Weeks 29 & 30: Russia & the Winter Olympics

We studied Russia out of turn so that we could include the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics during our study. It seemed to fit well after Germany anyway since Russia is partly in Europe and partly in Asia. We will continue with Asia and then go on to Africa. I love that we have the flexibility to mix things up :)

As if by design, we were even blessed with 7" of snow on the ground in our part of North Carolina during our study! God's timing is perfect.

Even though it wasn't Christmas, I got out our Russian nesting doll Santas... We also printed off some world flags and made a long banner to decorate with and help Lindsey learn the flags. Then we created our own Olympic Games: pom-pom curling, an archery biathlon, sock skating, and also included a Mario vs. Sonic Winter Olympic video game for the Wii that I bought used at Gamestop. I think I won a gold medal in the teacher/mommy category when I surprised my daughter with the video game and told her she had to play it for school. She was so excited! Not only was it fun for the whole family, it really helped her relate to the different events.

Science -

We took a break from our zoology to study the science of the Olympics. We learned about friction, drag, angular momentum, torque, acceleration, gravity and mass. Lindsey wrote the definitions on index cards. We looked at science of figure skating, skiing aerials, and bobsledding. We watched the Olympic science videos at http://www.nbclearn.com/olympics and did some of the activities listed with them. Who doesn't want to spin in an office chair to learn about science?

We created a model bobsled to learn about the acceleration of gravity on objects of differing mass. We used the longest pvc pipe that I could bring home in my car (not the recommended 10 ft.) for the track, and travel bottles from the dollar store filled with different things for the bobsleds. We filled the bobsleds with beans, water, metal, sand art, and left one empty. Lindsey named each of the "teams" and we ran each one on the coarse 5 times and recorded their speed. Stuffed animal mascots (hare, polar bear, and tiger) cheered at the finish line. We dropped the highest & lowest time for each team and averaged their scores to determine the winners. Even though they have different masses, the sand art and the metal tied for the gold. The beans took the silver and water won the bronze. We covered boxes in white paper to create a medals podium & used stickers for medals.

Music -

We listened to some music by Peter Tchaikovsky and discussed Swan Lake & The Nutcracker. We have been to the ballet to see both of these and we also own the Barbie movies for both, so Lindsey was already familiar with them. She practiced some ballet positions too.

We borrowed the story of Peter and the Wolf from the library and listened to the music by Sergei Prokofiev. There is a leitmotif (melody associated with a person or place in the story) for each of the characters in Peter and the Wolf to help us understand them better. We discussed the music of the characters and compared them. We also watched the video for the Disney version below.

Art -

We watched this Treasures Of The World video about Fabergé Eggs & The Hope Diamond



We used resources found here: http://www.pbs.org/treasuresoftheworld/index.html and images on Google for further study. Then we created our own faux Fabergé Eggs using a ceramic egg from the Dollar Store and some plastic Easter Eggs we had on hand. We painted them & let them dry (2 coats) then embellished them with stick on "jewels", a gold paint pen, and stickers. The ceramic egg was easiest to paint, but the plastic eggs turned out nice too.

We read about Marc Chagall and discussed several of his paintings. We both agreed that “I and the Village” was our favorite. Chagall was from Belarus.

Lindsey also learned to draw different Olympic sports figures in action and included them on her bulletin board project. Maps of Russia and the Olympic village, mascots,  and information about the games (including medal counts) were posted on the board also. We used the learn to draw printables from Activity Village found here. The instructions were easy to follow. She learned to draw figure skaters, bobsleds, and different types of skiers.

Winter Olympics -

We printed flags from http://www.mrprintables.com/printable-world-flags.html and strung them on gold curling ribbon. The country names are on the fold over so you can study them and/or quiz your knowledge of the flags. We hung them alphabetically, but you could mix them up.

For our main study we used 2014 Winter Olympics Bundled Set from Brandenburg Studies that I purchased at CurrClick. I used other worksheets and resources in addition to the unit study. Many of the resources we used (and a few we didn't have time for) can be found on my 2014 Winter Olympics Pinterest board - http://www.pinterest.com/MiddleBeginning/2014-winter-olympics/

Books We Read -

The Giant Carrot by Jan Peck

Glory And The Games

The Keeping Quilt by Patricia Polacco

The Blessing Cup by Patricia Polacco

Babushka : An Old Russian Folktale by Charles Mikolaycak

Freeze Frame : A Photographic History Of The Winter Olympics by Sue Macy

The Fool Of The World And The Flying Ship; A Russian Tale by Arthur Ransome

Peter And The Wolf : With Music By Sergei Prokofiev by Janet Schulman

Russian Girl : Life In An Old Russian Town by Russ Kendall

Silly Horse by Vadim Aleksandrovich Levin

Marc Chagall by Jude Welton

Letters From Rifka by Karen Hesse

Anastasia, The Last Grand Duchess by Carolyn Meyer

Russia by O. Torchinski

The Majestic Wild [DVD] : Exploring The Exotic Far East

Week 16 & 17: Germany

Welcome to our study of Germany!

We also learned about Austria & Switzerland. We especially enjoyed the Passport To Europe DVD our librarian found for us. We watched a section each day during lunchtime. We also watched The Sound Of Music and Grimm's Snow White.

We made homemade soft pretzels (with the help of our bread machine) and they were delicious! Lindsey selected a recipe for apple custard cake from German Cooking Made Easy and it was wonderful served warm with a scoop of vanilla ice cream. We also discovered German Chocolate Bears at Aldi, we love trying chocolate from other countries for the sake of learning ;)

Science -

In ecosystems we studied lakes, ponds & rivers. The pond skaters and surface tension experiment was fun! It took some practice setting the paperclips on the surface of the water. Lindsey liked seeing how many she could float without breaking the tension.

Art - 

After reading about Gutenberg we used rubber stamps to print bookmarks. (I forgot to take a picture) We discussed how the printed image is reversed from the image on the stamp so letters are backwards on the stamps just like on Gutenberg's printing press. The letters and images on the rubber stamps are also raised like the letters used on the printing press. We also discussed how much time it would take to set each letter individually when preparing a page for print.

We skipped the beeswax & pressed flower projects. We didn't have the necessary supplies. We may try the pressed flowers in the spring.

Music -

We learned about Beethoven and Mozart. We listened to music from both and compared them. Lindsey preferred the more cheerful music of Mozart, but liked both.

Books We Read -

Rumpelstiltskin by Paul O. Zelinsky

From The Good Mountain : How Gutenberg Changed The World by James Rumford

Ludwig Van Beethoven by Noemi Vicini Marri

Play To The Angel by Maurine F. Dahlberg

Knut : How One Little Polar Bear Captivated The World by Isabella, Juliana, and Craig Hatkoff, & Gerald R. Uhlich ; with photographs by Zoo Berlin

The National Geographic Traveler : Germany by Michael Ivory

The Juniper Tree, And Other Tales From Grimm

If I Lived In Germany by Rosanne Knorr

Welcome To Germany by Meredith Costain

German Cooking Made Easy

Passport To Europe [DVD] : Germany, Switzerland & Austria

Chinese New Year: Year of the Horse

Happy Chinese New Year! - 2014 is the Year of the Horse

To celebrate Chinese New Year we went out to lunch at a Chinese restaurant. Chinese New Year is also known as Spring Festival. We also learned about Chinese New Year traditions and made a paper dragon puppet. You can find the paper dragon here: http://www.craftjr.com/dragon-paper-craft/

We watched this video about Chinese New Year traditions -



We used worksheets from http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Chinese-New-Year-Freebie-1058613 & watched a video about the legend of Nian -



Other resources we used include:
http://www.treksntrails.info/chinese-new-year.html
http://www.activityvillage.co.uk/year-of-the-horse-colouring-page
http://www.activityvillage.co.uk/year-of-the-horse-maze-3
http://www.activityvillage.co.uk/how-many-words-year-of-the-horse
http://www.apples4theteacher.com/holidays/chinese-new-year/

Weeks 14 & 15: France

Bonjour! Welcome to our study of France!

Lindsey has been learning French this year using Duolingo & was excited to finally study France. We especially enjoyed the food :)

We made French hot chocolate (a few times), grilled ham and cheese sandwiches, Eiffel Towers built with sugar wafers, and cream puffs. We used the recipes in Another Trip Around The World for the hot chocolate and sandwiches. The idea for the sugar wafer Eiffel Towers came from Pinterest.

This is the recipe we used for our cream puffs - http://www.cookingclassy.com/2013/02/cream-puffs/ 

For the sugar wafer Eiffel Towers, we used the same icing that we used for our gingerbread house. It's just confectioner sugar and water mixed to a glue consistency. Building the towers was challenging, but fun.

I printed a mini version of Paris from Made by Joel on cardstock and Lindsey arranged the buildings and colored the people. You can find the printable paper Paris at http://lapetitepeach.com/paris-paper-city-from-made-by-joel/.

Then Lindsey decided to build a LEGO Eiffel Tower and create Paris for her LEGO Friends. She even added a French flag on top of the Eiffel Tower. She placed a fountain in front and had her friends ride bicycles, picnic, and shop. An apple tree, ice cream cart, chocolate and flower stand are included. A salon and a pet shop (not pictured) are on the next level of her LEGO world.

Art -

We learned about Claude Monet and impressionism. We have a jigsaw puzzle of his water-lily pond painting, but when we tried putting it together our cat kept stealing the puzzle pieces. Silly cat! We read Linnea in Monet's Garden by Christina Björk, Monet by Mike Venezia, and What Makes A Monet a Monet? by Richard Muhlberger. Then Lindsey created her own masterpiece with watercolors and a crayon resist of the Eiffel Tower. I love how it turned out!


Music -

Lindsey started piano lessons!

Books We Read -

A Taste Of France by Roz Denny

Long Ago In A Castle by Marie Farre

France by Donna L. Knoell

Welcome To France by Meredith Costain

France by Don Nardo

Linnea in Monet's Garden by Christina Björk

What Makes A Monet a Monet? by Richard Muhlberger

Monet by Mike Venezia

Hero Tales From Many Lands by Alice I. Hazeltine

Christmas Around the World

We decided to study Christmas Around the World during December. We gained insights into the history of some of our Christmas traditions and tried some new ones while learning about other countries.

We decorated our tree and added a pickle ornament to it this year, hiding it like the German tradition. We set up our lighted Christmas village and our nativity. Our advent calendar counted the days until Christmas with candy and small gifts. We also used this online advent calendar to learn more about celebrations in other countries - http://projectbritain.com/Xmas/calendar/index.html#calendar
We made cookies, fudge, & peanut brittle. We went caroling at a senior center with our church. Our elf Holly visited. We read several Christmas books, watched Christmas movies, and listened to Christmas music.

Lindsey filled out several worksheets where she researched traditions in different countries. She learned how they say Merry Christmas in their language, how and when they celebrate, what foods they eat, etc... We also used some Christmas worksheets for math and writing that were fun. After learning about the legend of the Christmas Cat in Iceland who eats anyone not wearing a new outfit Christmas Eve, Lindsey drew a picture with colored pencils designing what she would wear to avoid being eaten.

These are some of the resources we used:

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Christmas-Around-the-World-Math-Literacy-Worksheet-Packet-171345

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Holidays-Christmas-Around-the-World-Scrapbook-Freebie-885381

http://www.123homeschool4me.com/2012/10/christmas-around-world.html

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Inferencing-Problem-Solving-Vocab-Comprehension-Christmas-Around-the-World-451676

Flat Lindsey Visits Canada

Flat Lindsey visited her new friends Iorek and Gaïanne in Canada. Their mom wrote to us about her visit -

First we made her a winter jacket, but since it was 9 degrees celsius (48 in fahrenheit) she didn't need her tuque. In Canada we use the International system for temperature, measurements, distances etc..

We brought Flat Lindsey to the West Edmonton Mall. It is the biggest mall in all North America and it's the 13th biggest mall in the world. In the pictures, you can see mini Lindsey in the mall, at the sea lions show, at the indoor water park, the indoor amusement park, and we also show you one of the Oldest company in the world, that have a big significance in the history of Canada (fur trading), The Hudson Bay Company.

Then we went to the Royal Alberta Museum which is beside the government house (historical building) where we took photos of Lindsey with the flags of all the provinces of Canada, and then with Canada and Alberta flags. In the Museum we first start with the Alberta Native History Gallery where she saw how the first nation used to live before the arrival of the Europeans and how the French Canadians did the fur trading and then founded the first colony of Metis (pronounced May-tee) (meaning mixed blood). Then we went to the Nature and Wild Life of Alberta gallery Where we showed her our trees and wild life. At the very end we took a little walk to take some picture of the scenery downtown around the museum.

We brought Mini Lindsey to Iorek's fencing friendly competition. We had our first real snow storm of the year, so Flat Lindsey had a chance to wear her tuque :-) Flat Lindsey enjoyed Iorek and Gaïanne playing in the snow in the back yard. She also went along with us to our meeting with our homeschool group at the local library. We also share a meal, vegetable omelette, with mini Lindsey.

We attended a Souvenir/Remembrance Day Parade. You can see the poppy flower we made for flat Lindsey to bring her to the parade. You can find all the information concerning Remembrance Day at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remembrance_Day . The bright yellow building is the Universiade Pavilion, better known as the Butterdome http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universiade_Pavilion . This is where the biggest Remembrance Day parade of the province is held every year. The Prime Minister of Alberta, Allison Redford was present at the ceremony. We like this very location for the parade because it's held inside, and as you can imagine, it is usually cold outside at that time of the year here in Alberta. My husband, the corporal Simard, was in the rank for the parade.

Here is the wiki page about the West Edmonton Mall http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Edmonton_Mall , the official page of the museum http://www.royalalbertamuseum.ca/ , the wiki of the museum and the government house http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Alberta_Museum .

General info about Alberta here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alberta . Concerning the Flat Stanley book, we got curious and search if there was an équivalent in french and found one. It is «Clément Aplati» http://www.amazon.ca/CL%C3%89MENT-APLATI-JEFF-BROWN/dp/2070537188 .

Flat Lindsey had so much fun on her Canadian adventure!

Weeks 12 & 13: Norway & Scandinavia

Sorry to be so late posting & to have missed a week! Lindsey was a bit under the weather for week 12, so most of our activities were during week 13. Here are the highlights -

Piano

Week 12 started with a piano being delivered for Lindsey! She has been wanting to take piano lessons since 2nd grade but we couldn't afford a piano. A family from our church had an old piano in their barn and they gave it to Lindsey. She is so excited! A group of boy scouts delivered it to our house and Lindsey learned to play Hot Cross Buns that afternoon. I found some free online lessons to get her started. She has also taught herself to play part of the keyboard cat song. Praise God for providing her with the piano she has wanted for so long.

Denmark & LEGO

Lindsey loves to build with LEGO blocks and they were invented in Denmark. I found a LEGO lapbook that included their history, how they are made, and math.

One of the activities was to build the flag of Denmark using LEGOS. Other Scandinavian flags are based on Denmark's flag as well. Norway used Denmark's flag as their own until they later added blue to it.

Since we have been working on percents in math, I had Lindsey figure out what percent of her LEGO flag was white and what percent was red. We really enjoyed this lapbook.

Sweden & IKEA

We have been needing desks for our classroom, so we decided to take a field trip to IKEA in Charlotte. It's a 2 hour drive for us & this was our first trip there. It was definitely worth the drive. We brought some of our library books with us in the car so Lindsey could read about Sweden on the way there. I had her write some interesting facts she found on a notebooking page. (She did the same for Norway.)

When we arrived we signed up for the IKEA family discount card. We shopped around the huge store and ate lunch in their restaurant. Lindsey got the kids meal with moose shaped pasta, yogurt, applesauce, and lingonberry juice. I ordered the Swedish meatballs with mashed potatoes and lingonberries of coarse. I shared some of my meatballs with Lindsey. Yum!

We bought the cutest woodland animal cookie cutters, a gingerbread house, a yule goat, magazine holders, and two laiva desks. The desks were only $18 each and they are a good size for our classroom. I love IKEA! I have a long wishlist and we will be making plans for future trips :)

Lindsey helped me put the first desk together and said "Mom! The instructions are just like the ones for Legos! Do you think that's because they are both from Scandinavian countries? The desk is from Sweden & Legos are from Denmark." I'm so thankful we made the decision to homeschool. I love to see her make connections like that about places we are studying. Thankful for Legos too. Lindsey practically put the second desk together by herself, building with Legos has trained her well.

Zoology: Dissecting An Owl Pellet

We studied Lesson 9: Rodentia and the Rest and Lindsey dissected an owl pellet for her lab. Given her aversion to bones & skeletons, this was not an easy lab for her. She had to stop a few times for a breath of fresh air, but she got through it and did a great job. She was able to find a fairly complete rodent skeleton. The skull even had some teeth.

I ordered the owl pellet kit from Home Science Tools. It came with the owl pellet, tweezers, a wooden probe, instructions and a bone sorting chart. We did have to soak the pellet in water to loosen it because it was to dry/compact to work with easily.

Woodland Animal Sugar Cookies

We used our new woodland animal cookie cutters from IKEA to make some sugar cookies. They were delicious & almost too cute to eat.

We made a thin cookie icing and dipped and/or painted the cookies to ice them. The icing dries hard so the cookies can be stacked. We used gel food colors to tint the icing, except for brown. For brown bears, hedgehogs, and moose, we added a bit of cocoa powder to the icing instead of food color.

The hedgehogs were the favorite. After dipping them in icing, we used chocolate sprinkles for their spines, a sprinkle for the nose, and a mini chocolate chip for the eye.

The moose were too large to dip, so we painted the bodies brown & the antlers yellow (like Bullwinkle). We also painted the icing on the snails.

For the foxes we used a chocolate sprinkle for the eye and a mini chocolate chip for the nose. We also added red sugar crystal sprinkles to the foxes.

Lindsey wanted the squirrels to be blue. We used a sprinkle for the nose & a mini chocolate chip for the eye. On some she also added a mini chocolate chip to their paw as an acorn.

Gingerbread House

We bought our gingerbread house at IKEA, it's called Pepparkaka Hus.

We used the same icing we made for the cookies on our gingerbread house and added more confectioner sugar for the icing to glue the pieces together. We decorated the pieces with icing before assembling the house. We used candy canes, red and green Skittles, gumdrop fruit slices, and a couple lollipops to decorate our house.

We used coconut for snow and added a few marshmallows for snowmen. We used candy canes broken to length in each corner of the house and along the roof. The hook part of the candy canes we used along with fruit slices to create a fence in the back yard. Fruit slices were also used as shrubs around the house. We made paths with the Skittles, one to the backyard and one to the front door. Lollipops became smoke for the chimney. We spread coconut out for snow, but left the aluminum foil showing in one section for a skating pond.

This was a fun project. Sadly our gingerbread house didn't survive until Christmas. Most of our candy had been eaten by Thanksgiving, and the house began to disappear after the woodland animal cookies were gone. It was yummy though :)

Music

My daughter pointed out to me that the popular song "What Does The Fox Say?" by Ylvis is from Norway. So I double checked and yes, Ylvis is a Norwegian group. Just in case you aren't familiar with it, here's their video -

Art

We made cute braided paper heart ornaments to hang on our tree. They are called Flätade Hjärtan. They are little baskets that can be filled with candy or treats. We used red & white cardstock and followed instructions I found at craftandcreativity.com

We also learned about rosemaling. We watched some instructional videos, then practiced on cardstock.

It takes some practice to learn the strokes. Lindsey struggled a little with the circle strokes, and found the S strokes to be the easiest. After practicing, she painted a design on a small cardboard box.

The rosemaling videos we watched are below.

Reading

Of coarse I have to include Hedgie's Surprise by Jan Brett. The needlepoint illustrations are wonderful and the story includes a Tomten. It's a great story to read while studying Scandinavia.

We found some other great books with the help of our librarian: The Race of the Birkebeiners by Lise Lunge-Larsen, Christmas in Noisy Village by Astrid Lindgren, & Favorite Fairy Tales Told in Norway. I also got books on Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Denmark.

Movies / Videos / Websites

We watched Heidi and How To Train Your Dragon. At first Lindsey didn't want to watch Heidi, but after a while she liked it. It was a long movie, it's in two parts so we watched it over two days. How To Train Your Dragon includes vikings and their boats. These were good to watch while Lindsey wasn't feeling well.

There are several photos and videos on Norway along with information at http://www.visitnorway.com/us/ - The videos of the northern lights are especially beautiful. We also liked this video on YouTube: Visit Norway in 7 min. For Finland visit http://www.visitfinland.com/, for Denmark http://denmark.dk/, and for Sweden http://sweden.se/p2/. We also learned about the Yule Goat tradition at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yule_Goat - we bought a small one at IKEA and plan to make some felt Yule Goat ornaments while we look at Christmas around the world.

We ended our Scandinavian adventure at the theater with the new Disney movie Frozen. The movie takes place in Norway. We noticed rosemaling, northern lights, fjords, the architecture, etc... Also at the beginning of the movie it showed them cutting ice from the frozen harbor. We enjoyed the movie, it was fun!

Hope you enjoyed our study of Norway and Scandinavia! We'd love to here your comments below.