ECC: Canada

Welcome back! We spent a couple weeks setting the stage for our year (Part 1, Part 2) before learning about our own country (Part 1 and Part 2). We decided to visit our neighbors to the north before heading south to Mexico. That way we could study several Spanish-speaking countries at once instead of splitting them up. We "flew" into Ottawa and spent three weeks exploring Canada.

School under the table for a mid-winter change of pace!

Bible

We listened to John 3:16 in French and read about the Garifuna in Window on the World. We read about William and Catherine Booth in Hero Tales. There isn't much hands-on to show you, but the kids do enjoy the readings very much!

Language Arts

Most of our language arts have been integrated in other subjects these past weeks. We're still using the copywork pages from Mama Jenn for Hero Tales and geography terms. Between that, spelling, and memorizing a poem, we've got it covered! To go along with our study of caniforms and our stay in Canada, we read The Bears on Hemlock Mountain. It was a huge hit with the kids!

Geography

The kids made Canadian flags with handprints for the maple leaf.

And we carved polar bears out of ivory soap the way the Inuit people carve from bone or soapstone. Did you know the term Eskimo is now considered offensive? When I was a kid we learned about Indians and Eskimos; now kids learn about Native Americans and First Nations. It's sometimes difficult to keep up with the changes in semantics (starfish, anyone?), but it's important to make a lifetime habit of learning...even for old mamas!

Science

In science we've nearly wrapped up our study of caniforms. To celebrate, we took a trip to the zoo! There we looked for as many caniforms as we could find. Miss M even rode a caniform on the carousel! (It was an African Wild Dog.)

Of course, the highlight of our zoo field trip was visiting Nikita and Berlin the polar bears! Such magnificent creatures! We're hoping along with the rest of Kansas City that sometime soon we'll have wee polar bear cubs to visit.

Did you know that polar bears' skin is black? God had a good reason for designing them that way. We did an experiment to show that black is warmer than white!

To wind up our stay in Canada, we ate poutine, a dish of French fries and cheese curds with gravy. It was delicious!

We had lots of fun learning about Canada, its geography and culture, and we're looking forward to our travels South of the Border!

Comments

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...

Hawaiian Sweet Rolls

Hubby and the kids are huge fans of King's Hawaiian rolls. I was spoiled by homemade bread growing up, so I don't care for the processed taste/texture, but more than that, my pocketbook just can't take the hit on a regular basis! In order to make everyone happy, I embarked on a quest to find the perfect roll recipe. It had to be sweet (very sweet, actually!) to please Hubby and soft to please the kids. After quite a few tweaks and trial runs, I've settled on this as the perfect Hawaiian sweet roll recipe. Ingredients 1 cup milk 1 cup pineapple juice (can substitute pear or apple juice, or water for a less sweet roll) 3 large eggs 1 1/2 teaspoons sea salt 1/2 cup (1 stick) melted butter, slightly cooled 6 1/2 cups all-purpose flour 4 tablespoons wheat gluten 1/2 cup sugar (white or brown, we liked it both ways!) 3 teaspoons yeast (3 1/2 if planning to freeze the rolls before baking) I made mine in the bread machine (as usual), but you ...

CHRISTEPHI

Search This Blog