The Bible and Butterflies

Our Bible study has kind of been going on for awhile now. Technically in our family scripture study we are in 2nd Nephi (I think it has only taken us since January of this year to get that far) and for the children's learning time study we are using the Stories from the Doctrine and Covenants. I know Joshua is reading the Book of Mormon on his own and he is not quite to 2nd Nephi - he was trying really hard to catch up with the family. But for our history lessons we were up to the Old Testament so we checked out a few books from the library and pulled out an old video and went to work.  The first day we learned more about the people who lived in Canaan, like the Philistines and such. It is kind of nice to know who those people were and were they had come from.  I think that it is helpful to understand what things were like as Abraham was traveling from Ur to Haran and then through Canaan.  Also, I love the stories of Abraham in Egypt, and since the kids are still interested in Egypt (Joshua just checked out more Egypt books to read on his own) this was very interesting to the kids - that and Joseph in Egypt as well. In my personal scripture study I went back and read the Pearl of Great Price and started again with Genesis so I would have everything fresh in my mind and be able to accurately retell and explain the history to the children as well. It is interesting to me that they mummified Jacob so that they could take him back to be buried in Canaan. It actually is written that Joseph called the physicians and they treated him for 40 days (that's how long the natron salt takes) and then after the appointed time of mourning (the same time the people would have mourned for Pharaoh) the procession left to go bury Jacob with Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Rebeka, and Leah. Poor lonely Rachel.

I also let the children watch a series of videos we have on the Old Testament (I think the Christmas and Easter story are in there too) and they love these movies so much. I am also pleased with them because they are pretty scripturally accurate. The movies are from a series called "The Greatest Adventure: Stories from the Bible" which was produced by Hanna-Barbara and feature Margo, Derek, "and their nomad friend" Moki who discover essentially a time portal during an archeological dig somewhere in the Middle East that takes them back in time to witness some of the more well known Bible stories. I can't really get that picture to line up very well, but below you see Margo, Derek, and Moki.

The kids already knew most of the Bible stories, besides watching these videos, but it is fun to watch a movie every now and again. AND I forgot to mention the copies I have of these are in German, so that is even more fun.  

Now,  a little LESS scripturally accurate is the following book, which retells some of the more famous Bible stories in a storytelling friendly way. At first, this book bothered me a lot. I very much did not like their retelling of Adam and Eve and their portraying that story as such a sad day where God was very disappointed that Eve had messed up the perfect world he had made. And then, besides the fact that they totally left out Abraham sacrificing his son Isaac, I was really bothered by their retelling of everything related to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob - and to some extent Joseph, but that wasn't so bothersome. It took up until this point in the book (after I had been stopping every paragraph or so to tell the kids why this or that actually happened or how it even happened at all) before I realized that major and crucial information was left out of these retellings because the pastor who wrote them honestly didn't know. Everything relating to Priesthood and authority was totally scratched. I didn't even know you could tell the stories of the Patriarchs without at least some reference to what the birthright actually is and what that means to all of mankind. I mean, the Abrahamic Covenant? It's pretty important. At first I was disturbed a little because I thought, of course if the pastor admitted there was an actual line of authority through which God governs his church, this pastor's following would have to leave him and find that actual line, at least if they were interesting in the truth. But then I realized it is not his fault that he doesn't know. I'm sure he is a wonderful, loving, Christ-like pastor of his flock as far as he knows to be, and I am extremely grateful for people like him. But I am also extremely grateful to be able to understand the scriptures more fully and the doctrines of Christ.  I am grateful that everyone has the right to worship and believe in just what they want and how they want, too. So if the rest of the Christian world believes the Garden of Eden story as this good man portrayed it, that is just fine. But I know it was not a day in which God mourned. Anyway, I'd been thinking about that a lot. This book is still very fun to read and it really is a good read aloud. I just think it misses those points of the stories that make them important and relevant.

OK, we also checked out this book, which I loved. I checked out another book like this about ancient civilizations in general that I thought was so awesome I actually just bought it off amazon a few days ago.  This book was amazing and I think I could look at these maps for hours.  It really helps everything kind of come together in your mind. For me, seeing where Abraham traveled, and seeing who lived in what land at what time and how the Israelites come back from Egypt and into Canaan, then off to Babylon, and then back again, where the Assyrians were, where there Persians came from, I don't know, it is all very, very interesting to me.

So interesting, in fact, that I made it into our next project. I drew the lines outlining the land and the water, and then Joshua picked out (with a little direction) which cities and regions he wanted to label on the map. I chose to pick this larger region because it shows all of the lands (except the Indus river valley in India) that we have talked about: Sumeria and Mesopotamia, especially Ur and Uruk, Egypt and Nile, and now Canaan and Gaza. Technically we haven't covered the Phoenicians yet (that is still for Monday) and then we will add Tyre and Sidon. And actually, after that we studying Assyria, so although we already have Nineveh on the map, we might need to add something up there as well. Our map is not really time specific so that we could have things like Jerusalem and Babylon and Ur and Haran and (eventually) Tyre on there at the same time. You'll have actually click on the photo if you want to read any of Joshua's writing, it's just a little too faint to make out.

Ok, butterflies. Joshua checked out a magic school bus book about butterflies a couple of weeks ago and since he really likes the Magic School Bus, he chose butterflies for his next animal. I thought it was kind of a weird choice, you know, after sharks, but actually it is turning out perfectly. Again, I let the children watch another movie we already have "Die Kleine Raupe Nimmersatt" which is "the Very Hungry Caterpillar" in German. It is less than 10 minutes long, so they've seen it a number of times this last week, just for fun.
 
But we've also read some fun and informative books on butterflies. Did you know a monarch butterfly can fly more than 20 miles an hour? That is crazy.  In our grammar study we were learning about paragraphs, so for our narration page we worked on organizing thoughts into paragraphs focusing on a single topic for each. It turned out pretty well and it was nice to use our grammar lessons in a more meaningful way.  We also made these metamorphosis wheels to show the transformation from the egg to caterpillar to butterfly.

The most interesting thing, though, will be later this week when we go to the Butterfly Pavilion in Colorado. Yes, a field trip within a vacation. We've actually been there before but it will be worth it, I think, to go again after just having studying a little about butterflies. Joshua is hoping to find some poisonous ones. Here are a few pics of the kids at the Pavilion a couple years ago - 2010 I think?

Wow, this is a horribly fuzzy photo. They have tarantulas there too. This is Abigail touching one through the glass. Gross. Joshua actually got to hold one, but Abby was too small. Maybe this year? I opted NOT to hold the giant poisonous spider and will NOT be holding it again this year.

Joshua had seen a church produced film with a scene of Jesus holding a butterfly on his finger and Joshua wanted so badly to do the same, but sadly, no butterfly was interested.

Later, however, I was talking to a man who worked in the Pavilion and asked him if there were any tricks to attracting butterflies. He said, "well, you didn't see me just do this." And he picked one up gently and put it on Joshua's shirt. Close enough.  We learned in our reading that the butterflies are most attracted to red and pink, so we'll probably wear those colors again.

And lastly, I think, is our number poster that we created. I realized that although Joshua can count by tens and fives, he doesn't know how to count by twos. And Abigail could use some practice getting past 10, so I figured a number poster would help us do the trick. Also, it is nice to see the patterns in math and right after we finished the poster I should the kids what it looked like when we circled in red all the multiples of 10, and squared in green all the multiples of 5, and then marked the multiples of 2 and also the multiples of 3. It is fun to actually see the patterns and this was something the kids could get enthusiastic about.  The poster has also come in handy in our regular math lessons, which are going very well. According to our book, Joshua should be starting multiplication in just a week or so, which seems a little early to me, but oh well. I remember memorizing my multiplication tables through 12 in second grade. Or third grade.  In any case, we are introducing it in a couple of weeks.

Piano is going well. Music class is going well. Joshua's reading is going well. Derek has started playing games with the kids outside with balls, so we act like that is P.E. They played "soccer" the other day and then some sort of made up handball game the day after. We'll get the kids signed up for swimming and something else in the summer. So I guess, as a whole, we're doing ok on this homeschool experiment.