We have recently finished our first unit with our homeschool curriculum,
Tapestry of Grace, and I thought it would be fun to share some highlights with you. (at least fun for our family and some of you friends... maybe?)
If you are interested to know why in the world we are even saying "homeschool" with our four year old - you can read more on the "Homeschool" tab above.
We started out by studying Creation and maps of Pangaea and Mesopotamia. Kate made a terrific salt map and labeled various land forms that I was literally looking up definitions for in order to teach them to her. It's amazing how much you forget... or never learned. Yikes!
Then we quickly traveled into my personal favorite part so far - the study of Egypt. We looked at the ancient Egyptians and studied the geography of Egypt and also took an in-depth look at the life of Moses. Fascinating. We took a field trip to the MET to look at the Egyptian artifacts, mummies, and temples. Kate's favorite fact of the Ancient Egyptians is that they loved to wear a lot of make-up and jewelry. She had fun looking at the beautiful jewels at the museum and dressing up...during our "school days". Lol.
This is a paddle doll that Kate is painting. This is my "cardboard version" used to represent something a young Egyptian girl would play with, made from wood. Hey - you gotta use what you have!
After Egypt, we studied the story of the Exodus - continuing with the life of Moses, including: the wandering in the wilderness, the Ten Commandments, the Jewish culture and traditions and festivals. Most of the reading we did for this section took place in a tent in our living room by candlelight (kind of risky, I know) Sorry I don't have pics of everything, but you get the point. We looked at the model for the Tabernacle and Kate recreated one here with play dough.
Kate has several friends here who are Jewish in addition to my sister, "Auntie-isha" and her husband, Uncle Deddy, so it was not only fun to study more of the foundations of our faith but to understand our friends and family better. Another bonus was we regularly ate some delicious Challah bread! The kids really enjoyed that part. :) So much so, that Kate asked me..."Mom, why aren't we Jewish?" Love it.
Coop:
We meet periodically (ideally every week) with our Coop group - a group of other families who are homeschooling in the City. We know these families from our church but they each moved here just over a year ago and so between our three families - there are 9 kids between the ages of 18 mos and 10. It has been amazing to learn from these other mommas and friends and for Kate to enjoy learning in a group setting.
In this picture - we got together one week to read
Ox Cart Man and to make our own butter (super easy - just shake heavy cream in a jar until it hardens ... really!?), start a knitting project (really not as easy for Kate at this age), and to make our own candles out of beeswax. Really fun! Kate was so proud of her creations.
Math consists of anything from doing addition and subtraction with popsicle sticks, working through some workbooks, practicing writing numbers, learning time, evaluating and creating patterns, creating and tracking weather patterns all way to baking scones and learning a basic understanding of fractions. Now - that is my kind of math!
We also made sure we had plenty of time for
field trips: apple picking...
... several trips to the Natural History Museum, nature walks through Central Park and to the Central Park Zoo (while the weather is still nice) ...
... and a trip to see a play at the children's theater of Stone Soup, one of our favorite stories. Here is Kate making a clay pot before the performance began.
What does Wesley do while we are doing all of this, you ask? Well...he really doesn't have a choice. He typically just joins in! :) Some days we get way more done than others and some days I am screaming in frustration because we really didn't do anything other than live life together and visit friends and my apartment is an utter disaster. But, that's why we are doing this. It's just about living life together - not having to follow an exact curriculum.
I have really discovered the joy of getting to learn along with your children and to be exploring what this looks like in a family. Our family.
We'll see how Unit 2 goes! We just started this past week with a look at India and the culture in the Indus Valley during the parallel time period to our Egypt study and the Exodus.
I think this week we will just do some fun Fall crafts and read poetry and catch back up to the curriculum later. That's the beauty of ... well, just living life together.
Thanks for reading!
