Viking Videos

I couldn't post with when I posted about our study of Vikings discovering America a few days ago. But her it is now.  It is a short video of Dare-Devil boy explaining about what he learned about vikings.

 

Also another video of Dare-Devil playing with his Vikings.  It was a Romans vs. Vikings battle.

Tepi, not TP

Beside our trip into the world of vikings last week we also have been doing a Native American study.  This week we focused on the Hopi and a few of the Plains Indians.  The highlight and the biggest thing that came out of this was our Tepi.  

Dare-Devil Boy and my husband did the actually building of the Tepi or the none paper one at least.  Wonder Girl and I made a paper one for her to play with.  Complete with people and other things.

Spider-Dad first tracing out the shape.

 

Next cutting out the fabric.

 

As my husband was doing that Dare-Devil Boy 

was trying to put up the poles on his own.

The final product.  Even with Native Americans.  

(I didn't mange to get the actually raise of the tepi because

the did it while I was out.)

Later Dare-Devil Boy set up his Indian guys and Viking guys

for a formal meeting.

And finally...Wonder Girl's Tepi.  She was very 

excited to have one of her own.

A Vikings Nicer Side

Do Vikings has a nicer side?  Well I would like to think so.  This week in our study we learned that Vikings were more then Raiders, most of them were farmers,  that they are exploders and they never wore hats that had horns on them.  (Yeah, I was shocked to learn that too.)  Just to mention a few other things.

This is was our 2nd week of school, but so far our favorite.  Dare-Devil boy has much loved or is fascinated by the Vikings.  He would pull out the books we had around the house that had to do with this subject and would read or look at pictures.  Then proceed to ask questions on things that at the time I could never answer.  

So when we went into this week he was a bit more excited or interested in what we were learning.  Her is a small list of what we both learned about this semi-misunderstood group of people.  We learned that...

• ... they NEVER had helmets with horns on them. 
• ... they were actually the first of discover American and not Columbus.
• ... most Vikings were farmers and not raiders.
• ... came for a place call Scandinavia.
• ... that Scandinavia was made up of three countries: Denmark, Sweden, & Norway.

To go along with our study of Vikings we made a lapbook that I got from Homeschoolshare.com and a few notebook pages too. Also we did some great hands-on paper crafts that Dare-Devil Boy like a lot.

A picture of the inside of Dare-Devil Boy's Lapbook

The paper Viking Long House & Ship we made. 

Water colored Map of the place the Vikings Discovered

The Vikings fighting the Romans

Also the Vikings meeting the Native Americans when they came to North America.
(The Tepi was made during out study of Native Americans we also did this week.)

Pencil Box Lunch

A quick post about our first day of school.  

Unlike public or even private schools my kids done buy or bring their lunch to school.  They get it made fresh, made for on the spot and whatever (as long as we have it in the house) usaully whatever then want that day to eat. (This doesn't count candy, cakes or junk food.  That's a dessert in our houses.  And are given only if good.)

So to mix things up and make the first day of school fun.  I packed lunches.  But I didn't pack them in any old brown paper bag.  Nope. I used their old pencil boxes.  I cleaned them, packed what i could fit in to that box.  Which is more then I thought I could.  Then when it was time to break for lunch I pulled them out for them to eat out of.

It was an instant hit!  The only thing that didn't fit in the box was a drink, but that didn't bother them to much.  I just poured some milk and soy milk for them on the side.  This was simple, fun and my kids want me to do it more.  So it just might be something more regular we do in our school days.

Now I Know My A...

Since last week we've started Preschool with Wonder Girl.  She is loving and enjoying it a lot.  For me teaching her and getting her ready for Kindergarten has actually been more fun and busy then when I was teaching Dare Devil Boy.  Mostly cause I know more what I doing this time around and I have been able to get more help and find more resources then I did with him.

This year we are doing a bunch of things with Wonder Girl.  I'm using a mix of Totally Tots and No Time for Flash Cards to help and some crafts to learning letters each week.  Also it has made it more fun for both her and me.  (Even fun for Daddy.  Since he gets to tap into his creative crafty side when he teaches her too.)

Also we have been making a letter notebook.  Which I got the lapbook from Homeschool Share.  Adding to all this I've just made up much of our own Math games to teach numbers, counting, sorting, patterns, & everything else.  Then finally for some handwriting we are doing Handwriting without Tears: PreK Get Set for School program, which she is enjoying.

So here is a peek at last week's letter (Aa) and game.

Wonder Girl making her big "A" alligator

The finished product.

Pasting something in her Letter Notebook.

Simple Egg counting game.

I picked up some plastic eggs over Easter knowing I would use them for something.  Which I have done.  I used pom poms and beads.  There are 12 eggs but the amount of beads or pom poms in each egg only go from 1-6.  Which means that each number is used twice.

Then I used large index cards and labeled each card with numbers from 1-6.  Next I had Wonder Girl stamp something on that card amounting to whatever number is on that card.  Ex.  Card 1=1 butterfly stamp, card 2=2 flowers stamps and so on.

Finally I let her open each egg, count the number of pom poms or beads in that egg, then find and place that object on the correct number card.  Once she was done doing that, she placed the items back in the open egg and left it in the carton.

Early America

Our homeschooling journey is going back to the future.  Really we are going back into Early American History this year.  So far it has been a great one.  
 

This week we are learning about Native Americans and how they first came to America.  Along with reading some great books we have manged to do some great hands-on projects.  (Which I excited about cause I haven't had to schedule and hunt down them.  I have add some things but nothing like I did last year.)  There is a look at what we have learned this week. 

We started our school day with our bible reading.  We have been reading from a Children's bible  story book.  As I was reading my kids decided to draw a picture of what I read.  Here are their interpretations of the creation story.

Dare-Devil Boy's

God Creating the world.

(The person floating is the sky, I was informed is God. Not a superman flying.)

Wonder Girl's

God creating the world picture.

(She told me that she made fish that could fly. Because she didn't have room in the water for them.)

Here is one of the notebook pages we made. 

One of the highlights of the week was learning to play an Native Ameican game.  This game is called the Plum Game.  Dare-Devil and Spider-Dad had a great time playing it.