MFW-ECC - Week 23 - India, Mountains, and the Three R's

Our Week in Review

Art/Music

Attal, Mattal was not our favorite. It was more like a chant and less like a song. 

We did not get to do the art project of Kathakali Face Painting...maybe next week.

Science

The three R's of conservation: reduce, reuse, and recycle. The kids came up with lots of ways to accomplish this and all on their own I might add :) We also found out there is a place to drop off items to be recycled such as plastic and paper in the next town over. So, during the next few days/weeks, we will be setting up some of our old containers as our own little recycling center. {Pics to come next week}

The kids *started* on their mountains. We plan to finish those early next week so we can turn them into volcanoes at the end of next week. That should make for a really fun experiment. The kiddos can't wait for that one!

Geography

We flew on into India and the kids are liking it so far. They can't wait to write Debabrata (our sponsor child and pen pal), who lives in India, and tell him all about what they are learning :) 

Hummus was technically supposed to be done last week while we were in Saudi Arabia, but we didn't have quite enough time to fit it in then. Besides, my Dad's birthday was this week and the kids wanted to make PawPaw M and their dad some hummus then. The kids really liked it! I wasn't sure if they would because they don't care much for the store bought kind, but the recipe in Another Trip Around the World was a hit!

This post has been linked up at 2 Ladybugs and a Lizard.

MFW-ECC - Week 22 - Saudi Arabia, Camels, Our Environment

Our Week in Review

Art/Music

The kids thoroughly enjoyed the music for both this week and last week. Their favorite song from the past 2 weeks was definitely "Zum Gali Gali". 

Science

Lots went on this week! We talked about pollution, acid rain, global warming, and camels. After learning more about global warming, the kids do wonder why the media tends to get all up in a tizzy about it...especially when the average temperature of the earth has only increased by about 1.2 degrees F in the past 130 years. They learned we need to be cautious and do out best to take care of our environment and the world God has given us, but we don't need to be in a panic mode about everything.

Below the kids are busy learning about why it is important for camels to have such large feet for walking in the sand.

Geography

We did not get a chance to try our hand at making the Hummus recipe as listed in the book A Trip Around the World. We do like hummus though and plan to make some as a treat for Dad next week. We like to eat it with pita bread or tortillas.

Bible

We just finished up chapter 8 in the book Amy Carmichael. We are excited about next week because it appears we'll be getting to the part where Amy goes to India. We are super excited to learn about India as our sponsor child, Debabrata, is from there. The kids can't wait to write to him and tell him of all they will learn about his country.  

Is there anything in particular coming up in your studies that you are super excited about?


This post has been linked up at Discover Their Gifts

Classroom Atlas vs. Intermediate World Atlas for MFW-ECC

My 2nd Edition calls for the use of the Intermediate World Atlas, however, because our wold is changing at such a rapid pace, I chose to go with the updated Classroom Atlas. Because of this, there are a few page discrepancies. If you happen to need them, the corresponding pages for the Classroom Atlas are listed below. A HUGE thanks to Mary who passed these along to me :)

Week 2 - Monday (pg. 16-17); Tuesday (pg. 10-11); Wednesday (pg. 10-13); Thursday (pg. 18-19, 22-27)

Week 3 - Monday (pg. 28-31); Tuesday (pg. 36-40, 41-44); Wednesday (pg. 45)

Week 5 - Tuesday (pg. 31, 62-65, 66-67)

Week 9 - Monday (pg. 68-71)

Week 12 - Monday (pg. 74-79); Thursday (pg. 80-83)

Week 18 - Monday (pg. 84-87)

Week 20 - Thursday (pg. 88-91)

Week 21 - Monday (pg. 98-99)

Week 23 - Monday (pg. 92-97); Thursday (pg. 104-107)

Week 25 - Monday (pg. 102-103)

Week 27 - Monday (pg. 102-103)

Week 29 - Monday (pg. 100-101)

Week 31 - Monday (pg. 108-111); Thursday (pg. 112-113)

Week 33 - Monday (pg. 116-118)  

MFW-ECC - Week 21 - Asia - Saudi Arabia

Our Week in Review

Art/Music

This week, the kids made No-Ruz Centerpieces. We left off the grass plate part and focused on the pencil box part. The kids didn't cover their boxes quite as well as I hoped they would, but they were their creations and they are happy with them the way they are. They had fun and have been using them all week to hold their pencils, erasers, and other items.

Science

We talked about man's impact on the environment, endangered species, and extinctions.

Geography

The kids are still enjoying 'passport days' and are very interested in all the different flags of countries in each continent we come to.  

Bible

We finished up David Livingstone. This was not one of my overall favorites, I think, because it seemed to have more death and sadness to me than the other stories we have read so far. Don't get me wrong, he was an amazing missionary who stored up amazing treasures in Heaven, and really paved the way for the Gospel to be spread throughout Africa. But, his story just had a lot of sadness to it too.




On a different note - Who knew a popcorn popper could be so much fun :)
They really like it when the kernels pop and fly half-way across the room.

We are looking forward to next week and hope you are as well :)

MFW-ECC - Week 20 - Africa, David Livingstone, and a GPS

I thought we were already done with Africa, but apparently, I skipped a week.

So, one more week in Africa it was :)

Our Week in Review

First week back since Christmas holiday went surprisingly well. The only hiccup was A's day time dance class time being changed. Arg! Just when we were getting settled into a good routine :(  We are *trying* to adjust. Next week, we'll try 'plan b' to see if that works out better.

Science

The kiddos were intrigued by the fact that prairie dogs have a special underground toilet chamber. Leave it to my crew to find poop interesting...lol!

Geography

The kids had a lot of fun figuring out their "Air Alphabet" names. This was probably the activity they enjoyed the most this week. They just laughed and laughed.

Trying to get them to understand the global positioning system (GPS) of planes was less daunting when I compared it to the TomTom we use occasionally in our van. We also have a handheld GPS and do a lot of geocaching, so this came in really handy when trying to explain global positioning to them. 

Bible

We are really enjoying reading about David Livingstone. Things sure would have been a lot easier for him if he would have had a GPS back then ;)


If this was your first week back from the holidays...how did it go?




This post has been linked up with Discover Their Gifts

The Giant Brick Ashtray...

During the Christmas break, we decided to take the plunge and start getting our school room/dining room ready for wood floors. We had new carpet installed in this home close to 10 years ago when we first purchased the home, but due to allergies and lots of wear and tear, we decided it was high time to make the change. 

We are still a ways off from actually installing the floors because there are things that need to be done to the room before the flooring can go down. The very first step was to tear down this strange brick wall structure. Through the years, we have used this as a planter for both real and fake plants. About 6-7 years ago, we built a cover for it and turned it into a fish tank holder. Not long after that, my husband covered it with a wood facing and put in a bench so our kids (just little tiny tots at the time) could stand up on the bench and see the fish. They loved those fishies!

The brick wall off to the left in the background when it was a planter

With the bench and fish tank

Last week, we relocated the fish, cleaned up and gave away the fish tank, and tore off all the wood facing. Now, for the fun part! Jason covered the entire thing with plastic to keep down the dust and the kids and Jason took turns whacking away at it. Slowly, we tore down the wall brick by brick. 

When we got down to the bottom, we found something totally unexpected and pretty disgusting...about a foot deep, 2 foot wide, and 4 feet long layer of cigarette butts and cigarette ashes. A giant brick ashtray...inside our house!!!

Sorry, I didn't even think to snap a picture of the disgusting mess BEFORE we cleaned it up. When Jason took the plastic off and we removed all the bricks down to the bottom, all we wanted to do was hurry up and get the mess out of our house!

As I wet down the ashes to keep from from getting everywhere, Jason was scooping us the nastiness in a dust pan. It stunk so bad!

The bags contained the cigarette ashes, cigarette and cigar butts, and brick fragments covered in cigarette ashes. 

Needless to say, I. WAS. MAD! Mad because we were lied to and this home was said to have never been smoked in or a smokers home, mad because I wonder if this mess has played a role in our allergies through the years, mad because we have smelled this musty smell on and off mainly when the house is closed up and we are out of town for several days at a time, and mad because of the disgusting mess WE had to clean up.

Ok, I'm over it now. 

On to step 2 - cleaning and de-cluttering the room. Now that this part is complete and our computer armoire/hutch has found a new home, we can start tearing off the baseboards. This is step 3 and the phase we are currently in. Since this is our school room, the next few weeks/months will be a little crazy as I don't do well when my school room is in disarray. But, I'm looking forward to the final product :)