Child Labor

When you get your Christmas letters this year, try to figure out who decorated yours! :)

Egypt!

We have begun our second term of history with a study of Ancient Egypt! First we made a salt-dough map of Egypt so we could look at and feel what it is like while we study it (it's not my creativity, so don't be impressed - it's just our curriculum!). I enlisted Matt to help with the initial shaping of the map, and then we had to wit about a week until it was dry enough to paint. This week, we have added brown for land, green for the fertile areas, and blue for water. Tomorrow, we will label the map and see where everything is. It has been fun, and the girls have really enjoyed creating it!





We have also begun map studies of Africa, listening to our geography songs CD and identifying countries in Africa. So far, we have identified Egypt, Kenya, Uganda and South Africa, as well as the Mediterranean and Red Seas and the Pacific Ocean. Hopefully, we will add a country or two a week, but we'll see. How many do they need to know at this age? I picked the ones we did because Matt has been to Kenya, they saved money for orphans in Uganda, and we have a friend from Soutah Africa. We'll see how many more we get to. The good news is, they can identify the continents and oceans, so that is pretty good for this age, I think!

We have greatly enjoyed reading from our book for the term, Boy of the Pyramids, by Ruth Fosdick Jones. It certainly has brought Egypt to life, and we have learned a lot about this country!

Yesterday, purely for fun, we built sugar cube pyramids (something I read about on another blog). They enjoyed the building, but I suspect that their favorite part was eating a few at the end! I like these food-based crafts! Next week, we are going to try mummy hotdogs! :)

Pre-Wedding Visit to Jacksonville!

We had a slight change of plans before our friend, Lori's wedding, so I called Grandmother the day before we were scheduled to leave and asked her if she might mind having houseguests for the next two nights. She said to come on, so we did! It was a wonderful treat to get to see her and rest at her house before heading up to St. Simons for the wedding weekend!
She took us to really neat place called the National Estuarine Research Reserves, near St. Augustine. They have a museum there where we watched a movie about estuaries, and then each child (even Liam!) was given a scavenger hunt to complete and bring back to the lady in charge. They searched all over the displays, completed and checked over their scavenger hunts, and then the lady gave them each nice prizes, coloring books and posters and stuff! It was a lot of fun, and we definitely want to go back and explore the next time we are down and have more time to play there!

It was funny how the pelicans were all just hanging out here, each in their own little group.

The girls are excited about manatees, but I was excited to see clams! All of those things sticking up out of the ground are clams at low tide! Pretty spiffy!

Cool trees that make you want to draw them. :)

They were fascinated by the sea foam, especially when it would blow and roll around. (And, yes, it was pretty CHILLY that day!)

Afterwards, we took them to ride on the St. Augustine carousel and play on the playground there.

It was Liam's first time on a carousel, and he LOVED it!

This was a really cool slide at the playground - all rollers! They LOVED it!

Royalty

We have missed the past three weeks of our co-op, first for Katy with the flu, then Darsie the next week, and then Liam this past week. Katy, especially, has been sorry to miss her classes, so I talked to one of her teachers last week to see if there was anything she could do at home. This wonderful mom gave me the book they are reading and the coloring page that went with it. She also gave me the crown that they have been adding to each week so that Katy could add another jewel to it this week. Then, she gave me two other crowns and a whole container of jewels so taht our other two could get into the act, too. It was a wonderful afternoon, and the kids are still very proud of their crowns!

Music Class

Liam's birthday present was a term of Makin' Music classes, and we have been enjoying them greatly! He gets to go on a Mommy or Daddy date each Friday morning to his class (and we enjoy seeing our old friends from when we both worked there)! Some Fridays have not worked out, either from sickness or conflicting plans. However, two friends of ours, who are wonderful teachers (!), also teach a Tuesday morning class and invited us to come (with all 3 kids) when we need to. So, we have availed ourselves of that class several times, especially enjoying seeing Sandy and Denise again! The kids have had a blast as well!

Mmmmm.......Pilgrims!

Today in our month-long pilgrim study, we read about pilgrim girls' chores and then made butter and cornbread (from a box, nothing too fancy!). I forget every year how tiring making butter is, and then every year we make it and I ache for days! It was really good, though, with the warm cornbread! I think history is our favorite part of lessons every day! I am accumulating a whole list of books that we want for Christmas, too!

Can you tell they're posing?

Mmmm!

Schoolwork

Since the girls were sad to see their friends go, one of their assignments today was to write a letter to them (we try to write letters each week). Liam wanted to get in on the action and drew a picture for Annika, and I just had to post another "people" picture, since it is so fun to me to see him drawing recognizable things!