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After attending a class about insects and arachinds at the Houston Museum of Natural Science, we decided to study more about these creatures. Tonight, we had a bug for desert! Actually, it's made of ice cream. It has 3 body parts (head, thorax & abdomen) made of ice cream, 6 legs made of pretzles, eyes made of M&M's, a mandible made of a broken M&M, and then we added a chocolate "shell" for the exoskeleton. Yummy, bugs!!! Tommorow night, we think we'll try the same thing, but make a spider instead! Yum, yum! (This was adapted from a Core Knowledge lesson plan)
Non-fiction book:
- On Beyond Bugs: All About Insects by Tish Rabe (added to list March 2006) - great Cat in the Hat book - it's funny, it rhymes, and it teaches, all at the same time!
- Insects That Work Together: A Bobbie Kalman Book by Aloian & Kalman - wonderful book with great facts & photos! (added Oct 2006)
We are just getting started on Egypt, but wanted to write down some of our favorite resources so far (since I have to take them back to the library tomorrow)...
- "Mummies Unwrapped! Alien Adventures in Ancient Egypt" - a National Geogrphic Kids Video that is funny (in a childish way - but we enjoyed it), yet informational
- "Seeker of Knowledge: The Man Who Deciphered Egyptian Hieroglyphs" by James Rumford- wonderful book - it also teaches about perseverence and that even kids can dream big & fulfill their dreams
- "Adventures in Ancient Egypt" by Linda Bailey - funny, but very informational book - it's about twins (brother/sister) & their little sister who travel back in time (reminds me of The Magic Tree House books) - lots of pictures - we highly recommend it
- "The 5,000-Year-Old Puzzle: Solving a Mystery of Ancient Egypt" by Claudia Logan
- "The Crafts and Culture of the Ancient Egyptians" by Jovinelly (added May 2006) - we've been reading some more about Egypt lately & came across this great craft book - we made a headdress & will post the picture soon - we planned on making the cat mummy, but haven't made the time
- "Look What Came from Egypt"
Above is a step pyramid we built out of sugar cubes.
We went and saw "The March of the Penguins" movie at the theater last week (but, Alex fell asleep after about 20 minutes). After that, we borrowed a very cute movie from the library called "Antartic Antics." It is based on a poetry book by the same name, but in the movie they sing them as songs and they are very cute! Also, we borrowed a book called "Penguin Chick" by Betty Tatham. It goes wonderfully with "The March of the Penguins."
We had lots of fun studying Russia. In fact, now that we've moved on, Alex asked if we could "Do Russia" again.
Here is some of what we did:
- Matryushka Dolls - http://mssscrafts.com/crafts/matryushka/ - we printed out 5 nesting dolls (see our photo) that you color then bend & they will actually nest inside each other - we also read the Christmas story about her from the same site
- Tchaikovsky - listened several times to "Tchaikovsky Discovers America" - wonderful!! We will probably buy this...
- Faberge Eggs - spray painted Easter Eggs & decorated with glitter & "jewel" stickers - even hid a jewel inside
- Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake - colored some swans & folded a paper oragami swan
- Onion domes - coloring page (used glitter glue, too) from crayola.com
- Great book: "The Littlest Matryoshka" by Bliss - cute story about nesting dolls
- "Rechenka's Eggs" by Polacco (added April 2006) - cute fiction book that also shows some Russian onion domed buildings and clothes and it uses some Russian words
Crayola.com had a lot of great ideas! Sorry this is so quick & choppy!
Update: Another lady who does Galloping the Globe shared her blog with our group. If we ever get a chance to study Russia some more, we would like to try some of the ideas from her blog: http://www.abiding.blogspot.com/.
Also for France, we've been studying the French Impressionists painters, especially Monet. Monet liked to take his easel outside to paint and he painted a lot of water scenes. So, we took our easel outside to paint a picture of our pool & the reflections in the pool. This was so much fun! Alex spent about 45 minutes on her painting! She even used her imagination and added water lilies. 
We just used water colors, so we didn't have many colors to choose from - I think Alex had 24 colors, and I only had 8. We need to buy some better paints!
We are studying the Wright brothers (who gained noteriety in France when they showed off their plane & flying skills). We found the instructions for making an "Incredible Edible Wright Flyer."
It is made with graham crackers, pretzles, and icing. We tried to make it with the icing, but it wasn't working for us. Maybe we should have tried a different kind of icing? Anyway, we ended up using a glue gun. I also wish we'd have broken the pretzles in half to make the plane shorter. This was a grown up job - too hard for Alex, but she enjoyed watching, eating, and then playing with the Flyer.
This week we've been studying France. We looked at several picture books about France and studied several famous people. We watched the Nest animated movie of Joan of Arc, read quite a bit about Louis Pasteur (and watched the Nest animated movie), and read a book about Degas. Next week, we will finish by cooking a French dinner and studying Monet.
From www.papertoys.com, we found a printout to make a model of the Eiffel Tower. I really thought it looked difficult to cut, but Alex did a wonderful job! And, we once again enjoyed the freedom of homeschooling to "do school" in the beautiful outdoors! 
We've been studying Galileo, and decided to make the Leaning Tower of Pisa using vanilla wafers and icing. Galileo went to the top of the tower and dropped two different weights - one heavy & one light. At the time, people believed the heavier one would hit the ground first. But, the two weights hit the ground at the same time. Galileo revolutionized the way scientists "did science" by using experiments, not just "thinking about things."
Our favorite resources for Galileo were the animated video by Nest Entertainment and the book, "Galileo" (a "What's Their Story?" book) by Jacueline Mitton.
We studied Scotland a couple of weeks ago. Unfortunately, I didn't take any pictures. The highlight of our study was visiting a friend of ours who is from Scotland. She shared some photo albums with us, especially of her wedding, and then showed us her husband's actual kilt & accessories from their wedding! It was really neat to actually see it and learn some new terms. She also served us some shortbread and gave us a package to make Shepherd's pie and loaned us some tapes of bagpipe music. I wish I had taken my camera!
I've already returned the books, so I don't remember if there were any that we liked particularly better than others. But, one extrememly cute book that we still have is called "The Ghosts' Trip to Loch Ness" by Duquennoy.
I think if we study Scotland in the future, or we might do it anyway, I'd make my daughter a simple kilt to dress up in - I think she'd love that!
We have now started studying geology. To begin with, we are studying the layers of the earth. Alex made a playdough model of the 4 layers of the earth: crust, mantle, outer core, & inner core. Then, we cut it open to see what it looked like. She really enjoyed making her model! And, we bought new playdough, so we both enjoyed playing with it!
