Rome To Reformation: Week 1

The first week of school has been AMAZING and very PRODUCTIVE. We started our new school year off welcoming our new friend into our family. She is a 7th grader and will be doing home school with us this year. Here is a few of our projects we did this week:

Here are the girls reading their bible. This week they learned how the bible came to us...

The girls getting ready to make their cell...

Sweetie putting beans into the cells..It was kinda gross and squishy..

Counting peas to put into the cell..

Peanut checking out the cell...

This is our cell. This week the girls studied the cell. We made lemon jello (cytoplasm) and put it into a plastic bag (cell membrane). A grape represents the nucleus. Beans represent mitochondria and green peas to represent lysosomes. This activity was really fun.


They also learned, "How Materials Enter and Exit a Cell"...Here are some pictures from this activity...

The purpose of this activity was to symbolize how size affects movement of particles through a cell membrane. This activity taught that cell membranes act like the colander, allowing only those particles small enough to pass through the holes (the salt).


We began our history class by learning about Rome. This kids learned that Roman children, who were rich enough to get an education, wrote on clay tablets. Here are the clay tablets they made. Just another fun activity.

Here is Daddy cutting up the frames the night before the activity.

Here are the frames put together...

Pumpkin and Sweetie rolling out the clay.

Mommy and Peanut rolling out the dough for her clay tablet...

Peanut excited that she got to do her own clay tablet. I included my 2 year old because David Hazell said to include them in projects.

The finished clay tablets....

2012-2013 School Pictures

This year we took our school pictures on the 2nd day of school. Its so amazing how much my girls have grown since last year. This year we are blessed to homeschool another young lady.

A close up of Pumpkin and Peanut...I love this picture!!!

Pumpkin...She is in 6th grade this year. I wish I could slow down time..

Here is Peanut...Gotta love the smile!!!!

Here is the young lady who will be a part of our home school this year. She is in 7th grade. We will call her Sweetie.

Our Class Picture

2012-2013 School Year Curriculum

On Monday, August 13 we will begin our 3rd year of homeschooling. I can't believe my Pumpkin is going into 6th grade. Where has the time gone? It seems like yesterday I was sending her to kindergarten in her pigtails and Little Mermaid backpack. Now she is officially in middle school and only has 6 more years of school til graduation. In September Peanut will be 2 1/2 years old and will begin doing more "school things". She is growing up so fast too. When I began homeschooling she was only 6 months old. Last year my dear friend Marsha introduced us to a curriculum entitled My Father's World (MFW) and it has been a blessing ever since. We plan to continue using MFW this year and I am really excited to begin. This year we will be studying Rome to the Reformation. We will travel back to the time of the Romans and learn how they set the stage by their Pax Romana for the central event of all history—the birth of Jesus. We will follow the development of the church and study the Middle Ages, culminating with the Renaissance and Reformation. Our Science focuses on the human body and astronomy. Peanut will be using MFW too. Here is what she will be learning: Introduce numbers 1 to 5 Develop concentration and attention span Teach sorting by color and shape Develop fine motor and visual discrimination skills Encourage quiet play at home, while traveling, or while older siblings are busy with homeschool. We are extra excited this year because we will be also homeschooling another student who will be in 7th grade. My girls are so excited to have a new friend learning with them this year. I am also very excited because she will keep me on schedule and organized.

These are a few of Peanut's Education toys she will be using...She will also be using Before Five In A Row, My Baby Can Read, and other materials. My goal for Emma this year is letter recognition.

Here is the Teacher's Manual and Student Sheets for MFW

These are the books we will be using for Bible this year. We will learning about Rome, the life of Jesus, early church history, Middle Ages, Renaissance, and Reformation from a Christian perspective. The children will also do Bible readings and memory verses.

Our Language Arts Program includes grammar, writing, spelling, and vocabulary.

Our history program includes some hands-on projects: Make a Roman writing tablet and enjoy a Roman feast, construct a Roman arch, sample foods from the Middle Ages, play Medieval games, and more. We will learn to play chess and construct a model castle. We will be doing map work, history notebook, and construct a timeline during our study.

Here is our Science books we will be studying Human body and participate in simple experiments and demonstrations as well as make simple models of body systems. We will also study Astronomy and explore the universe from a Christian perspective.

Pumpkin will continue her study in Singapore math.

Here are the books we will be using for our study in Art. The girls will also be taking Art classes at our local museum. And last but not least....

Pumpkin will be using this program this year for typing... It's going to be a magnificent year. God Bless our school year!!!1

Volunteering at The Food Bank

On Monday, August 6, American Heritage Girls volunteered for three hours at the local Food Bank. Pumpkin invited her best friend and they had a great time. It has been in my heart to raise my children with a servants heart and this was the first opportunity where Pumpkin and I volunteered together. My heart felt content when Pumpkin told me she really had fun. We worked what is known as the "savage" line. This is where you go through all the food that has been donated and make sure it is all good and sealed. It was amazing what people donate such as half eaten boxes of cookies, and food brands from Mexico. Then the girls made boxes for donation. We learned that each box must be 22lbs. Making these boxes really gives you an understanding of what families really need. We explained to the girls that the people who receive these boxes have no food. So instead of just putting cake mixes and pop tarts into a box, it important to put stuff that will last such as rice, beans, noodles, because these items will make several meals and they will have food longer. Next, the girls had to do some hard core work they had to sweep and mop the area they worked in. It was actually funny to see how many girls didn't know how to use an industrial size mop and bucket. I personally had to teach my daughter and her friend how to mop. They only use a wet jet mop at home. Lastly, the person in charge took the girls on a tour of the food bank and explained the daily functions of the food bank from the moment the donation truck arrives until the food is disbursed. The girls had a wonderful time and can't wait to do it again.

Whataburger Field....Field Trip

Earlier this year, HOST had a behind the scene field trip to Whataburger Field. It was really interesting. The tour guides showed the kids how the entire operation
works for a baseball game to run smoothly. Personally, I have never been to Whataburger Field or even to a Hooks baseball game. I may just have to do that next season.

2012 HOST Geography Fair...

H.O.S.T.,known as Homeschoolers of South Texas, held their annual Geography Fair on Jan.19, 2012. Pumpkin and I decided since we are studying Brazil in Geography we'd just do that country for the fair. It was a great experience for Ariel and she learned how to organize her ideas, facts about the Brazil Flag, statistics about the country, such as population, the capital, and exports they are known for. Pumpkin is definitely a kinesthetic learner, therefore, this project was perfect for her learning style. She really enjoyed putting the board together. She learned about the history, culture, and even did some art projects related to Brazil. She made a "Carnival" costume, a dancing carnival wooden man, and made Brigadeiros, which is Brazilian candy.

Our Peanut Diva...

Today, Peanut is 22 months old. I can't believe how fast time has gone by. Peanut is definitely a Diva. She has an amazing personality. This picture is a GREAT example of her personality and that smile melts our hearts every-time.

Operation Christmas Child - 2011

Four years ago, I began a teaching job at Cathedral of the Palms Christian School. That year was the first time I'd heard of "Operation Christmas Child". My class participated in that event every year thereafter. This year, as a homeschooling family, I decided to continue the tradition. What was even more amazing is that our church, Real Life Corpus, was a drop off site.

So what is "Operation Christmas Child"? Samaritan's Purse is a non-denominational evangelical Christian humanitarian organization that works worldwide to assist people in physical need alongside their Christian missionary work. The organization’s president is Franklin Graham, son of Christian evangelist Billy Graham. The name of the organization is based on the New Testament Parable of the Good Samaritan, in which Jesus uses a parable to teach people the second great commandment - how to "love thy neighbour as thyself".

Check out there website for complete details and see how you can make a difference in a child's life.

http://www.samaritanspurse.org/index.php

Here is a picture of Peanut & Pumpkin after they were done packing their boxes. We had a great time, shopping, packing, and praying for the children whom would receive these gifts. Thank you Lord for allowing us to be a blessing.

Learning about continents - My Father's World

My Father's World is an amazing curriculum that we are using this year. The curriculum begins with a one-year foundation in geography, entitled Exploring Countries & Cultures. The first part of the study begins with learning the continents and oceans, as an end of the unit review, Pumpkin made this continent cake.

In addition to the cake, Pumpkin had to understand how a map is not to scale since the world is round and maps are flat. She was taught maps are not to scale because a continent on a flat map has to be stretched out to show everything. It's an abstract idea to grasp but drawing the continents on an orange, peeling it, and lying it flat was a great hands-on demonstration activity.

January 4, 2012

As I was helping Pumpkin with her math, Peanut found a sharpie marker and decided to use her legs as paper. We just had to laugh...Could of been worse, she could of written on the wall.

2012...The Start of a Great Year...

New Years Eve was great! For the first time, Aaron and I went out. We were invited over to Mando's mom's house. It was one of the best times we had in a long time. It was so much fun and no one was even drunk. My past experiences with New Years Eve's party involved lots of drinking and someone fighting in the end.

We had a nice dinner, played games, and prayed in the New Year. For the first time we played Apples to Apples and Cranium. It was a blast and we stayed at their house until 3:30am.

It was a great start to 2012!