Learning About Ancient Rome {Story of the World}

This summer we finished up The Story of the World Volume 1: Ancient Times, and spent a lot of time learning about ancient Rome.  Here's a bit of what we did...

Molas craft {South America unit}

In our two-week unit on South America and Mesoamerica, we read a lot of traditional folktales from those regions and made crafts inspired by tradition handiwork from different countries.  The molas (blouses) of the Kuna women are just gorgeous, and the girls enjoyed making their own versions out of paper..

Greek Myths for Kids

The best part of our month-long unit on Ancient Greece was reading Greek myths together.  The kids enjoyed the myths so much that it became an integral part of their dramatic play.  Here's some of what we read...

Pin-punch Constellation Craft

The kids took a day learning about constellations as part of our week on ancient Greek mathematicians and scientists.  After reading some picture books on stars and constellations, we did this fun little craft...  I found some online printables of various constellations and the girls used sewing pins to punch holes in black construction paper..

Learning about Pythagoras

In our study of ancient Greece last month in homeschool, the twins (almost 6 years old) learned about Pythagoras and his followers (the Pythagoreans).  Here are some of the activities we did (many were from the book Classical Kids: An Activity Guide to Life in Ancient Greece and Rome by Laurie Carlson.  Here's a bit of what we did..

Grecian Vase from Paper Mache

The kids (twins are almost 6 and little guy is almost 4) have been learning about ancient Greece all month using Story of the World and other sources.  One of their favorite crafts so far have been these neat Grecian vases made from paper mache.  Here's what we did...

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...

The Middle Kingdom of Egypt {SOTW Chapter 12}

Instead of only spending a single day a week on ancient history, the kids (1st grade & pre-k) and I decided to do a full week unit study out of three chapters from Story of the World {Middle Kingdom of Egypt, New Kingdom of Egypt, and the Israelites Leave Egypt}.  We also threw some old kingdom in there since we covered that last year, and the girls read Mummies in the Morning by Mary Pope Osborne.

Math Game {Sums of Ten}

Here's a fun math game to make with leftover plastic Easter eggs.  I've seen Easter egg activities for Preschool-age kids (matching capital letters with lower case letters, for example), so I thought I'd make a game for my 1st graders.. making sums of ten...

Learning About Computers

I'm always busy trying to come up with fun unit studies for the kids.  Recently I had an epiphany - why not ask them what they want to learn about?  At the top of E's list was "How does a computer work?", so we decided to find out...

Easy Science Experiment: How Blubber Works

Back in December we learned about the Antarctic by reading My Season with Penguins: An Antarctic Journal by Sophie Webb (read aloud during Circle Time), and The Penguin Who Wanted to Find Out by Jill Tomlinson (read independently by the twins, age 5.5).  One common theme was how animals who live in cold climates require blubber to keep them warm.  We explored this concept further with a simple but fun science experiment...

Learning about the Arctic

Last month we read two books about the Arctic.. The girls read Polar Bears Past Bedtime by Mary Pope Osbourne independently for their Calvert online school, and I read aloud The Eskimo Twins by Lucy Fitch Perkins to all the children during our daily Circle Time.  My own twins (five and a half years old) did some fun crafts to go along with the Arctic theme, and even wrote their first book reports...

Typical Homeschool Day - Kindergarten/ 1st Grade

After a whirlwind summer, with four week-long vacations, visitors from overseas, and the twins' 5th birthdays, we're back home and getting into the swing of homeschooling.  This is my third "Day in the Life" post since I've been blogging, and it's always fun looking back and seeing what homeschool was like for us at each stage.  Here's A Day in Our Homeschool Preschool and last year's Homeschool Kindergarten Daily Schedule.  This year the girls are "officially" in Kindergarten again (we're getting free Calvert materials through an online charter school), but I'm adding a lot of 1st grade material as well.

No homeschool day is the same for us, but here's a little glimpse into a day in our life....