History Group in February

February 4... Today, we spent some time learning about some of the artist and musicians from the Romantic time period. We had a review of the 3 musical time eras we have studied thus far--Baroque, Classical and Romantic.

For the music we listened to various music from the different time periods, those of Handel, Mozart and Bach.  We enjoyed listening for the differences of mood, speed and emotion of the music.

We pulled out the water colors and created some "cloudscape" painting following after the manner of--------, who was a famous Romantic era artist.

Liam enjoyed creating a rendition of an African jungle.  He was quite upset when I helped him use the tissue to make the "cloudscape"....."Mom, you ruined my jungle!"  He quickly added more paint and was once again happy with his artistic work.

Cailin added beautiful flower patch of purple blossoms.

Delaney was trying to paint a scene she saw outside the kitchen window...up the side of Draper mountain.

This is mine.  I rarely get involved with the creating of what ever project we are doing...but I should more often.  I had fun painting this.  Cailin flattered me greatly by wanting my painting to place on her bedroom wall.  What a sweet girl.    

Gospel bridge-- We never really talked about this, but we did talk about the different musicians and their devotion towards God, how they shared testimonies through the music they composed. Bach in particular dedicated all music to his God Almighty.  Of course Handel's Messiah is so spiritually inspiring that no one could doubt his love of the Savior.

They started working on number "3" for math.  This must be a favorite of Heavenly Father's because there are so many 'three's found in nature and science.

February 18....Thomas Jefferson's Presidency/Era and Lewis and Clark.

 The little's and I had fun reading from Story of the World about Lewis and Clark, Sacajawea and little Pompy.  While reading about their travels and adventures, we created this playdoh map of the rivers, boarders of the US before and after the Louisiana Purchase, the mountain chains, and, of course, the path they traveled to get to the Pacific Ocean.

Blue--Missouri and Mississippi Rivers.  The Mississippi river is the boarder of US land before the purchase of the Louisiana territory from (despot) Napoleon   The older group discussed with Barry and Christine the 'why's and how's of that deal.
Red--  This was the new boarder of the nation after the purchase from France.
Yellow-- This symbolized the path that Lewis and Clark traveled.  The orange blobs indicated the two winter camps/forts they built for winter.
Brown--These were the mountains.  The Appalachian and the Rockies.  They had a great time making the Rockies HUGE!! compared to the Appalachian.

 The ever-so-tall Rocky Mountains!!

The Gospel bridge--  Expanding the boarders of our country and Lewis and Clark's gained knowledge from their travels helped bring forth knowledge of the land for the future trek of the pioneers when the church had to flee Navuoo.

 
 No matter how old you are playdoh has a hypnotic draw upon kids.  These two couldn't resist the squishy moldable stuff.

Older group played around with......

 Her's a picture of the Dyad and Monad posters they made.  Dyad-2, Monad-1.

February 25.... 
This week each person picked a country or area of the world and researched what was going on during this time period we are studying (1708-1835)
Connor told us more about Napoleon Bonaparte--and amazing leader, but a despot.  To bad he didn't put his genius to good use.
Cailin shared with us what she learned of Catherine the Great...namely she has no idea how she ever got that title because she was anything but great.  She was cruel to her people and inconsiderate of their basic needs, while being quite selfish of all things she loved.  She was considered "great" because she brought the western world to Russia....what they really needed was food, shelter, warmth and the ability to work for themselves.

 Delaney talked about the African Zulu kingdom..... Chief Shaka, another despot.  Lovely. (note the sarcasm?)

Here is her words:

 Liam and I told the story of Captain Cook and his discovery of Australia  and New Zealand.  He loved putting up flannels of fruits, which Captain Cook learned prevented scurvy (the vitamin C did the job.)
Janet spoke of China and Beryl told us what happened in -------------
Christine gave us more information on slavery, the evils of it and that the American we're the only one to use it...they didn't start it, but they were the last to outlaw it.
In the end I spoke of Simon Bolivar.  He lead, along with Jose de San Marin, to lead the people of South American from Spain.  Sadly, their freedoms didn't withstand time.  Their "leaders" were the wealthy land owners and the common people soon rebelled against them too.  Ultimately the different countries of S. Am. didn't want to join together under one president and many of the rebel leader who fought hard with Bolivar started to think  that he had become power hungry--much like Napolean--they thought; that Bolivar's dream of a free united S. American never came to fruition.

       Namely, we learned that FREEDOM to live and choose as people wanted to was the theme of the world during this time period.  The American Declaration of Independence gave great courage and hope to others living under despotism and tyranny.  They too, wanted what the United States of America was able to obtain.
       We decided that the gospel link to this history time period was the basic desire to live as we choose, much like the fight we fought for in heaven.

 We started analyzing the number 4....so where do we find the #4 in nature?

 Having fun with --------------.

The Empty Pot--FIAR

 I've been planning to row through The Empty Pot by Demi and The Story of Ping during the month of February.  Both of these books are set in China and I knew that February is a great month to learn about it because of all the festivities surrounding Chinese New Year.  Christine's talked often of all  the fun they had...and I wanted to join in it too, so being the good friend I am, I invited myself (she gladly issued an invitation!) and we studied China, ate some Chinese take out (I made the fried rice, we order lo mein, and pot sucker dumplings), visited Christine's home for their Chinese adopted families new year party, attended Radford's cultural celebration night...ate some more yummy chinese food there...and of course we read the book and discussed many different concepts.....which are:

 Geography:   China of course.  We didn't get to the Story of Ping (I did read it with Liam and he love it, be we didn't do any rowwing activites.)   We label where everyone in our family lives...and with Grandma and Grandpa in Africa, it go special treatment too on the map.

English:   We discussed the plot dynamics of this book--the beginning  rising action, climax, denouement, and resolution.   There were many word she didn't know the meaning of to work with in this book. We found this fun flower/pot cut and paste activity to do.  She loved coloring all the flowers different colors.  Cailin helped quiz her on her new vocab words.

Math: we discussed the calendar--seasons, months, days hours, ect. of the year.

Science:  We studied seeds, parts of flowers and what it takes to make them grow.  Delaney wants to pick things up a bit in the writing department....do more "big girl" things.  She's been asking me to have write reports on subjects.  So I asked her to read a short paragraph from the Kingfisher Science Encyclopedia about seeds and then write about it., much like the KWO (key word outline) fashion from IEW.  I think she liked it.  She did a great job.  We also started our broccoli seeds for our garden....what timing!

Social Studies:  We read a book about China and she proceed to write all she remembered about it....4 whole pages worth!  I was amazed at how much she had done.  She really getting into writing.

We went to the two cultural events.  Here's her words about the shows at RU:

I liked the play of how the zodiac calendar came to be.  I liked the dancers, the ones with the fans.  I liked watching the karate people.  That was all, I didn't like the girls who danced to TV videos of immodest people.  I liked the sound of the music but not the immodest dress of the people on the screen.  I really liked listening to the drums...but Brianne didn't.  She got scared! 

Listening to the orchestra music was nice too.

I was amazed at how clingy Brianne was during this whole event.  Originally, I wasn't going to take her with us because I feared she would be off and running up and down the isles the entire night, quite contrary she wouldn't even turn around and watch the show, she hid her face in my chest the entire time.....except when she heard the clapping after the show, then she would turn around--clap--and then hid back in my chest.

Chinese New Year...Year of the Snake

It's the Year of the Snake! and we were invited to join our friends in their Chinese New Year celebrations this year.  What a wonderful night....oh so yummy food!!!  I'm salivating right now at the thought of it all.  

The kids loved getting the dragon mask out to wear and parade through the house.  It may be a dragon and this year is the snake, but look at those adorable kids snaking through the house.

Then it came time for the firecrackers!  Christine rolled out bubble wrap and the littles had a grand time stomping and jumping to pop all the bubbles. We talked with Jen a few days after the lunar new year and she said that the fireworks were spectacular!! the 4th will always pale in comparison.  One of the moms who recently moved stateside said that fireworks would sound off constantly day and night.

 This activity brought lots of smiles and laughter but what came next was utterly amazing to my kids....

But, first a photo of all the kids there for the celebration!

According to Chinese tradition parents or grandparents hand out a special red envelope to the children.  Inside they would find money and treats.  This act, 4 times given by some wonderful ladies to each of the kids in attendance, mystified and awed my two.  I had a book I was going to read about this tradition before our night, but lost it (I've found it since!) so this was an unexpected, yet delightful surprise!!  Liam's ecstatic and bugs me constantly to take him to Dollar Tree.

What a wonderful night...and a great introduction to our FIAR study of two books set in China.  I just love homeschooling...we get to attend parties and call it schoolwork!

a button lamp

Delaney and I have been reading the Little House books for the past few months....well actually, I think we've been at it off and on for about a year now.  However, we've picked up the speed now that I'm reading to them after I've tucked them into bed and they're ready to fall into blissful sleep.  We recently finished The Long Winter.  While we were reading about all the blizzards and the lack of supplies to feed and warm themselves we read how Ma made a button lamp to provide light.  We were intrigued by this idea--covering a metal button with cotton fabric then coating it all in axle grease.  We wanted to try this...so we did!

After looking online we decided to use a quarter and lard instead of the button and axle grease.  It worked beautifully, much better than I thought.  To bad we didn't know about this before we had our bout with no electricity, the light the button lamp provided was better than a candle. The button lamp we made lasted for about an hour.

Delaney was also interested in how they used a coffee mill to grind wheat kernels for bread.  She wanted to try it so I pulled out our hand grinder and let her have a turn or two.  She thought is was fun, but readily agreed with Laura that it would grow tiresome and tedious after a while.

We are starting to enter the time period of the pioneers and westward expansion in our history studies.  This has been a fun preview of what life was like in the 1800's.

We are halfway done with Little Town on the Prairie.  They talk often about gardening in this one...now, Delaney wants her own garden plot. I forsee some science projects on the horizon!!  She wants to grow cucumbers just like Laura did.