science is more of a treat than a chore, so that is very nice. One thing that they had to do is to come up with a mnemonic phrase to help them remember the order the planets in the solar system. I gave them the option of working together or each one coming up with their own. So they chose each man for himself. Benjamin wrote: My vary exsited monkey jumped six new patterns.(HMMM... methinks we had better get to work on spelling) Samuel said: Mom Vader excelled at many jumping stations under Nathaniel's presidency. Nathaniel came up with My very excited mom jumped seventeen unbreakable non-horizontal poles. Nathaniel and Samuel even illustrated theirs.


Today we made a model of the solar system using balloons to represent the planets and sun.


Yesterday we read a book about Galileo. In the book it talked about him dropping two balls of different weights off the leaning tower of Pisa. We do not have anything that tall, but we still decided to try it from the fort.

Dad instructs the boys on what to do


Oops! They let go at different times. Try again!!


Better. Would have been even better if mom had snapped the camera just a second sooner so you could actually see the balls.