My Heart's in the Highlands

 This week we read Wee Gillis by Munro Leaf (same author of The Story of Ferdinand), so we visited Scotland. It's the story of a boy who is torn between living with his father's family in the Highlands where they stalk stags and living with his mother's family in the Lowlands where they herd cows.
There was so much I wanted to do with this that I keep thinking of more and more ideas without time to fit it all in. The kids loved the book right away and the ink illustrations are especially good.
We found the Highlands and Lowlands on a map and Hannah wrote a few words from another book about Scotland we read. I explained we have many ancestors from Scotland. I have a long list on Ancestry.com we'll show them when they're a little older. Also, a lady from our church grew up in Scotland. At some point I'd love for the kids to get to talk to her at length about that. Meanwhile, I have 3 kids and she has 4 so that opportunity passed us by this week!

 We made tally marks for how much each region was mentioned in the book as well as a Venn diagram of their similarities and differences. We discussed how we might make the same diagram comparing apples and oranges. I was impressed they came up with more ideas than I did. Finally they made one for themselves- and drew little portraits : ) They enjoyed using a compass for the first time to draw circles.

There were some unexpected connections made this week, which was pretty fun. One morning we had oatmeal for breakfast- a pretty rare occurrence, and then realized Wee Gillis had been eating the same thing. It turns out it's the so-called national breakfast food of Scotland. Soon after we read about the Loch Ness monster (of course!) and found a great fiction book about a girl visiting her grandmother in Scotland. She disliked the oatmeal and threw it out the window on the ship ride over- and who followed her and ate it all? A little worm, and you can guess what he became.

 In the meantime, here are a couple of things I found on Pinterest to keep Colin busy. It's a painter's tape parking lot. They all had fun with this. It was also great for sorting colors and types of cars.

 This one is for younger kids but it still kept him occupied for a little bit.

Back to Scotland, we listened to Prince Charles read Robert Burns' My Heart's in the Highlands. They loved that and wanted it repeated several times. I could tell they learned something new every time and they discussed what the Highlands must look like according to the poem.

 We pulled out a small portion of our plaid clothes after looking at some kilts. We have way more than this- not sure what to think about that! We examined the patterns and each kid designed their own plaid pattern on paper. They chose 3 colors and measured widths and spacing as best they could. 

Then we used a pattern from online to paper towel paint and cut out Nessie. Once they were glued, I surprised them by telling them their plaid patterns were going to give the monster a scarf and hat. We had a lot of fun with this project and they all turned pretty cute.

For music, we listened to a few pieces from a Celtic concert I played a couple of years ago. Hannah fell in love with the 1st movement from Malcolm Arnold's Four Scottish Dances. We listened to it at least 9 times in a row on the way to co-op on Thursday, until Colin requested escape.
That day Hannah participated in the presentations for co-op and played her piano recital piece. It's always good to get another performance in after working so hard!

 On Friday we watched a few bagpipers on You Tube and studied the different parts.

Wee Gillis ends up choosing to be a bagpiper as he has developed his lungs so well from calling cows and holding his breath to keep quiet while stalking stags. I didn't explain too much about stags, but low and behold we began reading The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe and one showed up. They were excited they recognized the animal. Anyway, we decided to explore homemade instruments. They had a friend over on Friday and we tried the classic hitting wine glasses with different amounts of water. Can you tell Chloe was nervous about them breaking? I broke a kitchen glass a looooong time ago, but in her mind it happened yesterday.

 We experimented with rubber bands stretched across various objects and materials to see which resonated the best. Then we made mouth organs with straws- that was the big hit.

 We're taking the week off for Christmas and returning with another classic- Owl Moon, one I didn't love as a kid, but it offers a great array of school lessons. : )

Merry Christmas!!! Blessed Nativity!!!

Prairie Days

 This week we read Three Names by Patricia MacLachlan. It's the story of a great grandfather
who lived on the prairie growing up with his dog who had three names. We usually do geography first so they have in mind where we're studying for the whole week. They found the plains states on the map and colored their own.

Hannah and I also labeled them on another map. I found many different variations

as to what counted as plain states, but at least she was introduced to a new part of the country.

 I've always wanted to try this activity- making butter! We had some whipping cream left over from Thanksgiving and they (mostly me) went to work shaking and shaking and shaking until we had butter. I like how Hannah is even wearing a prairie-like dress for this activity.

They had mixed opinions on the result, but to me it was clearly better tasting and smoother than any pre-made spreads or sticks. When our fasting is over I plan on making some for us to have on a regular basis.

 Three Names included many interesting similes, so I introduced them to the kids. They had a good time coming up with their own. We did several sheets of work on this. My favorite of Hannah's was "Colin is as loud as a Chloe."  I guess that one counts : )

 For art, we talked about vanishing points and horizons. So I concocted this collage project. If you can't tell (because I'm not an artist) it's a covered wagon riding off into the distance. Rather than letting them do most of it themselves, this time we did it all together in specific steps. I added the tornado at the end, partly because it's accurate for the area, and partly in homage to all my childhood art projects in which I added a tornado to almost every landscape scene : )

 Hannah added one too and wanted her prairie scene to be at night so she added some stars and a moon. It's hard to see, but she also penciled in people running from the tornado.

 Chloe wanted hers to be in the morning and added clouds.

 I was pretty pleased Colin participated the whole time. Chloe helped him with several things, too, so she did a good job being a helper. I can definitely see her being a teacher some day, although she says she wants to be a "cook."

 Chloe had a wonderful school Christmas program last week. She wore lamb ears, which I mistakenly called bunny ears in front of the teacher. I was very quickly corrected! haha

 Since we were all dressed up we took our Christmas card photo- this is just a goofy outtake ; )

 At Thursday's co-op the kids learned about St. Lucia and made candle wreaths for their heads.

Besides reading several books about prairie life (one being an elementary version of Little House on the Prairie) we read a few about prairie animals. Then they chose an animal they wanted to do a little report on. I had made a sheet of questions to answer about the animal's characteristics, habitat, eating habits, etc. Chloe chose the prairie dog and Hannah chose the bison. Then they painted their chosen animal. Hannah used a photo as a source and copied the basic shape but wanted to get creative with the colors. These bison remind me of vegetables. I see carrot heads, and legs, beet bodies, and broccoli beards. 

 Much to our surprise, we ended up seeing one that very night. We ventured to Bass Pro Shop for  Christmas activities and happened upon this guy. I loved Hannah's face when she realized she got to see her animal in person.

We read this interesting description about how Native Americans used them.

Finally we introduced the kids to the game Oregon Trail, which I loved so much growing up. I figured they certainly wouldn't last the whole trip much less be interested in caring about food rations and broken axles. But they did! They made decisions about how to cross rivers, listened to other travelers' advice, and of course loved to hunt. We nearly made it to the end- all 5 of us healthy, but at the last second 4 of us drowned in a river crossing!!! The kids were completely unsure how to react to that- sadness? laughter because we were so near the end? Since then they've played a couple of more times, calling it "The Game."

In other news, Hannah completed the 1st Volume of her math book and was very proud of her 180 pages worth. She loves it. The other day I gave her a page full of subtraction facts, nothing really exciting and she said, "Yayyyy!!!"  I guess she loves the black and white of it all. It's either right or it's wrong, and at her age so much of that about life is still a mystery.

I also printed up tons and tons of worksheets for them to do on all sorts of subjects. I started out looking for the ones focusing on following verbal directions but found so many others I couldn't help myself. When I first researched homeschooling a lot of parents warned that sitting at a table doing worksheets was their kids' least favorite thing (makes sense), so it was important to stay creative.
I guess our kids are in the minority. They seem slightly suspicious of most of our projects although they love them in the end, but mention worksheets? You'll hear cheers of joy and a rush to the table!
So wacky! Anyway, this coming week we are headed to Scotland ; )

The Rain (Ice) in Spain

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving and now have the house ready for Christmas.

We also began our 3rd 6 weeks.

 First we added the Psalm we are trying to memorize.

We began Mary's Star Path, an advent calendar suggested by Garden of the Theotokos. 

We sing a song after prayers each morning and the special helper gets to movie Mary along 1 golden star. The star she has passed get put on the sky behind her. She'll reach the stable on Christmas and the kids will find baby Jesus in the manger that morning, the sky full of stars.

Last week we read The Story of Ferdinand by Munro Leaf. Our Social Studies focused on Spain since the story takes place in Madrid. We watched a bit of Rick Steves in Madrid and Barcelona during lunch.

 The kids made character study books, first with Ferdinand, and then pages including several other characters we've read about, and finally including themselves.

 

 They wanted to pose in a goofy way, goofy kids.

 For reading, they worked on word groupings with cards.

 They made a list together of their word groupings.

 Hannah worked on categorizing her nouns from the story. We have

a little more work to do there. Plenty of opportunities come with every book, so we'll make this a regular exercise.

 

Hannah did some copywork- then learned it's okay to move a whole word down

a line rather than split it up. As an adult, I often forget we have such details until

they're there to be taught.

 For math, Ferdiand stood by a tree that had been marked with his height each year. Before we did that, we reviewed inches and introduced measuring feet. I also wanted to add in estimating. This was a fun page I found online and the kids had fun gathering the objects and making their guesses.

 

 Then Hannah and Chloe got their own sheets. They chose 5 objects in the house and estimated their lengths. Hannah was sure our school cabinet was 59 feet tall. It must seem that way when you're small! We did the actual measurements together and she was pleased she was pretty close on a couple. Chloe wasn't exactly sure what she was writing down, but she sure was businesslike about it.

 

Finally we marked their heights and the date on an extra fence slat we had. Dax hung it in a little corner of the hallway. The kids are excited to check back in a few months. Chloe was convinced she had grown the very next day.

 

 For art, we took note of the illustrations in the book and how near and far Ferdinand was in each drawing. They especially love the distanced pictures of Ferdinand under his cork tree happy to smell the flowers. I showed them near and far elements of a series of picture I drew for them a long time ago. I never did anything with the pictures, but they're fun to look at every once in a while.

Hannah practiced drawing items large for near and small for far- a little hard to see here.

We also read a folktale about 3 Spanish brothers and 3 oranges. The story was a little above their heads, but they did get some good messages about how to be a responsible and caring sibling rather than selfish and careless.

 We read a book about a girl's aunt believing she was a Flamenco dancer. We looked up several good videos and the kids got dolled up and danced away.

At first I was going to put their makeup on, but I thought it would be more fun to see what they did on their own. They felt like they were true professionals and complimented each other on their skills. They went pretty nuts with the eye shadow as you can see!

This weekend we've been iced in. They spent a couple of days relaxing at Nana's. Today back at home they did tons of worksheets and were very excited about it. I took it as an opportunity to review some skills- such as following oral directions, working together to complete a sheet, and math skills. We have a couple of Ferdinand activities I'll catch up on soon- such as dramatizing the story and watching Seth Rogan (believe it or not) read the story with a string group playing incidental music behind him. This coming week we will venture to the prairie lands! I'm looking forward to it.