Thursday, June 4, 2009

Animals and Cultures in God's World

Welcome to our new curriculum, Animals and Cultures in God's World. Last year was my first year with a schedule that I bought, and this year is my first year with my own schedule. I was finding that I was spending more time than I wanted tweaking a purchased schedule, and then adding a ton of stuff due to our very busy kiddos. Stephen was also requiring more in depth studies that can't be found for his age level. So, I spent a few hours developing a program for him that he is loving. We will travel around the world this year visiting animals, people, music, dance, art food. Stephen has been especially interested in the geography portion and enjoys building his own replicas of monuments and animal habitats. I have included a few samples from his notebook as well.


Outerspace1

Outerspace2


Outerspace3


Outerspace Notebook


Time to land on planet earth now and start exploring our world from the ground. We first started with introducing maps. I had already been working with Stephen on map skill for about six months, so he had an understanding of where continents and oceans were as well as general map reading skills. I was fortunate enough to end up with these incredible maps. Each day, Stephen locates the country on the big wall maps as well as his globe.



Woodlands 2

Woodland 3

Woodlands 4

Woodlands 5


Woodlands Notebook

Ocean

Ocean Notebook

The kids made some puppet videos with the animals they created. Click on the lower left hand arrow, not the center of the frame.




Tuesday, June 2, 2009

Stephen's Soccer

Stephen is playing soccer again this spring, but this time at our new church. We have been attending Calvary Church in Naperville since February and love it. There are so many opportunities for the kids and Tom and I are starting an orchestra for the music ministry. It is an exciting time and like I said, the kids really enjoy their time at Calvary.


Stephen Soccer 1
Stephen says that he enjoys every position, but he really excels at goalie
Stephen Soccer 2

Dirty and lovin' it!
He actually pulled these out of the dirty laundry that morning. I told him to find a clean pair of pants and then he pointed out the obvious by telling me that they would get dirty anyway.

Monday, June 1, 2009

Grandma and Grandpa Spring Visit

Butterfly Spring 1


Grandma and Grandpa came to visit us just in time for the spring flowers at the Arboretum. They were also just in time to watch us let our butterflies go that we raised over the past month. Everything was so beautiful and Grandpa took some amazing pictures!

Butterfly Spring 2

Butterfly 3

Rhea Spring2


Rhea Spring 1