A COMPLETE Week! Started Expedition Earth: PART 2 (Completion): Week 1

I did this in two parts because I wanted to blog seperately about our actual experience with Expedition Earth rather than all my life catastrophes.  ;)    I am not going to go into a lot of detail but rather will hit the highlights for us of what we did.  And I am not certain how much I will blog about our experiences, so do not take this as a commitment to do weekly blog posts.  I know my limits and when things get crazy blogging takes a back burner.  With that being said I will proceed.  {wink wink}

We had already started with some of these books with ECC, so this week was light for us (and I needed that {wink wink} ).  A couple of the books we had already read like Maps and Globes, but it was a great review of the information.  In fact I think this is a much better way to learn.  I think I might just read that book to the girls a few more times throughout the year even if it is not scheduled in (and I need to check this).  For a kid book it is a little heavy on facts and the repitition is good, since they really do not like it when it is read word for word.  They prefer it being summarized as I did this week and "brought it to life" as I walked around the room referring to the map and globe and drawing some details on the dry erase board.  I even had them find the points on the world map as I explained the pages about longitude and latitude.  We used a scrap of paper and a page out of an Atlas to understand the pages that describe "scale and distance". 

We will be learning about other countries and their religions, so we will be using Windows on the World.  Again, this is book we had already started with and we just reviewed the information.  For music we listened to and sang The Children of the World song and we all have this down after singing it for the last five weeks.  Even my husband can be caught singing it from time to time.  ;)  We used the Geography from A-Z book to learn seven new words and this week they were all pretty understandable for the kids.  I won't list all the words due to EE copyright, but I will say that one word was "polar", so that is easy for the kids to relate that polar bears live in the cold and that would be near the "poles"...polar.  I am not saying the seven words were easy words because they were not, but they were just enough to kind of stretch the mind without being too much.  And we did not do a worksheet or draw on index cards are write the words "x" number of times or anything like that.  We simply talked about them and discussed them and I could tell they understood and had them explain the words.  That is good for me.  I like some things to just be simple.  Another book that is the same is Living World Encyclopedia and it is and Usborne book.  And I am just going to say this.... I know that I am the only person that feels this way on the planet, but I just do not care for a lot of Usborne books.  I have felt this way with the ones that My Father's World suggests for K, 1st, Adventures, and ECC.  I have used them, but they are just too all over the page busy for me.  My kids like them and the information is good, but I would like things a little more storybook like.  Put that same info that is on a two page spread onto six pages and I would love it.  The action of flipping a page gives my mind a little break and I like that better.  BUT it works and as it is I will just read and summarize to make it more enjoyable to use.  We are still awaiting the arrival of the Usborne Encyclopedia of World Geography that is used for EE.  Our local library offered to purchase some of the books and I am so grateful as I will not have to buy this book to see if I like it.  Woo hoo!  If it turns out that I do like it, then I will probably buy my own copy. 

For EE we were given a couple of project ideas, so made the world... out of paper mache.  Above is the finished project.  We opted not to label our countries because ours are more of random blobs and not necessarily even the correct amount of "continents".  We just had a little fun.  The pic below is while our "oceans" were drying (ironic, huh?  Oceans drying.)  Anyway, you can see how we used paperclips to stick through the balloon tie and hung them from the chandeliers.  We made it a three day project instead of two day.

Day 1 = blow up balloon and add paper mache

Day 2 = paint it all blue (we waited on the other colors to avoid mixing paint)

Day 3 = paint the continents green and added a little white at the north and south poles

In the upper pic you can also do a project we had already made with ECC that was our "children of the world".  My brilliant seven year old, Sierra, to form them in a circle and balance them on our blow up globe.  I love this! 

This is a little snapshot of something I did for my tot and pre-ker.  They are learning to recognize their names, so I decided to simply write their names on their notebooks (used for storing past work and for them to show off to Daddy).  Then, I had the idea to make a little set of game cards for them to do each day to start recognizing their own name.  If you notice in the first pic way up high (of our worlds), you will see their super large names on the wall that we used to help them recognize their names.  For those I printed them the night before and taped them together like a banner.  The next day they used bingo markters to trace their names... then they used regular markers, or crayons, etc...

Anyway, back to EE... We skipped doing the Continent Hop Scotch game that is suggested, but I fully intend to do this later.  I just have this vision of another concussion and want to find a safer way to do this game.  It is printed continent sheets that are laminated and although she suggests using something to make it slipproof I decided to think on it a little longer.  Maybe I am being paranoid, but I just can not see how they can hop on it and it not slip and them fall.  I have a few ideas that I will try out to make this work for us.  {It is very important to avoid a second head trauma after a concussion... I am normally not this paranoid... just sayin'.}

And lastly, we read How To Bake An Apple Pie and See The World.  I pointed out the locations on the world map to make them realize how silly the book is.  They truly enjoyed this book and are excited about making pie.  And so, we were supposed to make pie last night, but we ran out of stream.  And so, we are supposed to make it today... sometime.... really.... I will... maybe I will go do that right now.  Only thing is we are having pear pie because someone so graciously shared some pears with us!  Yeah!  And I think I will read that book to them, again! 

Oh yeah!  They got their passports and we studied some Bible verses and stuff.  We are doing some things in our "own way".  One of which is using Draw To Learn (Jesus) in which we read a passage of scripture and draw according to suggestions in the book.  I am also going to use key verses that come up with EE in this same manner.  And this week we prayed for the "lost souls all over the world".  The verse this week was:

"All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.  Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.  And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age."  Matthew 28: 18-20

I made a copywork page for them with a portion of the verse on it and they were given instructions to illustrate it.



As you can see with both of the girls I choose a portion of the verse for them to focus on.  Being that Sierra is in second grade I underlined key words to bring it down even more for her copywork.  For her I used a highlighter to write the words and then, have her trace them.  She is being a bit sloppy with her handwriting and I think this may help.  If she is tracing the letters she will learn to form them correctly is this way.  These two pages show how we are using the same work and tailoring to meet each age.  I hope to be able to find time to share our future weeks with you, also.  We are headed to China next week.  {wink wink}