Expedition Earth: New Zealand

Here we come New Zealand! Thank you Confessions of a Homeschooler's Expedition Earth for a great journey!

The Oceania's were lots of fun!  Here are the highlights from New Zealand:

We ate kiwi (hehe!)
Watched on old cartoon that came on each night when New Zealand's television broadcasting would shut down for the night
Learned about their tribal dance and saw their soccor team perform the dance.
Made whizzer crafts
Read fun facts
Studied the animals
Looked at the dreamy landscape and talked about hobbits

Here is a link to my Pinterest board for New Zealand.

Shortcake's hang-out

She'll grab her snack and drink and go sit with her back to the front door.  She just smiles in her little hang-out and loves it when her brothers come to visit her.

Freetime

Stop animation is Agent H's new favorite past time.  He fills my camera with 100s of photos and then (with papa's help) makes it into a movie.  He spends hours drawing his story boards, cutting and glueing his backdrop, setting it all up, photographing, and then is shocked to find out it only gives him 10 seconds of footage.  He is not daunted though, just inspired to draw up more story boards and take more pictures.

Spending the day in a tutu

The tutu had a busy day.

You've been EGGED!

Shortly before Easter we "egged" our neighbors.  The boys were so excited with our attempted covert operation they could hardly stand it.  And then . . . they got us back!

Here's the link to the printables if you want to give it a try.  We cut and colored our own egg splats. :)

Expedition Earth: Egypt

Here we come Egypt! Thank you Confessions of a Homeschooler's Expedition Earth for a great journey!

This was our last stop in Africa.  Only one continent to go after Africa folks - I've got to say I'm ready!

As you can see The General was really concentrating on his heiroglyphic rocks!

We made a nice little village of oragami pyramids too!

Since cats are a very important part of Egyptian culture I had to include this photo of Agent H's Mr. Kitty with our creations.

Oh these headdresses were FUN to make!

We also did the apple mummification project.  Eight slices of apples (equal size) burried in specific mixtures to see which one would be best preserved.   

Here is a link to my Pinterst board for Egypt.

Expedition Earth: Nigeria

Here we come Nigeria! Thank you Confessions of a Homeschooler's Expedition Earth for a great journey!


All I can say is be sure that your kids are ready for some quicksand talk.  This topic turned out to be a bit too scary for my six year old.  Poor guy had dreams our whole house was submerged in quicksand for a couple of weeks.  Of course it all originated from this YouTube video (I fast forwarded part of it for modesty's sake).


We made homemade quicksand - The General played with the left-overs for an hour plus! We scrapped a fork across the top, submerged army guys, and just got messy.

We also prayed, read stories, and played mancala.   Here is an online link to coolmathgames.com's mancala. 


Here is a link to my Pinterest board for Nigeria.

Expedition Earth: Morocco

Here we come Morocco! Thank you Confessions of a Homeschooler's Expedition Earth for a great journey!


We had some fun videos to watch with this country:
The harvesting of saffron
Cactus farming
AND the Moroccan Mall (the largest mall in Africa). Being from Minnesota home of the Mall of America we HAD to see that one. 


The boys had fun swishing around the Ilukeres fly whisks we made.

Here is a link to my Pinterest board for Morocco.

Expedition Earth: Kenya

Here we come Kenya! Thank you Confessions of a Homeschooler's Expedition Earth for a great journey!


I have a friend who years ago suggested I try making toasted wheat berries for a snack.  I never could remember just how to make them until I found the recipe in our The kids' Multicultural Cookbook.  Agent H and I munched on them all day.  This time we used hard wheat berries.  Next time I hope to make them with soft wheat berries in hopes that they won't be quite so hard to chew!  We did find out that they have strong gums and teeth as a result of chewing on these.  No wonder!  (I have to mention that this was actually an Ethiopian snack that we snuck in during our Kenya week.)


We made fabric baskets, read a book about Mama Miti, watched a YouTube about climbing Mount Kilimanjaro (okay yes this is actually located in Tanzania).

Here is the link to my Pinterest board for Kenya.

Expedition Earth: South Africa

Here we come South Africa! Thank you Confessions of a Homeschooler's Expedition Earth for a great journey!


We started out the contintent of Africa with our first salt dough map.

Some of our highlights from Africa are:

Tugela Falls

Western Deep, the deepest mine in the world

The Cullian I, the World's largest diamond

Studying Africa's five biggest animals: rhino, lions, leopards, elephant, buffalo

and of course . . . the African penguins!

Here is a link to my Pinterest board for South Africa.

Easter 2012

This was our Easter tomb display.  There may have been some creative freedom expressed here (this is the way I had intended for it to look) .  The Lego guys represent the angels at the tomb, there was an Army guy (one with no gun) that represented Jesus in the tomb.  I don't recall why all the extra Amy guys are around.  I think they may be left over from some play acting.

These beautifully painted little Easter eggs were a gift from my mom last year - it was a treat to pull them out this year and have the boys decorate a "tree" together.

We made some cookies that were inspired by these at Sycamore Stirrings but instead of the cookie base we made some yummy raspberry coconut macaroons from Smitten Kitchen and piled some little jelly bean eggs in the nests.  They bring macaroons to a whole new wonderful level!

The week leading up to Easter we did Noel Piper's Lenten Lights.  We will be doing this again, it was a very special way to remind myself and the kids why we celebrate.

Human Body: Tongue

The bowls held lemon juice, sugar water, cocoa powder, and salt water.  A few Q-tips dipped in the bowls and strategically placed on our tongues brought some interesting facial expressions.

Shortcake's first encounter with nail polish resulted in pink little piggies. :)

Shortcake & Muffins

One morning I was making some muffins.  There are usually one or two "helpers" in the kitchen with me, thus the stool.  I turned around to find Shortcake had climbed up the stool to inspect.

Her big brother swooped in to stand guard so she wouldn't fall and get hurt.  I just love how these boys step up to the challange of caring for a little one.  They love her so dearly!

One morning the boys woke up to find a message posted in their dirt pile out back . . .

They were quiet bewildered by it . . .

It read . . .

They went right to work digging . . .

And they found GOLD, five pieces for each . . . 

The mystery still remains (to them) about who Wu Chin is.  Thank you!

Tenting

The boys received these old army issue tents from their auntie and uncle for Christmas.  As soon as the weather turned nice this spring we had to get them out and set up.  

Don't ya' love General Curly Locks there?  I love the trying to-be-serious-smile as he marched on guard duty.

Human Body: Nerve study

We used trains to study how messages are sent throughout the body. Up and down the tracks the messages went to and from the "brain".

I massaged the boys' feet since there are a large amount of nerves in them.  We looked at a chart I found on Pinterest (here) that showed what parts of the body are effected if you rub a certain part on your foot.  They wanted to return the favor . . . :).  I promise my feet didn't smell, no matter what Agent H's face is saying.

The General's Doing

This is the General's doing . . . I find things organized into shapes, organized by colors, divided by kinds. I love finding his "projects" around the house.

HArtS Fair 2011-12

Our co-op hosts a HArtS fair each year.  It's a project fair for history, art, and science.  This year Agent H (3rd grade) studied the Mexican American War (we have found that he has a love for studying wars and military strategies) and Agent E (K) studied one of his favorite subjects: Cheese!

Agent H used this ebook from CurrClick and read lots of library books.  His board was cut into the shape of the Alamo - he did a great job!

Here's Agent E's board and a plate of the cheese we made.  Here is a photo show of how we did it . . . please humor the many photos.   I was so excited we actually made cheese - and it tasted SO good!  We used the recipe at this blog: Food Wishes.