Over the last month we have done some fun things including more in depth composer study, lap books, literature on CD, and Bible study. It is hard to believe that we are already eight weeks into our school year.
While we studied ancient Sumer civilization Rebekah was having a hard time relating to the material, so I ordered a couple of hands-on activity books to supplement our curriculum. The lapbook we did turned out to be a fun way of learning extra things that were not part of what we had planned.
Cover:
Inside:
Rebekah wrote her own definitions of key words:
Houses and Inventions. Inside the houses booklet Rebekah wrote about what the houses were made from, and inside the wheel booklet she pasted that they invented the wheel.
Back with stick puppets:
As we finished up our study of Ancient Mesopotamia I found a great video at the library, Ancient Civilizations for Children: Ancient Mesopotamia. They have Egypt and others, so I will definitely be using these as a resource. As we moved on to Egypt Rebekah created a salt dough map of the country. I helped her shape it, but she added her interpretation of the mountains and the land. After the map dried she painted the Nile River, the sand, and finally the grass. She can pinpoint Egypt very quickly on the map now. It was a very fun project, particularly for someone who enjoys art.
Rebekah is presently reading the 1st grade reader by Harriet Taylor Treadwell. When she read "The City Mouse and the Country Mouse" I discovered that she did not know the difference between city and country. She got confused because she relates country to a country in the world, like the U.S. So I introduced rural and urban. On a whim I pulled up come pictures of the country and of the city. Rebekah cut them out, and she sorted them and pasted them in a folder to make a lapbook. It was nothing fancy, but it gave her a hands-on activity to learn the difference between the two. I have picked up Jan Brett's version of the story, and we are reading it now. Joshua is enjoying the book with us as well.
Rebekah is also working on a lapbook for Bach. We are still listening to his music, and we just started the dramatization on CD of Bach telling his story to a girl practicing his music on the piano called Mr. Bach Comes to Call. We are also getting ready to watch the video of Bach's Fight for Freedom. We managed to finish Trumpet of the Swan for literature. While it did get more interesting as we read more it was not a favorite. I think part of it is that there are not nearly as many pictures as what Rebekah is accustomed to. We were able to get a copy of it on CD of the author reading it, so we could listen to a chapter while on the road to pick up Joshua or drop him off, or if we had an errand to run. We have just started reading Peter Pan, and we are getting a similar start as the last book. She just really misses having pictures to observe while I read.
Rebekah is getting a double dose of Bible. Along with our ancient history study and geography of Egypt (and Africa), we are reading Genesis about Abraham and Isaac. Of course, Rebekah's favorite story is about Isaac and Rebekah. :-) In addition, she is attending a Bible study class on Daniel while I am studying the same thing in my moms Bible study. It is neat to be studying the book together. It was cool to tie together the things we knew about Mesopotamia and about King Nebuchadnezzar since he was the king of Babylon. I've been having fun learning right along with her!
The latest thing I bought for Rebekah was a puzzle on Africa. Each week she labels the African countries she can remember and then adds a couple more to her map. After about two weeks I noticed that she was not retaining it, and I am sure it is hard to remember when you only do geography once each week. So today she worked her new puzzle, and afterwards I had her label her map for memory. Not only did she recall the four countries she had been working on the last couple of weeks, she knew an extra one. She added two more countries to her map in addition to the five she already knew. Hopefully as she continues to work her puzzle she will retain her memory and learn more.
