Today we went to the movie theaters to see Mr. Magorium's Wonder Eporium (did I spell it right?), but right when we got there, it sold out. So we saw Kung Fu Panda. I don't know why they rated it PG. There was nothing wrong with it. Maybe it is because if it was G, moms would feel free to bring their 2 or 3 year-olds, But the "bad guy" leopard, Kai Lung, is a bit scary for little ones when he escapes prison, but in the end, he is defeated by the dragon warrior. He is also a little scary when he is fighting the Furious Five. Other than that everything was really "awesome"! (You will get that if you have seen the movie).

                        God Bless You

We started a new mosaics project. Luke made an ibex, and I am working on a shepherd. Sam is working on another duck, but he put it down somewhere and forgot where it was. I am not done with mine yet. 

I spent all morning taking pictures of things for the end of my blog. You will see them at the end of my blog all the time.

We are pulling out all of our Disney movies (especially princesses) out for Lilly to watch so she knows all the characters when we go to Disneyworld. She says "I want to watch Your Highness". I am the baby translator in family and that means "I want to watch Cinderella". She already knows Areal from Snow White, which is a big acomlishment for a baby who has never been to Disneyworld or Disneyland (we used to live right next to Disneyland)! She really likes Cinderella and Nemo.

We are celebrating my birthday in Disneyworld because my birthday is right by the time we are going. I am going to go on The Teacups 10 times for my birthday. We might go to the hotel pool, too.

Again I apologize for the puppet show. I was going to say all of the stories in the puppet how, but that would just mke you feel worse. 

                                God Bless You

I just found out that I cannot put the puppet show on my blog. The maximum time unit given is 5 minutes, But the puppet show is 7 minutes. I will try to cut some off or make a new one. I am sorry I got your hopes up. I spoke too soon.                 

                                    I apologize

WERE GOING TO DISNEYWORLD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Sorry, I just had to let something out. We are going to Disneyworld in September with our grandparents. We are going for 5 whole days! That's 120 beautiful hours in Glorious Disneyworld. Our grandparent and us are staying at a beautiful hotel, (drumroll please) The Wilderness Lodge!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Our grandparents are also buying us a new car. Here is how it happened:

On Sunday, a couple of weeks ago, our car broke down after church. The same day our grandfather called us up and said he and my grandmother wanted to buy us a new car. And he didn't even know our car broke down! He also said instead of taking me and Luke to Myrtle Beach, he would take our whole family to Disneyworld!

I am really looking forward to The Teacups ride from Alice in Wonderland. We are riding a boat every day to get to the different parks. We are going to the Animal Kingdom, Splash Mountain, and a lot more. One night, we are going to Hollywood and Vine for dinner and I am wearing my green dress and my White Hollywood glasses. When I where them, I look like a movie star! All you people who have been to Disneyworld, post me a comment on all the rides!

My mom bought a mosaic set for school. I made a lion. Sam made a duck and a flower.

                                             God Bless You

Today we went to the Atlanta Botanical Gardens. We had a lot of fun. I was so busy watching Lilly, I forgot to fill out my notebook that I was supposed to fill out. I had just remembered in the orchid section that I had to fill out my notebook. But when I came to get it, my mom said we had to go the the children's garden next. I wanted to stay because I wanted to fill out my notebook and I thought the children's garden was for babies. It wasn't. It was soooooooooo fun! Actually, we were too big for most of the stuff, but we had fun running around. My favorite part of the children's garden was the singing stone. It was a rock with a hole in it. If you sang in it, it would vibrate your head. My friend Jacob was so funny, he would climb on top of everything really really high, and then jump down. I called him Zeus-Spiderman, Zeus because he was really high, and spiderman because he would jump down without breaking any bones. There were bronze frogs every here and there, and I took pictures with them. There are also some other pictures in there.

As you all know yesterday was Mother's Day. Yesterday was the most fun and unusual Mother's Day I've ever had (so far). I don't think I will ever eat again. Yesterday we were going to take our family to a Mexican restaraunt called Cinco's. But our friends the Millers invited us to a restaraunt we've never been to, Golden Corral, or I should say Golden Trough. We also saw the Kings and the Schultz, other families that go to our church.. It looked small on the outside, about as big as MacDonald's or Burger King, but inside it looked like a warehouse store! It was a huge southern all-you-can-eat buffet!!!! They had every single food you could name. I had 9 plates full of food (including desert) and my friend, Alexa, had 11! After that she was still hungry! We got macaroni and cheese, chicken noodle soup, bacon wrapped chicken breast, honeybuns, salad, nachos, fruit, and more, and five different desserts, ice cream, cake, cupcakes, brownies, and chocolate dipped rice-crispy treats! We had several servings of the macaroni and soup because it was sooooooooo delicious. I also had 2 bowls of ice cream and Alexa had 3! I'm guessing thier motto is "It's impossible for you to not talk with your mouth full here at the Golden Corral!".  I happen to not feel well right now because I ate a bowl of cereal this morning when I was still digesting. My brain is also fried because it has been yelling at my stomach all day to digest faster. Anyway, it was really fun. Me, Alexa, Zach, Ben, and David got to sit at a table by ourselves apart from the grown-ups. Now I know why God says gluttony is a sin. I found that out the hard way. Next time I will only get 2 plates of food, main course and sides, and salad. For desert I will get cake with ice cream on it.

We spent all day Thursday making Mother's Day cards. That's all or my fingers will hurt more than my stomach.

I just snuck away from preparing for the wedding to make a quick blog. My mom is making sweet tea (which is unusual for a Californian to do) and chicken right now. But I have to write (or type) my school stuff down first. Where were we? Oh! The Phoenicians.

Today I read about Phoenician language, work, food, and religion. The Phoenicians used hieroglyphics (hi-ro-GLIF-ics) for language. Unlike the Egyptians, the Phoenicians used a different symbol for each sound, not each word. The Phoenicians traded mostly for work. They became famous sea traders and traveled to Egypt, Syria, Canaan, and the island of Cypress. They were also famous for navigation. The traveled in the sight of land and if they couldn't see land, they traveled by stars. The Phoenicians traded glass, purple cloth, and jewelry. They also traded fruit, vegetables, wheat, barley, wine, olive oil, milk, and meat, which is also what they ate. They also ate a lot of fish. The Phoenicians worshipped Astarte, the goddess of love and fertility, and Baal Shamem. A lot of countries worsipped Baal, but they had different names for him. They also worshipped a lot of other gods.

Today we were really busy hopping from store to store buying groceries for the wedding. My mom is making food right now. I thought I'd show you about Smokey, our newest cat.

We got Smokey in September at my friend's birthday party. Her cat just got kittens in August. He was really tiny when we got him. He's almost as big as Molly, our cat we've had for fifteen years. Here are some pictures.  

Gotta go, later today we are going to the wedding place to set up for tomorow. Tomorrow is also garage sale day in our neighborhood, so I might go look at garage sales in the day and be at the wedding at night. So I might not get to blog. Bye for now!

Since I haven't been keeping up my blog, I'm blogging at 10:00 pm. So anyway, since this is my school journal, I will tell you what I learned today. I am reading a book called The Ancient Israelites and Their Neighbors.

Phoenicia was smashed between the Lebanon Mountains and the Mediterranean Sea. The most famous city in Phoenicia was Tyre, but the Phoenician way of saying it was Sor, which means rock. The Phoenicians were actually Canaanites. People called them Canaanites in the Bronze Age, but they were called the Phoenicians in the Iron Age. The Phoenicians were able to spread their trade when their surrounding countries were suddenly struck with misfortune. Once, an Assyrian king wanted tribute from the Phoenicians, so the Phoenician kings gave it to him. The Assyrians left them alone for a while, so the Phoenician kings had time to get stronger. But the Assyrians attacked them when they saw the Phoenicians growing. The Assyrians won, but the Phoenicians kept rebelling. The Babylonians finally defeated the Assyrians, but they fought with Phoenicia, too. But then the Persians defeated the Babylonians, and so forth. That's all I read today.

Oh yeah, we are catering for a wedding on Saturday and making most of the food tomorrow, so I might not get to blog. Plus, I have to finish my schoolwork. I am making all the bread for thirty people. Its one of my friend's grandfather's wedding. I made garlic cheese rolls, butterhorn rolls, and oatmeal rolls today.

I'll just put another flower slideshow on here. 

First things first, sorry I haven't blogged in a while. Another thing is that there are going to be a lot of weird things in this blog because I have nothing to blog about. I haven't blogged in a week, so we're not studying the things we were studying last week. We are going back to the Greeks next week, but this week we are studying the Phoenecians (did I spell it right?) and the Philistines. I made a Phlistine warrior headress out of construction paper. It fits me, but Sam was the first one to try it on. Here is a picture of him.

We got the cutest picture with Sam with Go, Dog, Go on his head. Yesterday we were doing school on the trampoline. I was doing my math(I hate math, no, I despise math), and Luke tripped over my blanket and fell on my math page. He crushed it. He started saying he was so sorry frantically. I thanked him for giving my math a punishment for being so long. I have the world's longest math for a fifth grader.

Me and my mom are catering for my friend's grandfather's wedding. I was making garlic cheese rolls today for the wedding (oh, the wedding is this Saturday), and I was cutting butter, and the knife slipped and I cut my thumb and part of the nail. The monkey on my band-aid has a red background.

That's all for now!

We are learning about the Israelites entering the Promised Land. But I am still reading my Greek literature. My mom got these great books for Lower Grammar, but I read them for fun reading. They are The Odyssey in six little books by Mary Pope Osborne. They are absolutely the easiest books to understand. They great thing about them is that they say "The Cyclops smashed them agaist the wall and devoured them", not, "The hideous monster Cyclops smashed them agaist the wall then roasted them on his fire. When they were all clearly dead, he devoured them and washed it down with goats milk.". I am working on book three, Sirens and Sea Monsters. Nothing much has been going on lately, so I have nothing to blog about. So I'll just put another flower photography slideshow on here.

Last night we had another family over to do our hands-on Greece projects.    We all wore our chitons and had a discussion about the Trojan War.    Our dads had made Trojan horses for us to play with.    Ours did not have a head (yet) but theirs didn't have a tail!     So together, it was a perfect horse!    We will put the head on ours in the next week or two.   We made necklaces with our birthstones, using some gold wire and some stones we bought at Walmart.  They came out really great.   We made them for our moms too.    We also painted frescos on wet plaster.   Mine was a Knossis dolphin.   This is from a famous fresco in one of the Greek queens bedrooms.   We tried some Greek olives that our friends brought.    Our dads worked on the salt maps because we were distracted by the trampoline!    We will paint them this week.     We were so tired....we didn't get to bed until almost 11:00!   Even Lilly was painting and painting and cried when we went to put her to bed, saying "I paint!"     Here is a slideshow of our evening. 

Here is a very funny video of Luke reporting from inside a Trojan Horse.  

My blog is so late because we spent all day putting a new net on our trampoline (Thanks, Davis Family for the great net!) because our old one had a big hole in it!    Goodnight and God bless you!  

We are having a Greek celebration today with our friends.   I am so excited.   My mom and I finished my chiton today and made Lilly one as well.   They are really pretty.   

By the way, did you know that the Greeks invented pizza, not the Italians?    Although, my Papa says many countries have made that claim!    We are making pizza, Papa's Greek chicken, and Grek Salad for dinner.   My dad is going to finish the Trojan horse tonight.    Three of my friends are coming over and they have made thier chitons as well.    Luke is very disappointed that his friend Noah is not able to come over to play Trojan war with us, but hopefully he will come over next week.  

You want to know what is really weird?   My mom told me that I could go out and pick two tulips from the front garden for my room.   So I went outside and cut two I liked.   I put them in a vase with water and sugar in it.   Someone told me that sugar makes the flowers last longer.   Anyway, I went up to my room about an hour later and they had totally spread out their petals.   They looked like pansies instead of tulips! 

Here are some photos I took yesterday of the flowers and pinecones in our yard.   If you notice, it is on a superduper fancy slideslow, thanks to our good friend Mr. West who helped my dad and I out.   My mom and I were stumped on how to add more pictures.    Mom gave up after she accidently deleted all the photos on my blog and turned it over to my super smart dad.   We stayed up really late, but still couldn't figure it out, so I didn't get to post yesterday.    My dad got up extra early and worked on it (and undid all the damage my mom did).   Then our friend, Mr. West, who is a computer genius emailed us on how to do it.      Mr. West has a baby girl named Ella who really needs prayer.    She is a miracle baby straight from God!    Her website is www.ellawest.com   where you can read all about how God saved her life from a very dangerous birth defect.    I will write more later after I finish my schoolwork.     Getting my schoolwork done this week has been really easy because I am so eager to do my blogging assignment.    

By the way, Mrs. Somerville, thank you for your nice comment.    I am really liking your curriculum.   Our family is a walking infomercial for Tapestry of Grace!  

Salvete Amici. That means hello friends in Latin. I read some pretty gory stories in Black Ships Before Troy. We were classifying webkinz for botany to learn how taxonomy is classified. My mom is going to give me guitar lessons for 15 minutes today and she is going to help me make my Greek costume for Friday. On Friday our friends that also do TOG come over and we eat food from the countries we learn about, we do crafts from the countries we studied about, and my friend's mom has a history discussion with us on the trampoline! My mom is making a costume for me that looks like this:

Isn't it pretty? Mine won't be exactly like it, but really close. We are making it out of bedsheets. We got Lilly a white pillowcase to make hers.

If you are going to read Black Ships Before Troy, be prepared to be grossed out in chapters 10 and 11. Just warning you.

 

 Well, that's all for today!

I am sooooooooooooo excited about doing Greece this week. I love reading The Minotaur in The Children's Book of Heroes. It is not a Tapestry of Grace book, so don't go crazy if it is not on their website! My mom has to call me 50 times to do my schoolwork before I accually respond. I was reading that book even before we started TOG (Tapestry of Grace)!

Anyway, I started Greece today and I am really liking it. First, at 8:00 am,I do the basics, math, spelling, english, critical thinking, etc. All that before 11:00. All the time I have left over I get to blog here. Then, at 11:00 am, I start my botany, Latin (amo, amas, amat!) and history reading. I memorize two words a day in Latin (today's was bonus, good and malus, bad) and do a memory sheet. For history reading I read The Usborne Internet-Linked Encyclopedia of the Ancient World. Whew! That was a mouthful! after I read 10 pages of that I take notes on what I read. I also read a book called Black Ships Before Troy. It is a version of Homer's Iliad. I just finished reading four chapters of Black Ships Before Troy. I get free time until dinner. We got such a cute picture of Luke reading his book on the porch eating cucumbers.

I can't really say what my favorite subject was today because we haven't built our Greek Isles clay model in the baby pool yet, but my favorite so far was reading Black Ships Before Troy. I will put in a picture of our Greek Isles tomorrow.

Yesterday we built a giant wooden horse that I can fit in! We still have to put the head on. Here are some pictures:

I just had to put the picture of Lilly of the Fair Cheeks (Get it?  Helen of the Fair Cheeks?) with the shotgun headphones on her cheeks.

My name is Rebecca and I am 10 years old and in the fifth grade.   You may think that sounds funny because my birthday is in a weird place, and I am always the youngest in my class, but not always the shortest.   I like to do kirigami (which is paper folding and cutting) and beading.   I also like to draw.  For exercise, I like to jump on the trampoline and run.    I have two brothers and one sister.  I am the oldest, which is sometimes hard because I am supposed to be the responsible one and take the heat when things go wrong!     I have been homeschooled since I was in the second grade.    My family is using Tapestry of Grace this year.   It is my favorite curriculum so far!   It has way more hands on activities than I used to have.   It is easy for me to do, and very fun, yet I am learning more than I have ever learned before.    I will miss doing it in the summer!

This week we are studying the Ancient Greeks.   We are doing Week 13-14 together in one week.   We had a slow start this year because my mom was sick, so we are doubling up on the work to get done.   I don't get Spring Break, but I do get two weeks off math at the end of the school year.  I hate math.   So two weeks off is a huge treat!    So far, we have studied Egypt, Israel, Mesopotamia, India, China, the Mayans and the Inuit.  It has been really fun.   My favorite was China, because we flew kites with our friends, made Chinese lanterns, turned our basement into a Chinese restaurant (it's still like that!) and made a giant Pagoda!