Unit 4 Celebration

We have finished up our Year 1 Study and capped it off with a wonderful Unit 4 Celebration. Thank you to all 30 friends and family who came to celebrate with us. The celebration was the "icing on the cake" of our studies - and we all love icing!

Unit 4 was a wonderful adventure. We studied the Roman Republic and Empire. We examined the birth, life , and death of Jesus Christ and the emergence of the Christian church. Science led us through a study of the human body and a really neat "body-building" project.

Here are some highlights that were shared during the celebration.

Roman Costumes

The Roman soldier costume was a unit-long project. This picture doesn't really show the tunic, chain mail, sword, or sandals.

More Projects -
A bean mosaic, a minimus basket, and a paper mache elephant

Writing Projects -
Research paper on Archimedes and a Family Book

Salt maps of Europe

Science Projects

Roman Food

Gustum - Artichokes

Prima Mensa - Pullum Frontonianum

Secunda Mensa - Patina De Piris

The food was surprisingly good. I may even try these recipes again!

The kids at the celebration participated in a project of making cookie mosaics. This had been one of our favorite projects for the unit.

The kids busy on their projects

Some of the works of art.

Our original mosaic - long since gone

The main event of the evening was a speech given by our resident Roman soldier, Titus.




What a terrific unit this was! I think it has been the favorite for all of us so far. In addition to the things shown above, we have read some terrific books. Our favorites:

Mom - Twice Freed by Patricia St. John (I don't get to read all the literature assignments, but I highly recommend this book.)

Raiden - Outcast by Rosemary Sutcliff

Merry - The Tale of Three Trees by Angela Elwell Hunt



We start Year 2 on Monday!

Science Side Note

This may be a little off topic, but I had to share.

We have been studying biology this year and our lessons covered the five senses a few weeks ago. As we were heading to church on the Sunday after these lessons, Joy said:

"Raiden and Merry both have something special for one of their senses." (glasses and hearing aids) "I don't have any sense."

The truth that comes from a young mouth!!

Unit 3 Celebration

We wrapped up Unit 3 in mid-December. Since it was so close to the holidays, we planned to do everything via video this time around. Enjoy!

Our unit started with a study of Solomon and the Kingdom of Israel dividing. The kids picked out some of their favorite Proverbs to share:

Proverbs 1:8-9 (M)
Listen, my son, to your father's instruction
and do not forsake your mother's teaching.
They will be a garland to grace your head
and a chain to adorn your neck.

Proverbs 3:28-29 (M)

Do not say to your neighbor,
"Come back later; I'll give it tomorrow"—
when you now have it with you.
Do not plot harm against your neighbor,
who lives trustfully near you.

Proverbs 4:27 (R)

Do not swerve to the right or the left;
keep your foot from evil.

Proverbs 9:10 (R)
"The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom,
and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.

JONAH (the Assyrian Scourge) (Click to view on youtube.)

We also made some Assyrian-style reliefs during this week of study.






Babylonian Captivity - The vision and initial direction was done by Raiden. Merry managed to make it her own (and remove absolutely all sense from it). Here it is anyway. (Click to view on youtube.)


PERSIAN RULE - This is a Purim skit with our version of Purim masks. Mom did some direction, but the kids wrote it all.



Greek and Persian Wars - The Greeks were the underdogs, but the Battle of Marathon was a turning point.



Next, we entered the Golden Age of Greece. Among other things, we learned about the early days of the Olympics.



Then we spent some time learning about the Greek advances in art, literature, and science. We've all heard of Archimedes, but here is a little different spin on one of his scientific breakthroughs:



We wound the unit up by learning about Alexander the Great and his conquests.



The kids also worked on a newspaper throughout the Unit. You should be able to read it by clicking on the individual pages. I had some trouble getting it into a format that I could post here. I guess I need to learn some blog tricks!

Unit 2 Celebration

We finished up our first quarter in October and had our celebration on the 18th. Four families came to celebrate with us. They got to see the following presentations and taste some foods from the countries we had "visited". It was a fun event. I hope you enjoy the presentations as well.

The first two videos were taken the evening of our celebration. The kids were very excited and talked a bit much. Some of that has been edited out. The last three videos were taken a couple of weeks later. The excitement had waned a bit and they were suddenly very good at summarizing. Also, the food we had made was not available by that time. We'll try to do better next time.


INDUS VALLEY


ANCIENT CHINA


ANCIENT AMERICAS


ANCIENT GREECE



ISRAELITES


Joy had to get into the action too. She talked about her letters for almost 10 minutes. Here is a slightly shorter version:

Intro

The purpose of this blog is fairly simple. It is being created to provide a glimpse into our little one room homeschool. You see our motto at the top of the page. We strive to live by this. We also use this phrase to show our children that we love them and are proud of them WHATEVER they do and WHATEVER they choose to be when they "grow up". In our school environment, we are trying to give them exposure to many things and then focus on those things that they are most interested in. Our prayer is that they discover what God wants them to be and they do their best to be their best.

Our reasons for homeschooling are various and change a little with each passing year. Our activities and curriculum also changes. This year, we have taken our direction from Tapestry of Grace. We began this year with Year 1, Unit 2. We had studied Ancient Egypt fairly extensively last year, so I thought this was a good place for us to start. Although we do other things in our school, this blog will mostly cover our projects in Tapestry. My current plan is to post parts of our Unit Celebrations (in other words, quarterly). I plan to showcase what the children have done and do not plan to write disquisitions myself.

Thank you for viewing our blog. Please leave feedback for the kids. They are looking forward to hearing what others think of what they have done. It will be great for them to get encouragement and correction from people other than mom and dad.

Happy viewing!