It made more sense to wait through two weeks before posting anything. I had a couple of two day units and one fell on a Friday and Monday so instead of posting while only half way through ancient Africa, I chose to wait.
One of the main concepts our "textbook" (which we never read anymore, oops!) wanted us to cover was Ashoka and the concept of Buddhism. There are lots of fun picture books with Buddha stories in them at the library, and so that took up almost one day. There were also a couple of historic fiction easier reader chapter books that I read to the kid which they really enjoyed. One was about a young prince about to have his kingdom taken away from him by another kind in India but just then Alexander the Great shows up and takes everybody over. (They got all their land back in about a year since Alexander died and the empire was really too large to control.) The other was about a soldier who tries to be fierce and win the praise of his king (Ashoka) by being fearless and killing lots of people. But then after a terribly costly war the king looks out over all the dead bodies, feels horribly guilty and disgusted by his actions, and then converts to Buddhism. So the young warrior has to totally change his mindset in order to gain the king's favor. The books introduced very interesting concepts to the kids, like the caste system and the idea of someone being an untouchable. The untouchable part really made an impact on the kids. And as it turns out, rice pudding is an ancient Indian dish, so we made some of that - although I didn't use all the spices and golden raisins and special rice like the recipe indicated (I used my own recipe.) The book also mentioned the recipe is different in different areas of India, so I decided it was probably fine. We got the idea at least.
And then the kids really wanted to do some sort of project. I had checked out this book
and I didn't find anything in there besides a Sari that was very specific to India so I hadn't planned on using it, for crafts at least. But since it had good historical information in it, I did read those pages to them. I told them they could go ahead and pick a project in the book they wanted to do and if we had all the supplies and they gathered them themselves I would help them out. So Joshua picked out a balance for measuring, in his case, little toys. And Abigail made a little lamb out of cotton balls and a a toilet paper roll. His name is woolly.
Then Friday we started Ancient Africa. I always feel like Africa doesn't get very much attention, at least besides Egypt, because when people learn about Africa, they just brush the surface. There were many many kingdoms in Africa and they were so very, very different from each other. It's not all just lions and elephants, giraffes and zebras, you know? So I did find a few really good books talking about different empires and that was interesting to me at least. Since music and mainly rhythm was a large part of many of the various African cultures, we made a drum. We also listened to some traditional African music via youtube.
And finally, for Africa at least, I taught the kids how to play mancala. When I was in high school and worked at the YMCA before and afterschool daycare we played this game all the time. I played it so much that I had figured out a sequence of move that would pretty much guarantee me a win if I got the first move. The rules I know were just taught to me from the elementary school kids bat 15 years ago, and I've since seen this exact game online with an Asian sounding name, so I figure there is probably a good deal of variation. The real game looks like this...
our game looked like this, which is what the mancala boards in the US I've seen look like, except the ones you buy are made out of wood, not egg cartons.
I failed to mention, a friend of mine gave me all her homeschool supplies related to maps and geography so I had photocopied a map of India and a map of Africa out for the kids to color, but I guess I never took a picture of them. These maps not only help orient the kids on where in the world we are talking about, but I have them color the maps while I read to them, so their little hands stay busy and they still pick up on what I am saying.
The Celts. Well, I had originally planned to have a former neighbor of mine come out and teach the children about the Celts. She is way into Celtic everything and she used to teach kindergarten for a very popular charter school system here in Utah. Plus she was Joshua's sunbeam teacher back in the day. But although we communicated via facebook, I kept calling the wrong number so it didn't quite work out for this week. Instead, she is coming this upcoming Tuesday, so I will write a separate post for his visit. At home I read a long book to Joshua about Celtic culture, which was really interesting. It was a little bit, but just a little, over his head, but Abby had a friend over for some reason so it was just Joshua and I sitting on my bed so he was able to really focus, see all the pictures, and not be interrupted when he had questions. I felt like he learned a lot. The second day we also read books, but I printed out a few Celtic knot coloring pages for the children to color as I read. It was interesting to learn about them, especially since their history is very much interrelated with that of Ancient Rome, which we are starting on Monday (tomorrow). I think, in a way, it is kind of fitting that although we are leaving the Celts and starting Rome, we'll return to the Celts on Tuesday and then go back to Rome for good. Here are some photos of a few coloring pages and then also Joshua tried his hand at a few Celtic knots himself. And lastly, a Celtic burial mound. I'm not sure Joshua put his whole heart into this one. :(
One of the main concepts our "textbook" (which we never read anymore, oops!) wanted us to cover was Ashoka and the concept of Buddhism. There are lots of fun picture books with Buddha stories in them at the library, and so that took up almost one day. There were also a couple of historic fiction easier reader chapter books that I read to the kid which they really enjoyed. One was about a young prince about to have his kingdom taken away from him by another kind in India but just then Alexander the Great shows up and takes everybody over. (They got all their land back in about a year since Alexander died and the empire was really too large to control.) The other was about a soldier who tries to be fierce and win the praise of his king (Ashoka) by being fearless and killing lots of people. But then after a terribly costly war the king looks out over all the dead bodies, feels horribly guilty and disgusted by his actions, and then converts to Buddhism. So the young warrior has to totally change his mindset in order to gain the king's favor. The books introduced very interesting concepts to the kids, like the caste system and the idea of someone being an untouchable. The untouchable part really made an impact on the kids. And as it turns out, rice pudding is an ancient Indian dish, so we made some of that - although I didn't use all the spices and golden raisins and special rice like the recipe indicated (I used my own recipe.) The book also mentioned the recipe is different in different areas of India, so I decided it was probably fine. We got the idea at least.
And then the kids really wanted to do some sort of project. I had checked out this book
and I didn't find anything in there besides a Sari that was very specific to India so I hadn't planned on using it, for crafts at least. But since it had good historical information in it, I did read those pages to them. I told them they could go ahead and pick a project in the book they wanted to do and if we had all the supplies and they gathered them themselves I would help them out. So Joshua picked out a balance for measuring, in his case, little toys. And Abigail made a little lamb out of cotton balls and a a toilet paper roll. His name is woolly.
Then Friday we started Ancient Africa. I always feel like Africa doesn't get very much attention, at least besides Egypt, because when people learn about Africa, they just brush the surface. There were many many kingdoms in Africa and they were so very, very different from each other. It's not all just lions and elephants, giraffes and zebras, you know? So I did find a few really good books talking about different empires and that was interesting to me at least. Since music and mainly rhythm was a large part of many of the various African cultures, we made a drum. We also listened to some traditional African music via youtube.
And finally, for Africa at least, I taught the kids how to play mancala. When I was in high school and worked at the YMCA before and afterschool daycare we played this game all the time. I played it so much that I had figured out a sequence of move that would pretty much guarantee me a win if I got the first move. The rules I know were just taught to me from the elementary school kids bat 15 years ago, and I've since seen this exact game online with an Asian sounding name, so I figure there is probably a good deal of variation. The real game looks like this...
our game looked like this, which is what the mancala boards in the US I've seen look like, except the ones you buy are made out of wood, not egg cartons.
I failed to mention, a friend of mine gave me all her homeschool supplies related to maps and geography so I had photocopied a map of India and a map of Africa out for the kids to color, but I guess I never took a picture of them. These maps not only help orient the kids on where in the world we are talking about, but I have them color the maps while I read to them, so their little hands stay busy and they still pick up on what I am saying.
The Celts. Well, I had originally planned to have a former neighbor of mine come out and teach the children about the Celts. She is way into Celtic everything and she used to teach kindergarten for a very popular charter school system here in Utah. Plus she was Joshua's sunbeam teacher back in the day. But although we communicated via facebook, I kept calling the wrong number so it didn't quite work out for this week. Instead, she is coming this upcoming Tuesday, so I will write a separate post for his visit. At home I read a long book to Joshua about Celtic culture, which was really interesting. It was a little bit, but just a little, over his head, but Abby had a friend over for some reason so it was just Joshua and I sitting on my bed so he was able to really focus, see all the pictures, and not be interrupted when he had questions. I felt like he learned a lot. The second day we also read books, but I printed out a few Celtic knot coloring pages for the children to color as I read. It was interesting to learn about them, especially since their history is very much interrelated with that of Ancient Rome, which we are starting on Monday (tomorrow). I think, in a way, it is kind of fitting that although we are leaving the Celts and starting Rome, we'll return to the Celts on Tuesday and then go back to Rome for good. Here are some photos of a few coloring pages and then also Joshua tried his hand at a few Celtic knots himself. And lastly, a Celtic burial mound. I'm not sure Joshua put his whole heart into this one. :(
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