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!