Bigger Hearts for His Glory - Unit 8

This week we studied the characteristic trait Courageous. 

Our verse was Proverbs 25:28

We read in history about the Great Chief Massasoit. After he died, his 2 sons rose up to think ill of the white men. They were angered that they had traded their land for blankets, trinkets, and other small consumable items.  When they gave the white men the land it was overgrown with trees and no use to them.  They did not fathom the villages and settlements to come as the white men cleared and built homes upon the land. 

A great Indian war broke out.  For 3 years many people were murdered and their homes burned.  This was called King Philips War. 

We read about a brave and courageous fighter during a fearful time...  Captain Church, who spoke  with a woman named Awashonks.  She agreed to help the English in King Philips war. 

Our busy week did not allow for the making of the rice wampum belts but, the children were able to  understand their significance in ending the war.  

In Science, we learned that Rittenhouse was able to calculate the distance between the sun and the earth.  We experimented and learned that light travels from the sun in a straight path, unless it is disturbed.   We held up an index card and shone the light through.  

We learned that Venus sometimes passes between the sun and the earth and demonstrated using a plate.  

All this talk about space got us

 excited to do another lap book!  

HOORAY FOR PLANET LAPBOOKS!  

Planet Lapbooks

We learned the planets using a catchy acronym and many more space facts.

My Very Excited Mother Just Served Us Noodle Plates    :)

We finished our planet Lapbooks which was a huge hit with all 3 kids. 

We learned interesting facts about the sun and each planet, their distance from the sun, moon phases, our lunar weight, and important space definitions!

 The children all loved cutting and pasting their Lapbook together and they turned out great! A great free printable resource for planet and solar system lap books:   http://www.homeschoolshare.com/space_lapbook.php

Just love their astronaut people!  :)

We went to the Oceana NAS Air Show this weekend and enjoyed watching the Blue Angels and  all the planes! 

Hope you've had a great week! 

Be blessed! 

Bigger Hearts for His Glory - Unit 7

This week we learned a new character trait...  Industriousness.

Proverbs 6:6-8

We learned about the governor of Boston, John Winthrop, had a heavy task before him. When the ship landed ashore there was a big responsibility to clear the land and plant the fields before they ran out of the good they brought.  They prayed and fasted and were grateful when the ship returned with more food. 

We mixed up some clay and the kids attempted to make wigwams.  These didn't turn out as great as expected but, they had fun crushing leaves and sticking on grass mats... errrr, Golden Graham's. 

We talked about Thomas Smith. We learned he was a smart man that planted one small bag of rice seed in the wetlands of South Carolina. His harvest was plentiful and soon was able to trade his goods. 

A woman in South Carolina wanted to grow Indigo. She tried several times and finally was able to sow her harvest. 

These crops were grown so well that they were eventually traded and sold in other countries. 

We also learned about a patriot named Nathaniel Bacon.  He was feeling oppressed  by the governor of Virginia and all of the taxes that they were being forced to pay.  He was industrious as he stood up  many times for the rights of the people.  He overcame the oppression in seeking a better leadership by eventually burning Jamestown to the ground.  

In Science, we learned about the parts of a flower.  My ds drawings are getting so much better. He is using details and this mommy is proud! 

I cut out these 3 simple shapes:  petals, stamen, and the pistil. They added pollen dots to the ends of the stamen. The children were each able to identify the fertilization process, glue, and label their flowers. 

We talked about our solar system and decided to start working on new Lapbooks. 

The kids all love cutting and gluing onto their lap books and the research is great for them.  There are many great free resources for planets and solar system Lapbooks. 

In English, we learned more about Proper and common nouns. We also took a quick test including verbs also. The kids all did great. 

We received our Pizza Hut Reading Coupons this week and started these book reading charts. These are great motivators and the kids are super anxious to get their prize pizza soon! 

This week our field trip was to Yorktown Victory Center! The weather was perfect! 

The kids enjoyed the tour around the family farm and encampment. Here are a few pictures from our day. 

Washing Clothes

Carrying water! 

It was a fun day learning history with living examples at the Yorktown Homeschooler Days!  The kids always enjoy field trips!

Hope you had a great week too!
Blessings!

Bigger Hearts for His Glory - Unit 6

We had our neighborhood carnival this weekend and rainy days followed most of the week.  I know we needed a good rain though so, we didn't mind too much.

In HOD, we learned about the character trait - faithfulness.  Our verse this week was Proverbs 3:3-4.

Let love and faithfulness never leave you;

    bind them around your neck,

    write them on the tablet of your heart.

4 

Then you will win favor and a good name

    in the sight of God and man.

We read about William Penn and learned that his life was complex as he often ran into troubles  and sometimes prison because of his faithfulness to what he believed. He was born in England and traveled many places in Europe seeking his religious freedom ending in prison more than once for his strong views as a Quaker.  The King of England gave Pennsylvania to William Penn's father to repay a debt.  His father gave it to his son and William Penn went to North America to be free.  He settled in the land friending the Indians with a peace treaty.  His search for religious freedom was successful in the land.

William Penn Worksheet

I found these 2 great worksheets for William Penn on the web. You can print these freebies out to use with your kiddos here:

http://www.education.com/worksheet/article/william-penn/

http://www.homeschoolhelperonline.com/notebooking/biography/william_penn.shtml

We learned William Penn made friends with the Indians and even paid them for the land even though the King had given it to him.  Penn was fair and kind to the Indians. They called him O'Nas.  He friended them and participated in their sports activities...  even a jumping competition. 

Hallway Jumping Competition 

We had our own jumping contest... perfect for a rainy inside day right in the hallway.  The kids played this much of the day! 

Word Search

At worksheetworks.com, I was able to easily create a word search using the vocabulary words through unit 6. This was a great activity for them while I did some planning.  You can make one too here:   Create your Word Search here!

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In Science, we talked about the many strange folk medicine remedies that have been used in the past. 

The kids thought these strange folk remedies were indeed strange! I love the drawings.

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We talked about a boy named Bejamin West and how he used different fruits and even the earth for the colors in his paintings. The kids thought it was creative and odd that he used hairs from the cats tail for his paintbrushes. He was a fine artist.  We learned he was also a Quaker and eventually returned to England to paint for the King. 

We decided to change up the fruit squeezing and painting art project and instead focused on the fact that many colors can be created using the 3 primary colors. 

Mixing Colors Project

The kids had fun with this simple project using the primary colors to create all the colors in the rainbow.  I added several drops of yellow, blue, and red food coloring to small glasses of water. I let the kids use a dropper to mix the colors on their own into an egg carton.  They enjoyed doing this and even found ways to make brown and black. 

Shading Goblets

In art, we talked about shading to make things appear 3 dimensional.  The children grasped the concept and all were age appropriately able to show lighter areas where the light was brighter. 

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In Science, we read about the importance of inoculation in the past to prevent the spread of diseases.  We learned that they were given a small amount of the disease to become immune because of the antibodies that formed. 

9yo Priceless Guess

Our Science experiment was to show how our body fights infection.  At least my 9yo was honest and guessed "I don't know!" Lol! 

7yo Guess

My 7yo guess was technically correct...  "Because God helps us."  I love these Science sheets as they get the kids really thinking!  Her heart is sure precious! 

The body reacts to a virus entering the bloodstream.

We talked about the process and the kids were able to move the cells around to demonstrate how our bodies fight off infection. "A virus goes to the bloodstream and the T-cells tell the body. B-cells show up and make antibodies. The Killer cells kill the virus and the antibodies stay behind to keep me from getting sick again."

We read about the different types of leaves and learned about simple and compound leaf structures. We also learned about smooth, lobed, and toothed leaf edges.  I love my 7yo drawings of leaves.  She did a great job! 

Thankfully, the rain dried up and we were able to have a bit of sunshine on our field trip to Jamestown. 

Jamestown Home School Program

We did take a field trip to Jamestown to learn more about the early settlers.  It was so very neat walking in footprints of the birthplace of America.  The children each went to a special class to learn more about the Powhatan Indians and the Jamestown Village.  We went to the Jamestown National Park and saw glass blowing and the ruins of historic Jamestown. I loved that the kids were able to answer questions and to talk about the things they have learned in HOD. 

"Mom, this is the same map John Smith made and we just drew in school with the rivers and the bay!"

If you ever have the chance to take advantage of the homeschooler days at Jamestown/Yorktown or Williamsburg ... for sure, do it! 

See you next week! 

Be blessed!

Bigger Hearts for His Glory - Unit 5

Our verse this week was Proverbs 18:10

'The name of The Lord is a strong tower.

 The righteous run into it and they are saved.' 

We listened to 'Blessed be the name of The Lord' this week on YouTube.  You can listen here too:  Proverbs 18:10 Song   It helped the kids learn their memory verse easily. 

Our poetry this week was 'Each in His Own Tongue' by William Herbert Carruth.  I've decided to change up the Copywork sheets. We were using the pages from the Facebook files. I love the form but, it just wasn't working with my 7yo who still needs the guidelines with her writing.

7yo Print Poetry Copywork

 We switched this week back to the guided paper we used in Beyond and her writing is beautiful again. It's a bit more effort but, worth it in results. If you haven't heard of this site yet.... It is awesome!  You can type up anything and it lets you print out the guidelines and writing styles that you want your children to follow.  It has been a handwriting lifesaver for my little ones and the copy work that they do.  Click here: http://www.worksheetworks.com/english/writing/handwriting.html   and you can customize to your child's needs too.  It was quick and easy to type up and print this out for her.  Highly recommended if handwriting needs a bit more space or the guidelines. 

9yo Cursive Poetry Copywork

It was also helpful for my cursive writer. We will be making these each week to help with their writing since they both did so much better with the penmanship guidelines. 

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Our character trait this week was responsibility.  We talked about Don Juan de Onate` and how he was responsible for many people when his expedition headed to New Mexico to build a settlement for Spain. 

We learned that the Indians in the southwest made beautiful sand paintings. They thought the paintings brought healing to the sick. We know healing comes from God. 

In art we made a 'sand painting' with colored salt. First, we added a couple drops of food coloring to our salt and shook the bags to make colored 'sand'.  

We made a watered down glue mixture and painted it on our paper plate circles. One color at a time the kids sprinkled the colored salt onto their design. 

Sand Paintings

We had a sun, rainbow, and a sword.  The kids enjoyed this and loved that we journeyed outside for the project because of the messiness. It was much better than using glitter though! 

Oh wait...  Did I say glitter? Surprise! 

We learned that many of the pilgrims passed away with a pestilence because of the germs that spread quickly at that time without the common practice of washing their hands with soap and water.  We sprinkled glitter germs over the kids hands. They used a dry paper towel to try and clean their hands.  It helped a small amount. Then they used water to rinse off the glitter germs which helped a bit more but, glitter still remained. Then they used warm water and soap and the glitter came off of their little hands easily. Our experiment showed that it is important to wash our hands with soap and warm water so that we get all the germs off and don't spread them to other people. 

We learned about Myles Standish who journeyed to America on the Mayflower.  Although, he was small, he was a bold soldier and helped the pilgrims reach North America.  We learned about Squanto and how he taught the pilgrims how to hunt, fish, and plant corn. 

 We talked about the differences between needs and wants. The kids cut out examples of needs and wants from magazines. 

Hemispheres

In geography, we learned about the 4 hemispheres.  I printed this quick map and had the kids color the regions. 

Dipper and North Star

We learned that astronomy and the stars were often used to navigate as the pilgrims traveled. We learned about the Dipper and how to locate the North Star. We learned that the North Star doesn't seem to move because it is directly above the Earth's axis. 

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4th grade CLE Math

4th grade math is going well despite our troubles with borrowing to subtract. I'm a real person and not afraid to show our difficulties on the blog too. This was one of "those" days for us and my son did go back and correct his work.... sometimes more than once... so that I'd know he understood the concept. 

Thankfully, the rest of the week went smoother moving into metric measures.  He's overall doing very well with Christian Light Education and we will press on. 

Our song is O for a Thousand Tongues to Sing.  We listened and sang along all week.  The kids enjoy the music.  We learned about Charles Wesley's poem and that he learned to read from his mother using the Bible.  He wanted to write the words of the Bible into songs so people could memorize the words of the Bible easily. 

We started a new fiction book this week; The Princess and the Goblin.  The children are captivated after the first several chapters and begging for me to read more. So far, this book is a sure hit! 

We visited the Carter Mountain Apple Orchard in Charlottesville, VA this week and the children enjoyed picking golden delicious apples! 

We are certainly ready for the cool fall weather and some homemade apple pie! 

We hope you had a great week! 

Be blessed!

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