Joyfully Weary

In years past, we've been working our way through Story of The World by Susan Wise Bauer. This year, however, we are taking a break from world history and studying American history. We joined a co-op and one of the classes the kids are taking is Hands On American History. Originally, I had planned on continuing Story of the World   at home. We are about half-way through Vol 3, early modern history , so in some ways the lesson would coincide. I quickly realized, however, that it wasn't going to work. In class they do a lot of games and skits to make history come alive; but I also wanted to supplement what they were learning with some living books. There just isn't enough time to do the reading for both. For now, we've pressed pause on Story of the World and will probably pick it back up come May when the class ends.  We are just wrapping up our books on the America Revolution and the Founding Fathers; I thought I'd share what we read. Jean Fritz is one ...

We are just finishing up taking a look at Ancient Asia in our history book, Story of the World, Volume 2: The Middle Ages . My boys, of course, were very fascinated by Samurai and Ninjas. They've spent a lot of time the past couple week coloring pages from  Samurai Arms and Armor . We currently are not doing an official geography curriculum so we piggyback off our history curriculum and use it talk about other countries and cultures. All the kids were a little envious that in Japan children get their own holiday, Children's Day. During this day a  koinobori  or carp streamer is flown above houses. The carp is chosen because it it thought of as the most spirited fish. Spirited is a good way to describe all my children, so we decided we had to make our version of a carp streamer.

I mentioned last week that we are currently finishing up,  The Story of The World: Ancient Times . The history of Roman has definitely intrigued us; there so much to cover  and they way it's impacted western  civilization  is  fascinating! On a side note, if like me, you have the desire to learn more than what your children's history books are offering you I highly recommended the podcast,   "The History of Rome by Mike Duncan . The episodes are short, so it's easy to listen to while doing household chores, etc.  Alright, back to the reason for this post, one of the Roman themed activities we've done is create these simple mosaics. 

We are just now finishing up,  The Story of The World: Ancient Times , we are little bit behind because we took a couple detours to dig deeper in to some subjects. Big Buddy was particular interested in learning more about the the Greek Gods, Olympians, gladiators, and the Roman Army. One thing that kept appearing in all of these areas was the laurel wreath . Thus, it became an area of fascination. The boys have been spending a lot of time pretending to by Roman legionaries, so I thought it be fun to make some for their dress box. 

Over the last two weeks, in Big Buddy's history curriculum , we've been reading about Babylon and King Nebuchadnezzar. History is probably Big Buddy's favorite subject; he enjoys hearing old stories and learning about ancient cultures. As we make are way through the The Story of the World: Ancient Times , I've been very impressed with Big Buddy's ability to remember details and his continual thirst for me knowledge. I supplement with lots of other books and Big Buddy is constantly asking me to read him another book/chapter.  After reading about The Hanging Gardens of Babylon, I thought Big Buddy would enjoy creating his own version. I'm constantly saving interesting junk and had some cardboard toy packaging pieces from Christmas that I thought would be the perfect base. I then gathered up a few other craft materials and set Big Buddy free to design his own hanging gardens.  Our Supplies Other than setting out a book for Big Buddy to reference I ...

We are finally past Ancient Egypt in our history book ( Story of the World ), but before we move on we decided to make some Egyptian Collars. The Ancient Egyptian's cloths were pretty simple, linen skirts or dresses, but they did have a flair for accessories and jewelry. The children had commented  on the collars in some of the books we read and I thought it be a fun way to end our unit.  Supplies: felt, chalk, scissors, tacky glue, paint brush, acrylic gemstones , and if desired large & small circles for tracing.  Step 1 : use chalk to trace a large circle on to the felt about the size of the child's shoulders. Also use chalk to trace a small circle for the child's neck with an opening in the back. Step 2 : cut out circles. Since cutting felt can be a little tricky I did this part. Step 3 : spread tacky glue on the back of jewels and then lay them on felt to create your own design. Since tacky glue can be a little tricky to get out of the bot...

In Big Buddy's history book, The Story of the World , we've spent a lot of time studying Ancient Egypt. One of the coloring pages from last week was of some Hyksos jewelry and the kids thought it be fun to make some of their own. Hyksos, are known for their work with bronze, but we made ours gold because those were the materials I had on hand.  Our Supplies: paper roll tube, scissors, acrylic paint, brush,  Sculpey clay , nail, and a hot glue gun.  Step 1: have each child press their clay (i gave each child 1/4 of the Sculpey cube) in to an oval shape. Then have child use a nail to decorate their clay with hieroglyphics . I had each child try to make their initial in hieroglyph, the rest is just their own design.  Step 2: bake clay pendants at 225° for 20 minutes or until clay is hard.  Step 3: while clay is baking, cut vertically down the paper roll tube and then cut horizontally to make bracelets - we were able to make 4 br...

Visiting the Field Museum was on our to-do list for this fall, so when I saw that they were providing an opportunity for bloggers to visit their 1893 World Fair exhibi t, I jumped at the opportunity. We tossed around the idea of taking all the kids but in the end we decided to make it a special day for Big Buddy.  It's rare that both Jeremy and I get time together with just one of our children. Big Buddy loves information and facts so he was definitely in his element and we enjoyed getting to focus and dote on him alone. Before visiting the museum both Jeremy and I felt like we were pretty knowledgable about the 1893 World's Fair.  While reading Devil in the White City several years back I got a bit consumed and did some of my own research and, as an architect/professor, Jeremy has studied the history and effects of the fair's architecture. We knew that the buildings that currently house the Museum of Science and Industry, and the Field Museum , were born ...