Obelisks in Egypt- Wk 13

Egyptian Pharaoh's built obelisks as monuments to their reign or conquests. They would be sculpted from granite and carved with descriptions of battles, scenes of their life or events of historical significance.

My students each made one depicting something that we have been studying. 

Mackenzie and Everett chose the 10 commandments from Exodus 20 and Harper chose to 'carve' the 10 plagues of Egypt.

 Pretty cute drawings to accompany the lists.

I suppose these were the first photo albums and since I just finished the 2009 Pam Family album, I can surely appreciate the amount of effort that it took to make these. 

I doubt my albums will be around 5000 years from now but here's hoping.

Field TRIP!! Natural History Museum

The Natural History Museum in LA.

 Perched on the steps waiting for the doors to open.

 Once inside, the first things you see are the skeletons of a triceratops and a T-Rex and a cute little guy in a derby hat.

The full size papa Polar bear was not intimidating to these explorers.

 The Dinosaur Experience was impressive, 

part puppet, part costume, totally cool.

 All the boys were wearing hats which made them easy to spot, not to mention too cute!

 The girls are enjoying a little break next to the mama Polar bear.

 I try to get in one picture to prove that I was there among the beasts.

Story time ended our day

I got a little cuddle time with the daughter who is pining away for a bunny for Christmas

Down on the Farm

I just love a gorgeous Fall day at the Farm.

 An hour's drive with beautiful vistas along the way and we arrive at this.............

 Just try to pick a favorite:

A combine slide:

 A prize winner....

Mackenzie brushed a pygmy goat with extra care.

 After our IL experience with a corn maze (think hot, dusty, thirsty, LOST and not on an island) , it took some extra special convincing that this was a good idea. 

 However, we got our provisions, stayed positive...........

Stuck together...........

AND made it out alive! To the top!

Looks like we need a few more monsters in the family to complete the pictures.

This is the one mom!

A few over here too!

These giant ones make good recliners.

Watch this Mom!

The tractor ride put the farm on display for us, sunflowers, giant gourds, raspberry bushes, avocado trees and citrus to envy. 

Makes  my poor little lemons on my tree look pathetic.

Harper loved every moment and asked if we could come back tomorrow. 

Cartouche

CARTOUCHE

nouna carved tablet or drawing representing a scroll with rolled-up ends,used ornamentally or bearing an inscription.• Archaeology an oval or oblong enclosing a group of Egyptian hieroglyphs, typically representing the name and title of a monarch ( or in this case 6,7, and 9 yr olds)
This is Everett's name in hieroglyph.

Abraham, Sarah and Isaac

Mackenzie is blossoming as a writer. We are working on it everyday and she is growing in patience with the thought of putting pen to paper. Words come easy to her when she is speaking and her vocabulary is astounding to me sometimes but when she goes to write down her thoughts, there is a lack of enthusiasm and creativity. Well, as her teacher, this is something that we are working on together each day with brainstorming, outlining and finally crafting a decent paragraph about our studies. I have found a few little tricks that help her. She loves to see a picture and then describe what is happening, like empty comics or silly pictures where the author gets to tell what's happening, the sillier, the better. Also, an exercise where she dictates to me what she wants to say and then I help her write the first draft. I intentionally do not capitalize or make any punctuation. She then has to correct the piece and copy it in her own handwriting. I think it has to do with being able to think quickly but not write quickly enough to keep up with the flow of thoughts.  Anyway- it's progress. And, I like the drawings.

Memorization of Books of the Old Testament

Love the little lisp.......

This -barely- 6 yr old has managed to be the first one to memorize the books of the Old Testament.  He definitely has a knack for songs,rhythms and music in general so it helped that we used a song we found on Itunes. Only problem is, I wake up with it in my head and can't get it out! UGH. 

We also checked on our mummified apples after letting them sit for 8 days while we played in IL. The apples were shriveled, brown, and weighed 70% less than the apple that wasn't mummified but rather allowed to sit comfortably in a yogurt cup. Turns out the Egyptian mummies took about 70 days to completely dry out before they could be buried.

Such intense concentration and a plethora of silly bands

Apple is buried in salt/baking soda and left for dead further research

Science CLUB!

We've decided that we need t-Shirts for our newly formed science club.

8 kids ages 6-11 all learning about force and motion this week.

My pictures aren't that compelling but the children really enjoyed the experiments. Younger kids built kit cars last week and are learning about motion and gravity.
We just happened to have a built a racing ramp last weekend for one 6 yr old birthday boy. We put it to good use and the cars that we built last week made it down the ramp - at least once. We changed the angle of the ramp a few times to see how that would affect the speed and pushed the cars uphill to show forces at work.

When the wheels really did start to come off, the children switched to lego cars.
 Note for next time: super glue the wheels

The older ones are getting serious with their electric cars. Other than one hair tangling incident, we are sailing along with the help of three mom-teachers. Hypothesizing, Theorizing and generally having fun!




I really enjoy the time spent with other families, the fresh questions, and the new perspectives. Hooray for Science Club.