Israeli Meal & Headdresses

This week in Creation to Christ my daughter was to make a shepherd's headdress and have an Israeli meal. We made Israeli girls dresses from "Old Testament Days"

Our meal consisted of the following:
Ground Beef Gyros (pita and seasoned ground beef)
Grapes
Olives
Cucumbers
Goat Cheese
Cucumber Sauce & tomatoes (for the Gyros)
Grape Juice


We set a sheet on our living floor for a table cloth...placed all the food in the middle and sat on the floor. We took the food from the middle and put it on our plates and ate w/o utensils. After the meal we gave a traditional Jewish blessing (adapted and consolidated):

"Blessed are You, LORD, our God, King of the universe, Who brings forth bread from the earth, Who creates varieties of nourishment, Who creates the fruit of the vine, Who creates varieties of spices, Who creates the fruit of the ground, through Whose word everything comes into being"

CTC Science Experiment

Emily's science experiment for "Land Animals of the 5th Day" by Jeanne Fulbright. This is the "habitat" to which she added a pack of m&m's

Now she has to find the m&m's in their habitat, some are harder since they blend with the background

Still Looking

Here are the M&M's she found. She had to document this by stating how many of each color she had put into the "habitat" and then how many she found. At the end of the experiment we got to eat the M&M's :D

First Day of School Pics

School Year Plans

We are getting ready to start up school in a couple of weeks and time to talk school plans. I am so thankful that the Lord has led me to use "Heart of Dakota" curriculum last year. We had a great year. Besides the fact that it's an open and go manual, it's Charlotte Mason approach, it's combination of learning styles, and ease of use, I especially love the fact that it is Christ centered.

I am very excited about this years plans. This year from Heart of Dakota we will be using "Beyond Little Hearts for His Glory" for Z (7) & B (6) along with Singapore Math 2A & 2B and 1A & 1B respectively. For A (9) I will be using "Bigger Hearts for His Glory" with the extensions. Since she is at the older end of the spectrum and the boys are hot on her heels and we will be repeating this next year I decided to do the history and science extensions as the main core and read them aloud. For my oldest dd - E (11) we will be doing HOD's newest manual "Heart For Him Through Time - Creation to Christ" (which I just received hot off the press yesterday). It look's so good and I am especially excited that it includes teaching them to have a quiet time and personal devotions, something I am not consistently good about reminding her of. She will also be doing MUS Zeta for math, "Meet the Great Composers" for music, and "Picturing America" for art. I will also be using "Drawn into the Heart of Reading" (for reading) for both my girls.

For organization, I will also be trying a modified version of workboxes. If you have never heard of workboxes check out this blog. Since I have 4 school age childen the actual boxes would not be practical for me space wise. I saw on another blog how someone uses file folders. I have 4 shelfsize file holders that I will spray paint each child's color (yes my children are color coded: E - Blue, A - Red, Z - orange (or yellow), and B - green). Each folder will be the equivelant of a box. There are 9 - 10 boxex in each HOD manual so I will have that many folders in each child's file box. Each folder represents a subject. I will place all books and paper necessary for that subject in the folder and then number them in which order I think they should be done. Hopefully this will allow our school days to run much smoother, schedule wise.

I am also going to try and have fridays be my "picture & post" day of what we for the week.



My top prize picks:
1. Rainbow Resource
2. The Schoolhouse Planner
3. Circle C Adventure Books

Cat Crazy

Today we finished up Little Hearts for His Glory Week 30. The history lesson was about D. L. Moody and how he once let the cat out of the bag....er box (that was not all the story was about). For science we read about cats and then they were to make a cat mask. I had in a box a book entitled, Folk Tale Papercrafts, which did not sell at the last book sale. So I fetched it out and copied the pattern of a cat mask and let my children use that to make their masks. (I can now say that that book will have a place once again on my shelves ;) ). I think God's timing on this lesson was interesting to say the least. Our cat had 3 kittens a couple of months ago and last night we gave the kittens to their new owners, thus making this project more special.

Flags & Medieval Feast

Today in LHFHG we learned about the Battle for Quebec during the French & Indian War. For an art project they were to make their own flag & flag poles. My 7yo ds loves to do this for fun anyway so he had a blast (as did the others). They came in handy tonight for our Medieval feast which was our history project assignment for the week. At the beginning of the week my 10yo dd made trenchers (kind of like large biscuits used as plates). We had beef stew, wine (sparkling grape juice), apples & grapes with cinammon, & cheese. For dessert we had some mini tarts. My daughter found a craft for goblets out of "Days of Knights & Damsels" by Laurie Carlson.


We saved our tuna and cat cans for the tops and 6-8 oz counts (tomato paste & sauce) for the base and caulked them together. Since we have a wooden slab for a table anyway that fit in perfectly. We invited the knights from the next castle (our sons) and they rode in carrying their banners (flags made this morning) Everyone had a great time. Unfortunately the lord of the manor was not there for the feast as he was called away on urgent business. Afterward my daughter used a basin and pitcher for washing our hands.

Our lovely hostess Lady E.

Our visiting knight ~ Sir B.

Drinking from our goblets.

Presidents Day

Today is President's day so I have my children the day off from school. We did watch a cute little biopic of Abraham Lincoln found here: http://www.brainpopjr.com/socialstudies ... amlincoln/

My girls also made a Chocolate Birthday cake in honor of President's day.....yumm!

Preparing is only 4 days a week so having Mondays off fits in fine, for Little Hearts I will just double up on the History, Bible and Storytime for tomorrow!