Assyrians and Turkeys

There isn't much to tell, I feel. And less photos to show. We've all been a little under the weather and our school has sort of reflected that.  We did, however, still keep on top of our studying. For history we studied the Assyrians. There was only one juvenile nonfiction book in the entire library on the topic, so even though it was a little above their heads, I checked it out anyway. I, actually, found it totally fascinating. All I had really known about the Assyrians were that they were horrible. Just like a huge machine of an army that destroyed everything in its path offering absolutely no mercy whatsoever. And that seems to be true.  What I didn't know was that relatively speaking, their empire was pretty short lived - max 400 years, but that includes the built up and the destruction, so I hope they enjoyed their peak because it didn't last long.  The first day we read about daily life, which resembled the Sumerians and Babylonians. In fact, their gods and language were pretty much the same. We also read about the kings and the palaces briefly. The boys were really intrigued by the kings lion hunting past time, so of course, both boys drew pictures of lion hunts for their narration pages.  The second day we read through the library book, which like I said, was a little over their heads, but we did manage to learn some interesting things. What I particularly found interesting, was the fact that the Assyrians converted to Christianity right from the beginning - ok, beginning as in when those first missionaries were sent out after Jesus's death. And although the Assyrians do not exist as a nation now, they still exist as a people, like the Jews - so says the book. Supposedly you can go over to Turkey and Iran nowadays and find people who will tell you they are Assyrian. The book also mentioned that although nobody really knows the origin of Baklava, it is an ancient recipe that Asyrians particularly enjoyed and so they included a recipe. And we of course tried it out. Joshua said it was better than cake, but not better than ice cream. I myself, have seen/eaten enough baklava to last me my entire life.

Abigail buttering up the Phyllo dough

On our final day of Assyria we talked more about the empire and how big it was. Joshua was impressed that it covered all of the areas we have learned about up until this point - minus the Indus River valley which we actually didn't learn much about. We learned about the army and maintaining the empire. It's pretty gruesome. But I think the most impressive thing to Joshua was the siege engines. That is what he drew on his narration page. We talked about foot soldiers, cavalry, chariots, and the siege engines and also how the Assyrians would relocate groups of conquered people to squash any hopes/plans of rebellion. This only worked for so long, because since the Assyrian army wasn't big enough to maintain control of their vast empire, the disgruntled conquered rebelled anyway until nothing was left of the empire, not even the original Assyria. That had been taken over as well. Our library book had a neat step-by-step instruction page of how to make a bow and arrow out of pvp pipe which I would have encourage Derek to help Joshua and the kids make, except Joshua already has a bow and arrow out of pvp pipe. Maybe I'll just save the instructions and we can make them some other time.

Turkeys, well, they are not very complicated. We found some excellent nonfiction books about them, wild and domestic, and some dopey fiction books. The first day we just read the fiction books and made a craft and the second day we read the nonfiction books, did a narration page, and did another craft. Actually, I can't remember if we actually did a narration page. Turkeys just aren't that complicated or really that interesting.  Since we are prepping for our pre-school Thanksgiving party this next week hosted at our house, we've tried out a few turkey crafts to make sure they are preschool appropriate. Here are the things we have made.

I couldn't find any gumdrops so we went with jelly beans and there weren't any circus peanuts either, so our apple candy turkeys are just going to have to go without feet.

Sorry for the horrible photo. I forgot to take one during the day, so I took this just a few minutes ago this evening in the dark. The body of the turkey is made by tracing and cutting out two feet (from the child) and lining the heels up together so that the toes turn in opposite directions, and the feather of course are just their hands.

TP turkeys. We're going to do this one at the party. Joshua added a snood to his, if you can pick it out.

Also, for copywork for the month of November Joshua has been copying the Gettysburg Address. Last Tuesday was the 150th anniversary of the address and I am a little surprised it didn't get more attention than it did. Instead, all I heard all week long was the Kennedy assassination. That was less interesting to me, but maybe recent history isn't always as interesting to me as older history. I don't know. I'll have to get a book at the library and learn more about it I guess because it sounds like I am missing out on something. Unfortunately we didn't actually memorize the address, which was my first intention, but the language was really foreign to Joshua and although the address is short, it was probably too long for his level.

Also, last Tuesday was Kaleb's first birthday. I'll do another post about that in a minute.

And last Friday we took the kids to the Sacred Gifts exhibit at the MOA at BYU. It was wonderful. Derek and I are planning on going back sometime without the kids. This is a once in a lifetime event so if any of you are down my way and want free tickets for a certain day, snatch them up before they are all gone.

As far as bad things that happened this week, besides being sick, Abigail decided last Tuesday to give herself a haircut, but thankfully she only gave herself bangs. She was tired of the hair in her face, she said. I wish she would have told me. We have clips for things like that!

And then the next night she fell out of bed and started screaming like someone was abducting her or something! She had landed mouth first onto her open drawer and gashed up her mouth right between her two front teeth. It was bleeding pretty good but her teeth were pushed up into her gums or knocked out or anything. I thought the impact had gone straight up her nose and face, but the next morning there was a pretty good bruise running horizontal along her cheek. It took a while to calm her back down, but after removing the boxsprings from her bed so the next fall wouldn't be so long, she climbed in and fell right to sleep. I had called my friend who's brother is our dentist, she called her brother, and he said it didn't sound like an emergency but she should come in the next day to get it looked at. She's just fine. In fact, she says it barely even hurts at all anymore. But it sure was scary.

Next week - this week - is a short week. No animal. And history is of course, the first Thanksgiving.