Spider Lapbook

Much to my neverending chagrin, Olivia has become fascinated with spiders, while i cannot stand to be in the same room as one without an overwhelming desire to make it into shoe goo. Rebecca and Olivia have been reading Charlotte's Web and Olivia loves to look out our bathroom window, where a spider has set up shop and is dining happily on whatever victims come its way.

Another Celebrated Dancing Bear and O's Dance class

As part of the FIAR (Five in a Row) cirriculum that I have been incorporating into our homeschooling, Olivia and I read Another Celebrated Dancing Bear. I thought it would be good to incorporate with her own dance class. So we made a combination labbook for the book and also for her dance class. I thought it would be a good way to put down the memories of her dance class.

This is her drawing of Max and Boris. They are the two bears in the book. Max teaches Boris to dance.

We made a version of Russian tea.

This is the inside of the lapbook. We looked on the map and talked about Russia. We also worked on some vocabulary and drama words from the book. Olivia was very excited about the Matryoshka dolls. I am now on the lookout for wooden nesting dolls for her. I introduced the clock to her a little bit.

Also, we talked a lot about hospitality. Here is our verse.

The other side of the lapbook is another lapbook.

The story of David in the Bible dancing before the Lord. We talked about why we dance. It is not primarily for performance, although that is fun, but it is for God first. This is true of everything we do.

We summarized the things she has learned in her dance class. The aims that her teachers have for her.

Here is the inside of the dance lapbook. It has tap, ballet, and gymnastics. We looked on the map for the country of orgin of each type of dance and gymnastics.

Below is a closer look at some of the things she has learned as we dance. And we have done many activities at home to reinforce this...

**Note: Sorry about the pictures. I had a really hard time with this post for some reason.**

Fun time at the Playground

Olivia's Archaelogical Dig

We started reading The Story Of The World with Olivia this weekend and part of the introduction talked about Archaeology. Rebecca had the great idea of doing a dig with her, so I set it up and did it with her on Saturday.

I put a 50lb bag of sand in a rubbermaid storage container and buried a bunch of items in the sand for her to find. I buried some coins, a couple of foam letters, a ball, a necklace, a fork, and a key. I also buried a toy soup can and an empty yogurt container. The point of the items was to give a cross-section of different things we use everyday; the things we eat, wear, play with, etc.

We divided the dig into 4 sections and labeled them.

Olivia then would dig out a shovelful of sand...

put it into a sifter and sift through it (into another container) to see if she found anything.

Every time she found something, we would stop and make a note of what we found and which section it was in.
When it was all done, she asked if we could do it every day. She had such a great time and it was a great introduction into the world of history and archaeology.

Gabe goes exploring and gets stuck! :)

Ten Commandments Lapbook

Olivia started Classical Conversations 2 weeks ago and they've been memorizing the Ten Commandments, so I thought it would be neat to do a lapbook about them.

Week one, she memorized:

Thou shalt...

1. have no other gods before me.

2. not make unto thee any graven image

3. not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain.

4. remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.

5. honor thy father and mother; that thy days may be long upon the land the Lord thy God giveth thee.

Week Two:

Thou shalt...

6. not kill.

7. not commit adultery.

8. not steal.

9. not bear false witness against thy neighbor.

10. not covet.

We sponge painted the front with gray acrylic paint.

This is a map of the region with Mt Sinai and a picture of the mountains.

These are verses that we read to talk about the purpose of the 10 commandments and what we should do with them. We are to obey God's laws and we should know them well so that is why we memorize them. These 10 commandments are from a loving God that desires to direct our steps on the right path. And His laws always remain true.

These are the 10 commandments.

God gave the 10 commandments to Moses on Mt. Sinai.

Here is some fun we had with a maze and also a finger-play poem I found in a library book.

CC is amazing in the amount that kids this age can absorb! Some of the other things they've been learning are a history timeline (ancient to modern), geography and history, all related to the ancient world this year, biology and earth science, skip counting, some art, english and latin. She really enjoys all this memorization. And I am getting my education all over again too. :)

Gabe's 1st Birthday (part 2)

We went to Aunt B's house to celebrate Gabe's first b-day with Rebecca's side of the family. Gabe's Grandpa came to the rescue of our busy schedules and made him a great car cake. I think as you will see, he had a great time.

Gabe's new trick

Well, Gabe's learned to pull himself up on Olivia's toy table and get at the toys that he wants to play with. Kinda scary... before long, he's going to want to walk.

Happy Birthday Gabe!

It's hard to believe that about this time a year and a day ago we were in the back of my parents car, waiting for the EMTs to arrive after Gabe was born a little ahead of schedule. (See the September 2008 archive for all the details :)

We celebrated this morning with our church family by bringing cupcakes from home for everyone. We knew the boy would make a mess, so we just stripped him down to his diaper.

He knew right away what to do with the cupcake, but couldn't quite fit the whole thing in his mouth, no matter how wide he stretched.

After we broke it up for him, he was all smiles.

And the forseen result. It ultimately was well into his hair and all over the front of him.