Our Homeschool!
History Fun
Sunday, April 8, 2007
Just sharing a few things we did with our Mystery of History lessons this past week. I've said this before but here I go again... the beauty of this curriculum is that we can all study the same topic together (not too mention it's Biblically sound and has very little teacher prep. time) Here's a little photo show of some of the things we did:
Studying Ezekiel we read through the story of "them bones" found in Ezekiel chapter 37.
My 6 yr. old spontaneously drew this picture to go along with it....
Then we read of God giving Ezekiel his message on a scroll and Ezekiel eating it. Off we went to make our own edible scrolls (flatened bread) and of course we added some honey since this is how Ezekiel himself describes a scroll from God! (Ezekiel 3:3)
(Dear Daughter went back for a second!)
This is DS6 working on his scroll -
We also reviewed the life of Aesop (lived same time as Ezekiel) and read some of his fables. This time DS6 had an assignment of re-enacting one of the fables with puppets. (pretend the raccoon is a fox!)
The fable he chose to act out was "The Donkey, the Fox and the Lion". My older kids had to either re-write one of the fables in their own words with an illustration or make up their own fable.
Maybe you can tell I enjoy teaching History from this book. Next year DD14 will be in 9th grade and studying on her own using Streams of Civilization (not positive on this curriculum yet). The boys and I will finish MOH Volume 1 and then the plan is to move onto Mystery of History Vol 2. which begins with the life of Christ.
Who Am I?
Thursday, January 25, 2007
One of the great perks of homeschooling is that I get to learn right along with my kids! So many times I wish I had this type of education growing up. :-) History never seemed this appealing to me when I was a in school! I can't recall ever doing any hands on type activities.
This past week we had a "Who am I?" History review. For each historical person that my children were able to recall something about they got a chocolate chip. (best treat I had on hand at the time!) Even after the first child had a turn, if someone could name a different fact they would get a chocolate chip also. I purposely did not review anything with them ahead of time nor did I tell them about the "pop quiz" before hand. The review included people we have studied since the start of the school year. (Using Mystery of History Vol 1.)
Below are a few that stumped them.... can you remember who they are?
Who was King Minos?
Who was Hagar?
Who was Ramses II? 
Who was Rehebaom?
Who were the Aryans?
On the other hand, I was very proud when at least one (or more) of them remembered these folks:
Who were the Sumerians?
Who was Khufu?
Who was Hammurabi? (great link)
Who was Helen?
Who was King Wen?
And more! Great Job kids! 
I know there are a few MOH users on my "friends" list. How are you all implementing the timeline and figures? We have all the little figures made but their home is still a little box (shame on me). I'm thinking about just using sticky tack to hang them all around the school room/office. I'd love to see how you are using/displaying them.
Cake of Egypt
Wednesday, November 15, 2006
I'm a bit behind in my blogging and I'm going to try and catch up in the next few days. First of all I'd like to show you a photo of the map of Egypt my DD13 made with cake and frosting! That's one way to make Geography more fun...
The big blue line down the middle is - you guessed it - the Nile. A bit exaggerated, I know, but she was working with frosting remember.
This was an activity she did for Mystery of History. We were invited to a homeschooling family's home later that day so we were able to share it. The cake was one, regular, Pillsbury cake mix poured into a 11 x 15 pan making it thinner than normal but giving her more surface area to make the map. This project was a nice change of pace, of course it helps that she is 13 and could accomplish without my help. 
The lesson talked of the Great Hall, built during Ramses reign. For those of you enjoying Mystery of History here are 2 links with great photos. The first one has a picture of the columns in the great hall and you can move it around and get a 360 view.
NOVA, Columns of the Great Hall
and
Karnak, Luxor
And just another History tidbit, in addition to the Mystery of History Vol. 1, I have been playing Diana Waring's audio CD "True Tales - Ancient Civilizations" for the kids some mornings. We have enjoyed learning all the fascinating extra details that go along quite well with what we are studying in History. My 10 year old son voluntarily takes notes - WOW! She refers to what sounds like some very interesting books that I hope I can find through inter-library loan. I appreciate Diana's enthusiasm, she puts plenty of fun in her presentations. She's also a homeschoolblogger!
Studying Ancient Egypt
Wednesday, November 1, 2006
We just finished lessons 22 & 23 in Mystery of History These were about Ancient Egyptians; Amenhotep IV, Nefertiti and King Tut. Amenhotep IV may have been a descendant of the Pharaoh on the throne when Moses lead the Isrealites out of Egypt.
They were the first royal Egyptian couple to be depicted as affectionate towards each other and their children. Tutkankhamun married one of their daughters.
There is oodles of information about King Tut on-line but these sites were helpful for the information we needed:
Tutkankhamun and King Tut One and Field Museum .
DD13 wrote a short report in the form of an interview with herself (newspaper reporter) and Dr. Howard Carter (archeologist who discovered Tut's tomb).
DD10 made a list of treasures found in Tutankhamun's tomb. We could see many pictures of the items at the above sites.
DD6 used gold and blue glitter glue to fill in a coloring page of King Tut's mask. I had trouble finding a full size coloring page to print out. I used the one from KingTutOne.com and then enlarged it some.
If you'd like to hear the King Tut song referred to on page 78 you can click here
it was released in 1978, when I was 8, and I had no recollection of it so I was curious...
How to "spark" their interest in History! (MOH)
Saturday, October 7, 2006
Set it on fire!
Yeah, somedays I'd truely like to burn their schoolwork but today we did it for fun! Monday, after we finished our History reading, the older kids worked on some geography skills by marking maps about their lesson. The book suggested in the Review section (Mystery of History, Review 4, Lessons 10 - 12) to "antique" their maps by tea-staining them and then burning the edges after they dried. We did the tea part on Monday. I only had chamomile tea and it was quite light in color so the paper didn't stain that well. We let them dry and then today was the fun part...
:
Overheard and quotable:
I never thought you'd let me burn my school work!"...DD13
"Can we do this to all our maps?" ... DS10
"I want to burn something too!!!"..... DS6
And here are the finished maps:
Had I known about this before I made the map copies, I would have used an antique looking paper to start with.
After the maps finished smoking... we slipped them in plastic covers and filed them under EUROPE:Greece in our MOH binders.
