Weeks 21 & 22: Saudi Arabia

Welcome to our study of Saudi Arabia! We were packing and getting ready to move, so I didn't take pictures as usual. The camel above is a photo from an earlier visit to Aloha Safari Zoo. We also condensed this study into a week (and a half) instead of two full weeks.

Science -

We learned about pollution, conservation, endangered species, and deserts. We learned about natural pollution vs. man-made pollution, acid rain, greenhouse effect, and ways to reduce pollution. We looked at why species become endangered and how they can be protected. We talked about why camels hooves are well suited for walking through desert sand. Then we experimented with pushing a pencil into sand vs. pushing a quarter into it. The larger flat foot doesn't sink into the sand.

In zoology we looked at Lesson 13: Arthropods of the Land. Scorpions and Spiders were not our favorite animals to study and with our crazy schedule we were happy to just focus on the highlights in the notebook review questions and crossword puzzles.

Books We Read -

The Arabian Horse by Gail B. Stewart

Camels by Cherie Winner

The Red Sea and Persian Gulf

Aladdin And The Magic Lamp by Deborah Hautzig

Take A Trip To Saudi Arabia by Keith Lye

Saudi Arabia by Ann Heinrichs

Ali Baba And The Forty Thieves by Ali Baba

Sindbad : from the tales of the thousand and one nights by Ludmila Zeman

The Book Of Wonders by Jasmine Richards

We also watched the Disney Aladdin movies for fun.

Weeks 27 & 28: Japan

Konnichiwa! Welcome to our study of Japan.

We packed a lunch & some library books, and visited a Japanese garden. We enjoyed seeing the cherry blossoms and the koi pond as we walked through the garden. We sat in the pagoda to read our books and were surprised to find a sculpture in Yoko's Paper Cranes by Rosemary Wells, just like the one in front of us!

We decided to visit a Japanese restaurant for dinner. There were ceramic neko cats, red bamboo, and rice paper screens to greet us. We ordered teriyaki chicken with vegetables & rice and shrimp tempura. We even ate it using only chopsticks! Everything was delicious :)

Art -

Lindsey really liked creating origami. She went through all the paper that came with our book, so we bought more at the craft store and checked out more origami books from the library. She made everything from animals, to paper cups (yes, you can drink from them), and even an origami piano for her piano teacher.

We made Japanese bookmark dolls and Lindsey added toothpicks as chopsticks in her dolls hair. We followed instructions in this tutorial found at Ballpoint Bliss - http://ballpointbliss.blogspot.com/2011/04/tutorial-how-to-make-japanese-bookmark.html
Lindsey also made the Kokeshi doll found at Activity Village -
http://www.activityvillage.co.uk/japan-printables

We painted cherry blossoms, blowing through straws to paint the branches, using instructions found at A Faithful Attempt - http://afaithfulattempt.blogspot.ca/2011/06/cherry-blossom-paintings.html

Then we created a zen garden using a candy box spray painted with black chalkboard paint for the container. We all took turns creating patterns in the sand and rearranging the stones. We found ideas for patterns to create online and fun creating our own.

Home-Ec -

Lindsey sewed a kimono for her American Girl doll, Felicity. She recycled a pair of pajama pants that had a panda pattern on them for the fabric. For the obi, she used wide satin ribbon. It turned out super cute!


Of coarse, Felicity needed chopsticks too. She followed this tutorial at Doll It Up to make chopsticks - http://www.doll-it-up.com/easy-chopsticks-for-dolls-and-a-few-tips-for-setting-an-asian-themed-table/



Instead of toothpicks, she used wooden skewers that she cut down to AG doll size. She wrapped panda print washi tape on the ends.

We read about Japanese tea ceremonies and watched a video about them. Then we had our own version of a Japanese tea ceremony with hot chocolate and chocolate chip cookies. We created a kimono for Lindsey using my bathrobe with a silk scarf tied around the waist. Then she put her hair up with a flower clip to complete the look. We spread a square tablecloth on the floor and she served our "tea".

Science -

We studied ocean ecosystems and since I had a field trip to the beach and aquarium planned we also moved up the study of coral reefs (We'll study marsupials with Australia instead). After learning about different types of coral, Lindsey used modeling clay to create a diorama of a coral reef and added origami fish.

At the aquarium she got to see everything we studied close up! We visited Ripley's Aquarium at Myrtle Beach, SC and then spent some time on the beach building a sand castle and decorating it with shells we collected, relaxing, drawing and flying a kite.

Lindsey really liked the touch tanks at the aquarium. She was able to touch doctor fish, bamboo sharks, horseshoe crabs, and stingrays! We also loved the tunnel where sharks, sea turtles, saw fish, and other fish swam overhead as we walked through. It was awesome to get such an up close look at them. Here are some photos that highlight our field trip -

Writing -

We read several haiku poems and learned about their structure and history. Using our field trip as inspiration we wrote our own poems. Lindsey wrote a haiku about the doctor fish that she encountered in the touch tank at the aquarium. I wrote a tanka poem about Lindsey flying a kite at the beach. Hope you enjoy our poems:

Shiny, open-mouthed
doctor fish swarm and tickle
my wet submerged hand.

                          by Lindsey Tefft


Gentle waves roll in.
She runs on sand, string in hand.
Wind blows through her hair.
Colors sail on the warm breeze
while tails wave and dance behind.

                         by Wendy Tefft

Books We Read -

Origami, Plain and Simple by Robert E. Neale

Step-By-Step Origami by Paul Jackson

Black Swan/White Crow by J. Patrick Lewis

Cats Of Myth : Tales From Around The World by Gerald Hausman

More Cricket Songs. Japanese Haiku by Harry Behn

Cricket Never Does : A Collection Of Haiku And Tanka by Myra Cohn Livingston

Sam Samurai by Jon Scieszka

Dragon Of The Red Dawn by Mary Pope Osborne

Sadako And The Thousand Paper Cranes by Eleanor Coerr

If I Lived In Japan-- by Rosanne Knorr

Men From The Village Deep In The Mountains by Garrett, Molly

A Taste Of Japan by Jenny Ridgwell

Sea Turtles : Ocean Nomads by Mary M. Cerullo

Coral Reef by Kate Scarborough

Awesome Ocean Science! : Investigating The Secrets Of The Underwater World by Cindy A. Littlefield

Japanese Celebrations : Cherry Blossoms, Lanterns And Stars! by Betty Reynolds

The Funny Little Woman by Arlene Mosel

Yoko's Paper Cranes by Rosemary Wells

If Not For The Calico Cat by Mary Blount Christian

Tea with milk by Allen Say

Weeks 25 & 26: China

Welcome to our study on China!

We had fun playing Chinese Checkers while learning more about China. We also like Chinese food and ate it for lunch several days during our study. Aldi's had a good selection including sweet & sour chicken, mini egg rolls, different packages of rice and noodles, and even little cookies with pandas on them :) I also bought some frozen chinese vegetables and made stir fry for dinner one night. We got out the dragon Lindsey made for Chinese New Year, and our Chinese lanterns decorated the table.

Art -

Some of our library books had Chinese characters and their meanings, and we looked some up online. Lindsey practiced writing them and pronouncing them. Then we made Chinese lanterns from construction paper and used markers to decorate them with pictures and Chinese characters.

Science -

We had fun with the salt water experiments. After learning about the Dead Sea, we took 2 bowls and filled one with fresh water and one with salt water. We placed an egg in each bowl to see if it would sink or float. The egg sunk to the bottom completely submerged in the fresh water. The egg in the salt water floated with part of it rising above the surface of the water due to the salt water being denser.

We made salt crystals. We started by boiling water then adding salt until it wouldn't dissolve anymore. Then we poured it into a mason jar and hung a string weighted with a paper clip from a pencil across the top of the jar. We placed it in a sunny window and checked it each day. As the water evaporated cube shaped salt crystals formed.

Field Trip -

Since bicycles are a popular form of transportation in China, I took Lindsey to the park with a trail she could ride her bike on. There was a lot of bamboo growing along the trail. To our good fortune, there was a Chinese family with twin babies at the park and we talked to them a little while we were resting in the shade. We also heard them speaking Chinese to each other.

Books We Read -

We read Gladys Aylward every night before bed, and this has been our favorite missionary book so far. Her determination to reach the people of china was incredible! Parts of the book held us in suspense and others made us laugh - a very good read.

We also found several great books at the library including a childhood favorite of mine,
The Story About Ping by Marjorie Flack.

Panda Rescue : changing the future for endangered wildlife by Dan Bortolotti

Chinese Fables : The Dragon Slayer and other timeless tales of wisdom by Shiho S. Nunes

The Seven Chinese Brothers by Margaret Mahy

Eyewitness China by Poppy Sebag-Montefiore

Dream-of-Jade : The Emperor's Cat by Lloyd Alexander

The Art Of China by Shirley Glubok

Tibet : Through The Red Box by Peter Sis

The Emperor And The Kite by Jane Yolen

Hong Kong by Wendy B. Murphy

Zen Ghosts by Jon J. Muth

Lin Yi's Lantern : A Moon Festival Tale by Brenda Williams

A Taste Of China by Roz Denny

Lon Po Po : A Red-Riding Hood Story From China by Ed Young

Traditional Crafts From China by Florence Temko

Daisy Comes Home by Jan Brett

Cloud Tea Monkeys by Mal Peet

Inside China by Ian James

Other Media -

The Butterfly Lovers [compact disc] ; Three Chinese violin pieces. by Zhanhao He

5000 years of magnificent wonders. World wonders beyond time [DVD]

Wild China (watched on Netflix)

The Dragon Pearl

Kung Fu Panda

We also watched Disney's Mulan and Mulan 2.

We watched this Geography of China video on Youtube:

Pi Day March 14th

Pi Day is March 14th - We celebrated with a math day and peanut butter pie!

First Lindsey completed the graphic organizer. We read the book Sir Comference and the Dragon of Pi by Cindy Neuschwander. Then we completed worksheets, a crossword puzzle, and played a game of archery using Lindsey's Nerf  bow. The graphing and a game worksheet had instructions for dropping pennies, but we modified it and used the bow and a target we already had. After circles had been measured and worksheets completed, we made a peanut butter pie. Before we could eat it, Lindsey had to solve the circumference of the pie.

Resources we used:

http://www.piday.org/

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Dragons-and-Medicine-and-Pi-Oh-My-214950

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Pi-Day-Graphic-Organizer-Activity-Poster-Freebie-595161

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Pi-Day-Crossword-Puzzle-120842

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Pi-Day-FREEBIE-Graphing-and-a-Game-1107865

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Pi-Day-Pie-Problems-FREEBIE-588108

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/