Rainforest Diorama

Despite the fact I haven't blogged since October, we have continued with our Expedition Earth curriculum, learning about different countries around the world. We have studied Asia, Europe, North America, and the Poles.

This week we began studying South America by studying Brazil and along the way we learned about the Amazon Rainforest. Here are pictures of our diorama. The kids had such a fun time putting this together and I only burned myself with the glue gun a few times! :-)

Emergent & Canopy

Understory

Rainforest Floor

China, South Korea & Japan

Here are some highlights from the first 3 countries we studied...

The highlight of studying China was making our Great Wall of China. Directions can be found at Confessions of a Homeschooler - here. I ended up helping with parts of it but the kids really enjoyed making it. Had I read all of the directions, it would've been easier but it worked and turned out really neat!

Other highlights from China were making Chinese lanterns and writing our names in Chinese.

During this time we also went to the Children's Museum to check out the Lego Castle display. We went on what was the first week of school for all the schools around us so not many people were there. It was soooo fun! The kids are at a great age for the Children's Museum!

Practicing with crutches.

My cute little ants!

I don't have any pictures from studying South Korea. We enjoyed learning about this country and especially praying for North Korea. Cricket was very interested in learning more about the Korean War and what divided North & South Korea.


We enjoyed studying Japan. Highlights included reading Meiko and the Fifth Treasure, learning about Mount Fuji and going to a Japanese restaurant. We went with my parents and celebrated my dad's birthday. The kids LOVED watching the chef cook our food and really enjoyed using special chopsticks they had for kids. My parents had never been to a Japanese restaurant and really enjoyed it as well. And it was delicious!!

I guess the tradition on your birthday is to wear the special "hat" while they sing happy birthday to you - very funny!

Happy Beginnings & Intro to World Geography

Our first few weeks of school were spent doing part-time school and most of the time play but we did start off with a field trip and an intro to world geography. Here are the highlights...

Since one of the things we are doing this year is studying animals, it seemed only fitting to start off with a day at the zoo. A college friend that I hadn't seen in over 20 years happened to be in the area so it worked out to meet her at the zoo.

One of our first days of school. I did not do a very good job of getting a good "first day of school" picture this is what we got this year. You can tell my "Toro" is really excited!

Nothing like a little real life school. My little Toro is learning to paint by helping me paint the bathroom. Gotta love the help, right?

We started out our year studying countries and cultures by making a paper mache globe. I was very glad we chose to do this out in our garage! Full directions can be found here...

Toro is getting the glue/water mixture ready to go...

Cuddlebug tearing paper to cover our earth. We hung the balloon from the beams in our garage and the kids (well, everyone except Cuddlebug) loved getting their hands goopy and putting paper on the to cover the balloon. C-bug liked putting on paper, just didn't like to necessarily put glue on the paper first!

Cricket and Toro getting our earth ready to go!

Toro and Cuddlebug painting water on our earth.

Painting land...

Our world seems to have more land than maybe the real world has but it now proudly hangs in our dining room!

One other craft we made for our Intro to World Geography was our Me on the Map craft. It turned out really cute and helped the kids see where we live. We started with My planet, continent, country, state, city, street and finally our house. I got the idea from Counting Coconuts... Here is a picture of our finished product.