Preparing and Res to Ref- Unit 17

Preparing Hearts for His Glory

This week we learned that Rome rose as Greece fell.  Hannibal crossed the Alps to take the Romans by surprise but, the Romans attacked Carthage while they were away.

The Romans beat the Carthaginians in the 2nd and 3rd Punic Wars. 

The Romans made a coin called the denarius that was used to buy and sell.  We learned that Julius Caesar was powerful and took a census of the people in the land so he could tax them!  As there were talks of him becoming King, some of Caesars friends and enemies stabbed him in the back.  

Our history experiment this week was to make denarius using a messy bread and glue mixture.  As I read the directions,  I immediately had a "glitter/play dough" feeling. Ugh... Lol! So I admit that we, printed a color sheet!   You can find the link here:  http://www.oncoloring.com/coin-roman-empire-coloring-page_1251.html

 It sounded like a bit much mess to get the point across of a denarius coin, so we opted for a less dramatic project. 

The kids colored and cut out their coin and then glued it onto a colored piece of construction paper. 

We learned that the phrase, "All roads lead to Rome" is likely due to Rome leading the way with paved roads across the empire.  The Romans built strong cities and made the people of the places they conquered become slaves.   The city of Rome built sewers to carry dirty water and aqueducts to help carry the fresh water.

We also learned that after the death of Caesar that Antony and Octavius fought for control of Rome.

This week in Science, we learned that there are 15 brightest stars in the sky that each have a special name.  These stars are 1st magnitude stars and are apart of various constellations.   We added several new constellations to our star book.

Our experiment this week was to determine why constellations only show up in the night sky? 

We punched holes in an index card and placed it into an envelope. 

We couldn't see the stars showing through the envelope with the lights on. 

But, as soon as we turned the lights off and shown a flashlight onto it the constellation shined brightly! 

The kids took turns making constellations to shine! We learned that the constellations shine even in the day but, because of the sun's bright light we cannot see the others stars. As soon as the earth turns away from the sun, we can see the other stars! 

Resurrection to Reformation

Leonardo da Vinci began painting the Mona Lisa.

Our history art project was to create an african mud cloth.  I think he did a great job of making his look like the one in the guide!  :)

He learned that mud cloths, or bogolonfini are hand dyed cloth still made in Mali today.  Africa was an important empire in ancient history and medieval history.


It was a fun week!
See you next time!