File Folder Games

I don't remember playing any file folder games when I was little, and after seeing all the fun ones available online, I sure wish I had! But, now that I'm a homeschoolin' mama, I have the perfect excuse to get my game on! Here are some of the ones we're getting ready for Mary; she'll start the K4 class next month:

I just had to share these little (and I mean teensy, weensy!) hermit crabs with you! The hubs has spent SO much time with these hermits; check out how closely he cut them out - look at those legs! I am not allowed to cut out the game pieces because I "don't do it right," which means I cut a big circle around the things. But, they do look a lot better than I would have done them, so I'm sending out a special thanks to my man!

We found our games at FileFolderFun.com, but I'm sure there are other sites with games as well. I know that in these early years I really need to focus on helping Mary ENJOY school and learning, so hopefully these games will help. Speaking of having fun while you learn, I just started a really great book about the subject, called Playful Learning. I'm not finished yet, but so far I'm VERY inspired!

Plans: Cycle 1 - Week 3

This week is all about Ancient Greece, which I love learning about! Mary's already really interested in this time period, too, so it should be a fun week!

Bible

* Keep following our Bible story/timeline card schedule.

* Do some more with our Ancient Civilizations and the Bible activity book.

* Discuss God's views on false gods: 

* Read Acts 14:6-20 where Paul and Barnabas are mistaken for gods (mentions Zeus/Jupiter)

* Read Acts 19:24-41 where it talks about Artemis/Diana (and a riot nearly breaks out!). Here is pdf coloring sheet of the riot.

* Read Acts 17:16-33 where Paul visits Athens. Here is a coloring page of Paul on Mars' Hill.

* Continue reviewing the Ten Commandments.

Geography

* Read about our memory work places found in the Bible:

Jordan River - Joshua 3 (Joshua and Israelites cross)

Sea of Galilee - Matthew 14:13-33 (Feeding of the 5,000 and Jesus walks on water), Mark 4:35-41 (Jesus calms the sea)

* Listen to SOTW1: Chapters 14, 38 about the Hebrew Empire.

* Color maps of the empire and locate our memory work places (p. 223 of Foundations Guide).

* Play Hebrew Empire Scramble:

History

Just like with the previous week, there is just so much one could do with Ancient Greece!

* Work on our Ancient Civilization History Pocket for Greece:

* Do some coloring pages while listening to Greek myths:

(I really can't say enough how much we L-O-V-E these audios from Jim Weiss!)

* Make a paper mache Mount Olympus (p. 7 of the link) and play with it for hours! (I'm so excited to do this! UPDATE: We actually did this! Check it out here!) I've already printed and laminated the twelve Olympians to use as paper dolls while we play (I don't remember where I found these images; I think I just did a Google image search for each one):

* We also plan to have a movie night at the end of the week and watch Disney's Hercules movie:

I've also got my eye on some old Hercules Happy Meal toys on ebay. My girls love 'people toys,' as we call them, ad it would be really cool to play with them on our homemade Mount Olympus!

* Read a ton of books:

(These are just our favorites right now, there are SO many other great books out there. Be sure to check my CC Cycle 1 Pinterest board for more ideas.)

* Listen to SOTW1: Chapters 18, 23, 27, and 28 about the Greek and Roman gods.

* Probably do some things with this great Ancient Greece PreK unit from Dynamic2moms.

* Play match-up with these mythology cards:

* And we're going to end this week with a big grand finale! I'm going to let Mary pick a myth that we can perform for our family (hubs and grandparents). We're going to send them invitations to a Gods and Goddesses feast, where we'll eat ambrosia and drink nectar (or some equivalent - is pizza Greek?), dress like our goddesses and perform our play as the after-dinner entertainment! I'm. so. excited! Here is a great post on doing this more casually for a Greek lunch feast.

Science

* Since we'll be studying the animal cell, and since we like pizza (big-time!), we're also planning to make an animal cell pizza:

(Seriously, this just blows my mind at how cool it is!)

* Do some animal cell coloring sheets.

* Read some books, although I really couldn't find too many preschooler-friendly animal cell books:

That's all I'm planning to do right now for Week 3 (more ideas on Pinterest that I probably won't be able to squeeze in). I love to find fun ways to review material from the previous weeks, so I think I'm going to give this muffin tin game a try. In this post (with directions), it's used for reading, but I could put the different CC categories in the muffin cups and use it that way instead!

Looking for more ideas? Be sure to check out the Half-a-Hundred-Acre Wood's Week 3 Link-Up!

Plans: Cycle 1 - Week 2

This is our week for all things Ancient Egyptian! Mary has really latched on to this time period, so I hope she's going to have a blast this week!

Bible
* I matched up the Bible stories I want to read each day with our Timeline Cards. To see what that looks like, check out this post.
* Since our memory work is the second half of the Ten Commandments, we'll keep reading that (click here to see how I made a Memory Work Flip Chart).
* We'll also go a little back in time to the plagues, Exodus, and the crossing of the Red Sea to tie in our geography memory work. I've printed out and laminated these super-cute plague people from 1+1+1=1 (great site!) for us to act out the story (not sure if it's appropriate to say the 'plague' and 'super-cute' together, but it's just the truth).

* I also want to read Daniel 3 about Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in Babylon, which ties back into geography again.
* And of course the girls will color an insane amount of Bible coloring sheets while I read these stories, I'm sure. ;)
* This could go under History, but I'll just stick it here... To finish off the week, we'll have a movie night and watch Prince of Egypt, which is already the girls' favorite movie. Yes, it's not entirely Biblically accurate, but it's a movie about this particular time period, and one of the fun things we like to do is point out what's true and what's not while we watch it. And the music is ah-mazing!

Seriously, I cannot tell you how many times we've all put 'stacks of bricks' on our backs and pretended to be Israelite slaves after watching this movie. Ha! And yes, sometimes slaves can wear princess dresses and carry fairy wands.

English

* Continue reading our books about prepositions

* Begin our Busy P's preposition project:

Geography

* Read about our memory work places that are found in the Bible:

Red Sea - Exodus 10:19, 13:18, 15:4

Babylon - Daniel 3 (the fiery furnace)

* Listen to SOTW1: Chapters 7, 16 on the Assyrian Empire

* Color maps of the Assyrian Empire and locate our memory work places

History

Wow! There is just SO much we could do for Ancient Egypt; it's really hard to narrow it down!

* Color lots of coloring pages while we listen to our SOTW audio:

* Listen to Egyptian Treasures audio while we work on on Ancient Civilizations History Pockets:

Click on the picture above to see some great ideas on studying Egypt with the History Pockets, as well as some wonderful books that we've also collected based on her recommendation.

* Do some crafts:

Who wouldn't want to mummify a Barbie? This is just too cool! Update: We actually attempted this! Check it out here.

A marshmallow pyramid? Why not?! My girls won't be able to do this yet, but it's just too fun not to share.

* Eat some fun snacks:

Are these not the CUTEST hot dog mummies you've ever seen?!

* Read some good books:

The picture is kind of tiny, but the above book is Mary's favorite on Ancient Egypt. It's a fictional story that goes along with the facts; it's a fun read.

This is another book in the You Wouldn't Want to Be series, and it's another winner in our home, too.

This is a really neat book that shows what happened to the pyramids over time. And there's even a Where's Waldo' aspect to it, as some characters are hidden on each page.

This is great book that covers many of civilizations we'll study in Cycle 1.

These are just some of our favorite books on Ancient Egypt that we'll be using this week. There are a plethora of children's books available on this subject, and I've got many more that we'll use listed on Pinterest, too. (Actually, I've got tons of more goodies and ideas on my Pinterest boards, so if you're looking for more, you can click the Pinterest button at the top of this page and head on over there.)

* And we'll end the week with an Egyptian feast, complete with costumes (hopefully!):

Science

* Read some more books (we like to read, can you tell? ;)  ):

* Possibly do this activity to help memorize the five kingdoms:

* And more coloring pages (surprised, right):

I honestly don't have much Science planned for this week. I'm anticipating that we'll spend most of our time in Ancient Egypt, which is just fine with me. :)

I don't plan on updating my Math, Language Arts, Latin, and English subjects for each planning post in the future. For English, just know that we'll keep plugging away at the memory work and Busy Ps project until the helping verbs are introduced in Week 13. The Language Arts and Latin will be the same as described in my Week 1 planning post, and Math is slow-going right now. If I come across any great ideas or resources in any of these subjects, I'll be sure to pass them along.

Be sure to check out what other CC mama have planned for Cycle 1 - Week 2 over at Half-a-Hundred Acre Wood's weekly link-up!

Getting Ready for Geography

I'm so excited to teach my girls some geography this year; It was always one of my favorite subjects in school. In Cycle 1, we'll spend a lot of time learning the countries of Africa, which is great for us because that's where Mary's favorite country is - Egypt! However, I don't want to just jump right into the countries without teaching her the seven continents first. So, in anticipation of the new cycle, we've been slowly and steadily learning the continents together. Here's how we're doing it:

Above is the shower curtain in the girls' bathroom (it's so great!). Each time Mary goes potty we sing the continents song (a silly version of the Montessori one) and point to the different ones.

I made a little DIY continent map, with help from this site. In the Geography chapter of Leigh Bortins's book The Core, she has great ideas for beginning to draw the continents. I used some of her suggestions by drawing the lines of latitude, but since Mary is still a little young and can't draw herself, I cut out the continents from glitter foam (glitter just makes everything more fun!). Then I printed out some labels from The Montessori Print Shop (great instant downloads, and the labels are free), printed a control card for her to look at for help, and viola! We now have our very own continent map in a box!

Okay, it's confession time: Although I do love my little homemade map, I have not introduced it to Mary yet. I want to make sure she's really confident about the names and general locations from our potty-time review (that's so silly to think about, but it actually works for us! ha!) before I bring this out. We had a super-really-horrific experience with writing when I started her too early, so I absolutely want to avoid a repeat of our Handwriting WITH Tears incident. But, she's almost there, so I do anticipate playing and learning with this map before CC officially begins in about a month.

I also have these great maps and labels pictured above printed, laminated, and ready to go for more fun review. Speaking of laminating, I have been doing a LOT of that lately! 

Thanks to Brandy over at Half-a-Hundred Acre Wood for putting together the Classical Conversations Blog Carnival! Be sure to check out her amazing site; it's where I go whenever I have a CC question, so like everyday pretty much. ;)

Music or Stories?

That's what I ask Mary after breakfast when she sits down to start her coloring, music or stories. I love them both, but lately the girls and I have been hooked on stories read by Jim Weiss. If you've never heard of him, he's the storyteller who reads the Story of the World audio books, and he also has a whole mess of other audio books available for download here and here. Mary is really into Greek mythology right now, so we spend most of our time listening to these:

If your children (or just you!) need something new to listen to in the car or as background music during your day, I highly recommend these CDs. We'll definitely be adding to our collection soon!