Country: France
Science: Generals
Bible Verse:
Matthew 9:37b-38
The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.
Matthew 11:28
Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened; and I will give you rest.
Our second stop in Europe is France. Our main project was making an Eiffel tower. I had found some kits last summer and this was a lot easier than doing on our own. However, it was tricky to get all the pieces in place and required a little parental assistance towards the top.
We also made homemade soap. Since we used play-doh cookie cutters it was a lot like doing sugar cookies. Pour the soap, let the girls cut them out, put on pan to dry, pick up scraps and re-melt and start over. By the end the girls had lost interest and I just wanted to be done.
The Geography game is harder for Europe than North or South America. Maybe we just need to play more often.
In science we learned the three main ways that animals defend themselves: flight, trickery, and fight. We sorted animals based on their defense mechanism. We also studies caves. We also learned about animals classifications and turtles and snakes.
We are multiplying by 9 now. Multiplication seems so much easier than addition or subtraction for our girls. Does anyone know why this is?
Since it is Christmas time, we have been doing a lot of Christmas baking. So we talked about how the French like fancy little cookies and cakes and truffles.
Monday, December 21, 2009
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
Grade 3 – Week 14
Country: Norway
Science: Forests
Bible Verse:
Matthew 5:45
That you may be sons of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the eveil and the good and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.
We have moved on to Europe and our first stop is in Norway. For our craft we made a Lapland Felt Square. I didn’t have quite the exact colors of felt so it is not quite “authentic”.
The girls have had lefsa before so we tried a different food – Fruit Soup. Basically you take dried fruit and cook it in sugar and water with tapioca until it becomes more of a pudding texture. Now if we had made about 1/8 of this recipe, it would have been okay. But there was enough to feed a crowd and while everyone tasted it, no one was demanding seconds, adults included. But the girls had fun selecting which dried fruit to include (I let them taste different kinds) and weighing it to get the correct amount.
Since there are no exciting animals unique to Europe, we are studying grasshoppers, mosquitoes, moths, tuataras, crocodiles, alligators, and other insects.
We also did an experiment that we had skipped earlier. Did you know that the shape of an egg is one of the sturdiest and strongest shapes in architecture? We cut the top off of four eggs – trying to get them close to the same size. Next we placed the eggs cut-side down in a rectangular pattern. We than placed books on top to see how much weight these four egg shells could hold. It was quite fun to guess. We started out with paperbacks and ended up taking them off and using heavier books. At 14 lbs, our’s started to crack. Had they been the exact same height, I think we would have gotten more weight on as the shortest one cracked first.
We are also studying northern forests. The MN forestry organization sent me some cool free stuff available upon request. We have some posters, samples of woods, some lesson plans, as well as a paper making kit. We incorporated most of these extra lessons into our program.
Science: Forests
Bible Verse:
Matthew 5:45
That you may be sons of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the eveil and the good and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.
We have moved on to Europe and our first stop is in Norway. For our craft we made a Lapland Felt Square. I didn’t have quite the exact colors of felt so it is not quite “authentic”.
The girls have had lefsa before so we tried a different food – Fruit Soup. Basically you take dried fruit and cook it in sugar and water with tapioca until it becomes more of a pudding texture. Now if we had made about 1/8 of this recipe, it would have been okay. But there was enough to feed a crowd and while everyone tasted it, no one was demanding seconds, adults included. But the girls had fun selecting which dried fruit to include (I let them taste different kinds) and weighing it to get the correct amount.
Since there are no exciting animals unique to Europe, we are studying grasshoppers, mosquitoes, moths, tuataras, crocodiles, alligators, and other insects.
We also did an experiment that we had skipped earlier. Did you know that the shape of an egg is one of the sturdiest and strongest shapes in architecture? We cut the top off of four eggs – trying to get them close to the same size. Next we placed the eggs cut-side down in a rectangular pattern. We than placed books on top to see how much weight these four egg shells could hold. It was quite fun to guess. We started out with paperbacks and ended up taking them off and using heavier books. At 14 lbs, our’s started to crack. Had they been the exact same height, I think we would have gotten more weight on as the shortest one cracked first.
We are also studying northern forests. The MN forestry organization sent me some cool free stuff available upon request. We have some posters, samples of woods, some lesson plans, as well as a paper making kit. We incorporated most of these extra lessons into our program.
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