Sonlight Core K Week 3

We had a great time traveling to Ancient Egypt this week. As always, we extended 1 days worth of reading into a weeks worth of fun and activities!

Books Used-both of these were used mainly for the pictures, we didnt read much of the actual content.
Cleopatra by Diane Stanley
Tutankhamens Gift by Robert Sabuda


We didnt do a "traditional" lapbook this time, I made a "book" from construction paper. I took 2 sheets of paper and stapled them together on the short end then folded each page in half toward the inside.

Activities
-PBS Special Video "Pyramids"
-History Pockets This is gearded for an older age group, but we adapted it for us and just didnt use everything. There is a lot of information in here, including this really neat description of the different layers of the mummy and the sarcophagus. The kids really enjoyed wrapping there "person" up in the gauze.






 -Paint the Nile River down a large piece of construction Paper. We discussed the importance of it and added some materials from the history pockets beside our river. Yes- I have messy painters!

-Apple Mummification Experiment This one is still "mummifing" but here is the beginning picture!

-Build a pyramid from legos. This was really great for Aiden to use problem solving and  math skills , something I did not even expect when I gave him the instruction to do it. He had to start over a couple of times until he figured out the process, and it turned out great. (The people are apparently gaurding the mummy inside-I love the imagination!)



-Egyptian Paper Dolls. I got thses from the History Pockets download, but also saw some great printables HERE, although some of the clothing in this download does not go along with what we read they actually wore. I had the kids color them and then I laminated them for playtime. (BTW- LOVE the laminator!)



Sonlight Core K Week 2

Ok, so I know I am a little late posting our week 2 projects. I honestly did not do hardly any school with the kids at all last week due to some issues we had going on here at our house. But, I guess better late than never =)

If you are doing the 5 day a week curriculum, you have reading scheduled on Day 5 of science on  the topic of Frogs for the next several weeks. I personally did not think the kids would remember that much just reading a couple of pages one day a week for several weeks, so we turned the entire Frog theme into a lapbook.

I am always amazed at how much I learn right along with the kids! Did you know that the smallest frog is about the size of your finger nail, while the biggest is the size of a cat! Really? If I met that from on a dark night I think I would have a heart attack!

Extra Books:
Frogs By Gail Gibbons
Growing Frogs By Vivian French
The Frog Prince

Lapbook Compnents:
-og words from Homeschool Share
5 Green Speckled Frogs Poem from Homeschool Share
Frog Life Cycle
Frog Prince Coloring Page

Other Activities:
Watched the Princess and the Frog movie
Grow a Frog- I really wanted to do this, but just did not want to spend the money to purchase a kit. We have many ponds in our area were you can catch tadpoles when it is warmer, so we might come back to this later.
Frog Tracker The kids loved this and even insited on calling Daddy to let him hear their new "croak" music!



We skipped the Living Long Ago and the Children's Encyclopedia reading on Ancient Egypt this week and will encorporate that with some extra activities into next week.
 
Stay tuned for Valentine activities next week as we explore a little on this holiday!

Sonlight Core K Week 1

As soon as our box from Sonlight arrived the kids were begging to get started. We really enjoyed our first week of homeschool!
Supplementing with the curriculum this week, to go along with the Usborne Children's Encyclopedia reading on dinosaurs, we will be completing a small unit study to extend more on that topic. I borrowed some of the ideas from Homeschool Share and Enchanted Learning to complete a lapbook on Dinosaurs. While I am on the topic of Enchanted Learning, this is a subscription site. I debated over and over again on paying the fee to join ($20) because of the wealth of information you can find for free online, but the more I searched the more I decided that this site is well worth the $20 subscription fee. They offer a ton of materials for homeschoolers and teachers alike.

Books Used
If the Dinosaurs Came Back by Bernard Most
Bones, Bones, Dinosaur Bones by Byron Barton
Raising Dragons by Jerdine Nolen
Dinosaurumpus! by Tony Mitton
The Magic Schoolbus In the Times of Dinosaurs

Homeschool Share recommends the book What Really Happened to the Dinosaurs by John Morris and Ken Ham, I just want to add here that I did check this book out at the library and was very disappointed. Not only was it confusing for the kids to understand, I didn't understand much of it either. It contradicted what we had read in the Usborne Encyclopedia and it talked a lot about Evolution and how the dinosaurs lived over 100 million years ago. After reading just a couple of pages, we decided to skip it all together.

This was our first lapbook experience, and the kids really seemed to enjoy it. It was really great how they were able to share what they learned with Daddy afterwards.

Materials Included

• Read the creation account in Genesis 1:1-31. List what God made on each day and determine what day God made dinosaurs. Flip Flap Book
• Discuss Paleontology and completed large dinosaur puzzle after going on a "hunt" for the pieces.  Paleontologist matchbook.
• Make a paper mache Dinosaur egg and then hatch it later (mommy snuck in a toy dinosaur when they werent looking)
• Discuss dragons and dinosaurs.  How do the "dragons" in this story seem like dinosaurs?
• Dinosaur Book We colored the pictures on the first page and cut them all out to make our cover, then discussed and colored the other sheets to include in the lapbook.
• Dinosaur Pop Up Book

I have a photo printer at home, so any of the "big" projects like the fossils and the egg, I printed small pictures for them to include in their lapbook as well.

And here are the pictures of our completed lapbooks

Also, beginning this week, we will start collection items to make a Diorama of the Boxcar Children later. As we read the book we will note things they had in the boxcar and what the area around them was like. We also have The Boxcar Children Cookbook and will be making some of the recipes as we come upon the different foods they ate in the book.

For Science, we were very lucky that the Lunar Eclipse happened around the same time we read about the Earth's rotation, we viewed a video of that Here on the NASA website.