I've been a little lax in my blogging lately. So here's two busy weeks in one post. Luckily, the themes of each week goes together. We just finished up talking about Moses and the Exodus. Next week we start talking about Joshua leading the Israelites so if I had to combine posts, these would be the two to combine.
I introduced Claire to one of my favorite movies,
Prince of Egypt. We found the entire movie on Youtube and she watched half one day and half another day. I didn't want her to watch sections of it before we'd discussed them, so we broke it up into two days. She loved it. (Note to self:
Prince of Egypt should be added to Claire's Christmas list).
Letter G and the Yellow Tutu
We got going with the letter "G" She traced it with her finger, applied lentils to a big letter "G" and through it all, was insistent upon wearing her yellow tutu dress. Homeschooling at it's finest. . .
Two Day Plague
But then the two day plague hit. Wednesday night the girls went to swim class with no problems, came home and ate dinner, then went to bed. An hour or so later, Claire began to cry. She'd thrown up. All over her bed. We cleaned her up in the shower, brought out the kids air mattress, and brought her up a soup pot in case she had to throw up again. Awful stuff. The mess was pretty bad and she was just miserable. A few hours later, Ashlyn began to throw up in her crib. After cleaning her up and re making her bed, we finally got back to bed around 4am. Luckily, this only lasted until late Thursday night. The girls were miserable that Thursday, though, and although they were done throwing up by Friday, they were still tired and moped around the house. We didn't get much "school" done those couple of days but we did get a lot of snuggling done and a lot of
Jungle Book watched (over and over and over again).
Although, by Friday we were ready to start reading and talking about Moses again, even if it, mainly, took place while resting.
Follow the Leader and the Parting of the Red Sea
This is Claire following me around the house. Whatever I did, she did. Hopping, raising our arms, dancing, skipping (sort of) climbing up and down the stairs. We talked about how Moses led God's people out of Egypt and into the desert. They were headed for the promised land!
Ashlyn tried her best to keep up. . .
Uh oh. When we got to the bottom of the stairs, we found the "Red Sea" What were we going to do?!
Then we remembered how God told Moses to raise his staff and when he did, the water parted and the people could walk safely onto dry land. A miracle, designed to preserve the people of God and protect the line of our Savior!
Then we went to do another little craft to reinforce the Red Sea miracle. Ashlyn always tries to participate if she's awake during Claire's school time. This time it involved her attempting to color like sister.
Claire drew fish onto a sheet of white paper. I told her we were going to draw what is under the water. At first she said, "I can't draw fish, mommy!" But after a few reminders that we "always try" she drew a few. They weren't too bad, really. She just worries about getting it wrong, I think.
Then we got to play with watercolors. I taped down the center of the paper using artists tape and let her paint the entire paper blue. She really wanted to go crazy with the colors but I told her she could AFTER we finished painting THIS piece of paper blue. This was fine for her.
While we waited for the blue to dry, she got her wish :-)
Then, when the blue dried, she painted the center of the paper brown. We blew this dry and added "waves" to our Red Sea model using construction paper and scissors and glue!
I guess I didn't get a picture of the final product, but if you can imagine those construction paper waves being glued onto the sides of the brown painted paper, you get the idea. If I could do it again, I'd probably try to get her a little paperdoll Moses that she could walk through the center. She really seemed to "get it" with this project.
In order news, Ashlyn got a new look this week. :-) Mommy found this online and had to go for this impulse buy. Just had to add it.
Our letter "G" on the ground wound up, first, being a track for her little cars and ended up being a track for her BIG car. All her idea.
And we finished up our "study of G" with practicing writing in her copybook. Not too bad. The "lines" are totally lost on her but at this point, I really don't care. So long as she's getting to play a bit with writing.
Another favorite activity this week was the "Manna in the Desert" lesson. I ripped up strips of paper, spread it all over the floor and Claire picked up the paper and put it in her basket. Super simple, super fun, super short. Happy kid.
We spent a good amount of time doing numbers and counting this week.
Little Hands to Heaven has it's own counting and numbers component to it. Sometimes I do it, sometimes I skip it in favor of some of the counting and number activities in her workbook. She, actually, does really well with numbers. If this ends up being something she really has an aptitude for, well by all means, Daddy's going to have to take on a big chunk of her education. :-)
A few things from Week 9
First off, a few pics of fun with the "Letter H." During her "glue things the the letter" project, she had trouble not eating the Cheerios. I had to refill the bowl twice!
Couple fun things we did with the Bible stories centered around Moses and the building of the Tabernacle. We talked about how they built it and then people brought God things that they loved for his house! Claire we made our mini Tabernacle with Duplos, aluminum foil and a sheet of paper towel. She thought the gifts should be brought in using her Duplo Truck. She gave God some
doTERRA Oils (perfume), jewelry and then some Duplo fruits and veggies. Not totally Biblically accurate, but I let it side for the purpose of teaching a concept. Giving your best to God. The one Tabernacle activity we did that I couldn't get pictures of because we had to do it in the dark, was one of my favorites for the week and I think one of her favorites, too. I took Claire's little Kidco Peapod tent and told her that was "God's House" or the Tabernacle. We talked about how God led the people through the desert with a fire by night and a cloud by day. So we shut off all the lights after dinner and I took a flashlight and held it over the tent. Then, I'd shut it off, move to another part of the house. She would have to pick up the tent and travel to the place where the fire went. She loved this and it really drove the story home!
We ended with the story of the spies in the Canaan. We talked about how the spies brought back HUGE grapes for the people from the land but that the people were afraid. The land of good and God had given them the land but people were still afraid and forgot to trust God. No matter how scary, we trust Him with our lives! It was a message for our whole family this week!
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| Her "grapes on a vine" project to signify the large, plentiful fruit in the land God promised to the Israelites! |
