Light of the World & Oiled Paper Windows (like the Pilgrim's used)

This week, we continued learning about Jesus's light.  We learned that not everyone lives in the light.  We also read in Matthew 5 that Jesus never intended for us to take the light He gives us and hide it in a closet.  He wants us to let our light shine!  This reminds me of the song by Kari Jobe.  We are the light of the world.  We are a city on a hill.  We are the light of the world and we gotta, we gotta, we gotta let the light shine.  Here is the song.  It is beautiful!  Here is the song if you would like to hear it:  We Are by Kari Jobe.

We studied about a family in American Pioneers & Patriots that came to America on the Mayflower.  We read about their joys, struggles, and their dreams.  Because those who came on the Mayflower didn't have glass windows for their houses, they would use oiled paper for their windows.  We enjoyed making oiled paper windows ourselves.  The oil kept the paper from quickly absorbing the water if it rained, and it allowed sunlight to light up their homes.  The darker paper is the paper before it was oiled.  You can see how much more sunlight came through once it is oiled.

We are doing tons of Math Facts to better prepare us for Singapore Math.  There were so many things that Mango didn't quite understand where we started in Singapore Math so we are backing up a little bit and taking it slower so she will understand each concept.  SM urges memorization of math facts for addition & subtraction so we are making sure to get that accomplished.

In First Language Lessons, we are memorizing poems, doing reading comprehension, learning about pronouns, action verbs, using abbreviations and much more.  Needless to say, we are staying busy.

Mango has started learning and memorizing America as part of our quest in learning Patriotic Songs of the US.  She LOVES music, and I sure love to hear her sing.

I have gotten many questions thus far about how it is going.  We have had good days, bad days, days of laughter, days of tears, but there has not been a day that we haven't learned in some form or another.  This journey is a Godsend!!  However, I am finding that time is not a friend of mine, and I am failing to keep up with so many things.  Nevertheless, this is a season that I am thankful to have the freedom and the ability to enjoy.

Jesus the Light of the World, Native Americans, Universe & Stars

We had yet another fun week homeschooling here on our cove.  We studied John 8:12, "I am the light of the world.  Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life."  We made a candle with the words, Jesus, Light of the World to light our table at dinner time & to remind us of His guiding light.  We also talked about Exodus when God's people didn't have to wander in the darkness.  God provided a pillar of fire to light the way for them and to show them the way.  Just like so long ago, He still lights the way for us when we follow Him.

We studied about the Sun as well as many other stars that God has given us.  We studied about our universe and gravity.  We dropped different sizes of paper to test gravity.  We wanted to see how quickly it hit the floor.  We learned that sometimes lighter paper will not touch the ground as quickly due to air resistance.  We went outside as the sky became dark & found the Big Dipper, the Little Dipper & the North Star.  We talked about so many years ago when people used the North Star to guide them in the right direction.  We talked about constellations & the Milky Way galaxy.


This week, we were able to get to know the North American Indians.  We made wigwams, teepees and we continued to read about Squanto while enjoying the beautiful weather on our front porch.  Squanto was an Indian of the Patuxet tribe.  He became friends with the white men and even traveled to England with them to see how they lived.  However, when he finally returned to his home, he found that his entire tribe had died from a terrible illness.  He was the only one that had survived.  By this time, he had become quite fond of how the white men lived so he became a very close friend to the pilgrims.  He taught them how to fertilize their corn by placing fish into the holes before the corn was planted.  He taught them how to catch fish with their hands and many other things so that they could survive in this new world.  Did I mention that my hubby is a farmer and he was cutting CORN this week?!?  Talk about excited.  We love it when God's timing is pieced together so perfectly. 

We finished off our week of Native Americans by visiting our local Archeological Museum to see how the early Native Americans lived in our area.

Field Trip Fun - Alligator Alley & Nature Center

Recently, the girls & I went to Gulf Shores, AL with my family.  We were pretty excited about all of the different things available to us for "field trips" as we stayed in a beautiful state park there in Gulf Shores.  On site, they had a nature center, where Mango learned about many different plants and animals that are popular in AL wildlife.  She was very proud to hold a snake.

We also learned about alligators there at the nature center, and at Alligator Alley in Summerdale, AL.  We saw HUGE alligators, and the kids were even able to hold a 3 year old alligator.  If you have ever held a young gator, you would definitely say that it is a very strange feeling.  Their skin from underneath feels so thin that it is almost as if you can feel every organ that is inside them.  I am sure that as they age, their skin hardens, but it was a rather strange feeling.

 We were also able to feed the gators from a wooden walkway above the swamp, and we watched behind a fence as they were being fed by a caretaker.  I was on the edge of my seat waiting for the poor guy to get his arm taken off, but luckily, that was not the case.  It was absolutely amazing to hear the gator snap a thick bone with little to no effort.  The largest of the alligators there is Captain Crunch who was found & taken from a local neighborhood where he was attacking and eating their pets. He was picked up and brought to Alligator Alley.  Here are some facts about Captain Crunch taken from their website.  He really was amazing.

MEET CAPTAIN CRUNCH He holds the world record for bite strength…2,982 pounds! Crunch is over 800 pounds and is 13 feet 2 inches long.

HE DOES NOT PLAY WELL WITH OTHERS!

ALLIGATOR FACTS

• Alligators grow to a maximum length of 14 ft. Specimens over 13 ft. are rare. • Alligators of 10 ft. & above can have as much as 1,800 pounds of bite (true lbs, not psi). • An alligator’s life expectancy is 50 years max. To date, 56 is the oldest on record. • Females grow to a max size of 10 ft. & there are no external differences between sexes. • An average clutch size is around 35 eggs. • Large alligators can go as long as 18 months with no food!   This length of time is rare but not impossible. • Turtles make up the vast majority of an alligators diet,   as do otters, beavers, snakes, frogs, birds   & the occasional fish. Thankfully after this field trip, I haven't had recurrent nightmares about alligators or snakes as they are NOT a favorite of mine.  I will say that my 3 year old ran in our room in the middle of the night to tell us that we had gators in our backyard.  Fortunately, her dreams insisted that our "backyard" gators were very friendly ;o)

Book Basket - The local library challenge

When we chose our 2nd grade curriculum this year, the thought of a book basket filled with wonderful books on our study topic sounded delightful.  That is, until we realized that our library is just not full of books on our topics.  Actually, it doesn't have many children's books at all.  Our librarian even told me that if I would make a copy of our book list, she would try to get them from our other county libraries.  That didn't work out.  She couldn't find anything.  She even looked by topic and not the actual book titles.  Anyway, we were checking out our maximum book number of FOUR from a neighboring county.  We have what is called a "gateway" card so our limit is four books.  Between TWO kids, that is NOT much.  Picture this, we had four books from that library, a handful from our local library, and then another handful from a neighboring town.  It was COMPLETE CHAOS in the making.  I felt like it was taking an entire day to gather up each book (even though the books are suppose to stay in the book basket), make separate piles depending on which library they go back to & then return them.

So, we agreed that once per week we would drive 30 miles to ANOTHER neighboring town in hopes of finding everything we need at that ONE library.  Ugh!

Therefore, what seemed like a GREAT idea, has turned into a real challenge.  However, I am still very happy with the curriculum that we have chosen.  One solution that I am finding to our dilemma has been finding used books on amazon, Paperbackswap.com (mostly successful but have received a couple of bad books as well), and I have now joined the Scholastic Book Club as a teacher in order to build up our school library as cost effectively as possible.  I have also found a great website Half Books, which is affiliated with ebay in which I have order MANY used books for a very low fee.  We ordered several from the same vendor so we were able to save a lot of money because the shipping price was reduced.  One suggestion that I have read on the MFW message board is to also print out articles on your study topic.  That is something that I hadn't thought to try.

It saddens me that living in a small town brings such disadvantages to our children.  I am completely aware that there are pros and cons to small town life, but seriously, it just seems so unfair that ALL libraries can't be up to par.  I hope that we are just a few that have this problem, but I am doubtful.  As you can clearly see here, we LOVE reading!