Adventures in U.S. History Week 7

This week we did several activities related to Jesus as the Bread of Life. We baked bread using the recipe in the teacher's manual (a simple recipe that has you raise the dough in a warm oven). Miss M did most of the work herself!

Ingredients for baking bread: warm water, yeast, honey, flour, salt, and oil.

Miss M carefully measuring out whole wheat flour.

She also made a napkin holder with bread-shaped ends declaring Jesus is the Bread of Life! Unfortunately, we haven't used it yet since I don't have any napkins right now.

In history we've been reading about the French pioneers who paddled up rivers in birch bark canoes. Miss M made a canoe out of construction paper.

Although Miss M has been reading at a late-2nd or early-3rd grade level for a while now, she hasn't been particularly interested in reading chapter books until this week! She picked up a copy of The Happy Hollisters by Jerry West that had been my dad's when he was a boy and then was my brother's and mine when we were little and couldn't put it down!

She kept saying, "Mom! A secret door!" "MOM! A SECRET STAIRCASE!" "Oh no! Joey Brill said he's going to take all the cats away!" Every chapter ends with some degree of suspense, so she wants to keep on reading. It's delightful to watch her devour a book I enjoyed so much when I was young. What's even better is that I have several more Happy Hollisters books just waiting for her! I'm ecstatic that she's enjoying reading on her own and encourage her to free-read as much as possible. I even took our dictation passage from her book this week!

*gasp* I just discovered that some of The Happy Hollisters books (affiliate link) have been reprinted! GET THEM! They're so much fun!

Since chapter books are apparently now on the menu for Miss M, I added a new type of book to the Book Basket this week. Do you remember choose-your-own-adventure books? I loved them when I was a kid! But I was never very good at making decisions as I went. I used to mark a place with my finger and then read ahead "just to see what happens" with the intention of coming back and reading the other path later. I'd end up with most of my fingers in the pages marking all the different spots! Miss M has really enjoyed this one. It's called Colonial America (You Choose: Historical Eras). affiliate link

We took our nature walk a day early and looked for signs of spring.

Little Guy and Miss M examining a game trail for tracks.

Miss M feeling the new baby grass that is beginning to sprout up.

Spring has finally arrived in our parts! We had such a long winter and before that such a dry, hot fall and summer, that it's wonderful to see things getting green again!

We found a tiny purple flower growing in the woods!

Since I seem to be recommending books this week, I'll end with another one that we've enjoyed.

Bread, Bread, Bread by Ann Morris (affiliate link)

It's a fun rhyming picture book about the different kids of bread that people eat all over the world! It's been a fun addition to our study of bread the past two weeks.

Our adventures from previous weeks:

Week 1, Week 2, Week 3, Week 4, Week 5, Week 6

The rest of our adventures:

Week 8, Week 9, Week 10, Week 11, Week 12

Week 14, Week 15, Week 16, Week 17, Week 18, Week 19,

Week 20, Week 21, Week 22, Week 23, Week 24, Week 25,

Week 26

MFW ECC: What's different this time around?

I am so excited to go through Exploring Countries and Cultures again. The last time my kids were so little -- 3rd grade and Kindergarten. And now they are in 5th and 8th grades! They have grown so much over the past five years. As I began to think about our plan for this year, I realized two things: 1) my gifted eldest child remembers just about everything we covered in ECC the first time, and 2) my younger one hasn't had many of the basics that ECC covers. So I was faced with a dilemma -- how do I adjust ECC to suit the very different needs of both children? How do I shift the focus for my 8th grader to aspects of ECC that she hadn't spent time on before (such as types of governments, imports and exports, etc.) while also taking my younger child through the more foundational information that he missed when he was just a kindergartener? ECC is designed to be parent-led, family learning, with a supplement for 7th and 8th grade. But I came to the conclusion that I need to deco...

Review: Seed Starting by Gary Emmett (an ebook)

As I've already confessed, I am a plant murderer . I have, however, had marginal success with container gardening. The past year or two I started seedlings with my dad, which means the kids and I dropped a few seeds in pots and my dad cared for them. Once they were established outside, I was able to keep them alive long enough to harvest a few peppers and tomatoes and have a pretty pot of flowers on my doorstep. (At least until a horrid heat-wave and drought came along and killed them all; it's hard to keep containers well-watered when it's that hot!) In spite of the 10+ inches of snow on the ground right now, it's time to think about starting seeds again and I figure if I'm ever going to develop a green thumb, I better start educating myself! That is why I jumped at the opportunity to read Gary Emmett's book Seed Starting: The First Step to Gardening . (affiliate link) Available for your Kindle or Kindle app from Amazon. Currently priced at $2...

No More Quiet Time

I have always thought it sounded trite to speak of “falling in love with Jesus.” But trite or not, isn’t that what I want for my children? To learn to “love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might” (Deuteronomy 6:5). With that in mind, and having run across this blog post on Pinterest several months ago, I created a morning devotion basket for the kids and I to use. You see, up till now, I would typically find time to read the Bible and pray away from my children. Away from distraction, away from the demands of dust and dirty dishes, and away from the 437 questions a four-year-old asks every day. Then I realized I was doing them a major disservice by disallowing them to see me in the Word regularly. If I want them to love the Lord God, then I must show them how I love the Lord my God! Our new routine is to wake up in the morning, prepare a simple breakfast — usually cold cereal for the kids, toast and tea for me — and sit d...

CHRISTEPHI

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