Making Purple Dye {Phoenicians, SOTW Chapter 15}

We studied the Phoenician traders last week in Story of the World.  The Phoenicians were well known for glass blowing and purple dye (made from boiling snail shells).  For our project, the kids (twins age 5.5, little brother age 3.5) made their own purple dye.  Much to E's relief, no snails were harmed in the process..

Writing Prompt: Food Chain

Lately I've been giving the girls (age 5.5) writing prompts and letting them get creative with their writing.  This is one area in homeschooling where we stray from classical education, which believes that children in the Grammar stage should only do copywork and dictation for writing until they have mastered grammar/spelling.  My girls absolutely love making up their own stories and are so proud of their creations.

This week we are doing a unit study on pond life, and read the picture book Pond Circle by Betsy Franco, which is about the food chain in a pond.  We also watched the Wild Kratts episode "The Food Chain Game" and discussed the topic.  I gave the kids a general writing prompt: write a story about any type of food chain.  I love how my twins have such different personalities and came up with very different responses...