Creation to Christ - Unit 7

This week we read while Moses was away, Aaron failed as a leader.  The people returned to idol worshipping as they were use to doing in Egypt. God gave the people specific instructions but, the Israelites built an idol and disobeyed.   God punished them and made snakes appear to bite the people.  God commanded that they make a bronze serpent to wrap around the rod and when the people looked into its' eyes they would be healed.

We learned that the symbol of the snakes on the rod is still used in healthcare today and just happened to see it at our doctors appointment after reading the story.  The kids wanted to take a picture! 

We learned that God wanted to teach the people of Egypt to fear Him because he is just and holy.  He wanted them to realize He was different from the pagan idols and gods they had been worshipping in Egypt.

Our history art project was to make an ephod or breastplate like the High Priest Aaron wore with the gemstones of the 12 tribes. We skipped the toothpaste stones - as I have tried and failed at that one once before - and the kids just went and picked out 12 stones each from our forest!

We tried the toothpaste/glue mix before and really did not have much luck.  It turned out sticky and yuck!  So, I avoided it like the plague and just told the kids to find some stones in the backyard.  LOL!  They hurried out on an adventure and found some great ones!  We painted the stones just like the Unit notebook page.

It was a beautiful day and perfect for a quick painting project outdoors!  

The kids wanted them to look textured like the pictures and they mixed paint to get just the right shades they needed!  A bit of a mess but, they enjoyed it!

The stones turned out great and they dried fast! 

We copied the Hebrew text onto the stones with black sharpie.  Thank goodness most of the rocks we used were smooth and flat!

Our final breastplate with the 12 tribes of Israel gemstones looked awesome! The kids did a great job and had fun too!

In Poetry this week, we read 'Gathering Leaves' by Robert Frost.  We are certainly anxious for the colors on the trees to change as we anticipate fall so this was a wonderful poem for the week.    

The kids painted a yellow faded background and added a brown tree with branches and limbs.  

I saw an interesting technique floating around Facebook for painting leaves and gave my kiddos the option of trying it with their artwork.

We made a bunch of q-tips with a piece of scotch tape holding them together.  The kids used the bunch to dab paint on their leaves.  They used orange, brown, and yellow and one wanted to add red.  This was a cute and easy way to paint their leaves and had great results! 

I love the branches showing through the tree! 

One of my kiddos wanted to continue using the sponge technique and I think it turned out great too.  

This one  has a more leathery finish to me.  Very pretty and was definitely the desired look my little artist was going for! 

What a beautiful painting! Such a fun way to incorporate art in with the study of poetry!

In Science, we read about beavers and how they are rodents that build dams that creates a wet land environment for many other species.  Their dams are also useful to help purify the water downstream.    

Our Science experiment was to figure out what special adaptations God gave the anteater to help it get the food it needs.  We learned that anteaters have VERY long tongues.... 2 feet long! We measured ours and didn't quite meet the 2 ft mark.... LOL!  Anteaters lick very fast to catch many ants.  

We did try to be anteaters and collect our ants, errrrrrr.... chocolate chips with just our tongues.  It wasn't easy and the kids really wanted to use their lips for help!

We added a bit of honey to the anteater tongue yarn.  The idea was for the chocolate chip to stick to the yarn with the honey.  Our chocolate chips were heavy ants and wouldn't hang on but, the kids got the idea and that is the important part!  This was a fun and quite hilarious experiment! 

We had some hands on Science this week with puddles and magnificent, humongous mushrooms! The kids really enjoyed finding a turtle and playing in the flowing creek behind our house!

Hope you've had a great week too! 

See you next time!