Wednesday, November 17, 2010

Geography "The World that God made"

When I stared planning for this school year during the summer I knew I wanted to include Geography.  I decided to start big and talk about the basics.  I quickly realized that on a Pre-K level it would not take all year or if it did it would be LOTS of review and really boring.  So after much brainstorming I came up with a general plan. I decided to create my own curriculum. 

I realized right away the we needed a globe for our new adventure.  "Gary the Globe" joined our team, I found him on www.amazon.com . He was a great investment, we use him every week. 

We started the school year with an introduction into basic geography.  We began with learning what a map was and worked our way through the different continents on the globe.  We then moved onto the United States and our neighbors to both the North and South. I threw Germany in because there are so many people there that we love.  After these lessons, I wanted the countries that I chose to have purpose. So, I enlisted the help of  www.joshuaproject.net to find countries with the most unreached people groups.  I have explained to the girls the reason that we are learning about these countries and then we pray for these countries through out our week.  I am eager to see if the Lord starts laying these people on my children's hearts during prayer time. During the week of our first lesson, Trey asked the girls what they learned in Geography.  Abigail quickly responded, "We learned about Algeria so that we can pray for the people who live there that don't know God."

This is what our weekly Geography lesson looks like:
We start by finding the country on our globe.

We also look at the country in our Atlas

After we have looked at the country for the week using both "Gary" and our Atlas, I hand the girls their flag and they color it appropriately. This is Hannah's flag for Algeria

This is Abigail's flag of Afghanistan.  I found these flags on a site that I join this year www.enchantedlearning.com. Since I created my own curriculum this site has been a big time saver for me.  They have lots of neat printables. 

Once we have talked about the colors of the flag we fill in this chart that I created.  The girls look at the flag and observe what shapes they see.  Then they check of the boxes for the different shapes that make up each flag.

At the end of the year we will have neat books of all the countries that we studied and a reminder of who we spent our school year praying for and should continue to pray, that they hear the good news of our Savior Jesus Christ. To the ends of the Earth!

Operation Christmas Child

Operation Christmas Child is one of my favorite ministries, the ministry update video makes me cry each time I see it.  The fact that a little box can make such a difference in a child's life is so beautiful to me.  Check out this link to learn more about this amazing ministry. http://www.samaritanspurse.org/index.php/OCC/index/




We took the kiddos shopping to fill their boxes last Wednesday before Awana. We shopped for one little boy and one little girl.  Then Saturday afternoon we packed our boxes so that they would be ready to deliver to Church on Sunday.  We cant wait to track our boxes online and pray for the little boy and girl that will receive them.

This can be such a busy time of year for many and has become SO VERY COMMERCIALIZED. We try to take time with our family to truely savor the meaning of the season, the birth of our Savior.  This is one of the ways that we try to make Christmas about Christ.  We hope to shower our Savior with gifts that our pleasing to Him. 

Wednesday, November 10, 2010

Item field trip

Abigail's phonics lesson for last week was /nt/ like in print.  So we took a field trip to The Huntsville Item to learn how a newspaper is made and see the printing press.  It was a GREAT tour.  I really think the kids had a good time and learned a little something too.  Here are some pictures from our visit.
Showing us the paper

learning about the different parts of the newpaper

old thing I took a picture of

watching the advertising department set up ads

The printing press


Look at all the rolls of paper!

Rebekah starts cereal

Rebekah May had her first bites of cereal this past week.  This is the longest that I have waited with any of my kids, she will be 6 months next week, and it is going so smoothly.  She is able to eat it so much easier than her brother and sisters did a 4 months.  Here is a picture of her digging in.