Greece Week 1

Last week was our first week of Greece. The week started off rough following a week of review & testing but we were able to pull it together by the end of the week.

The first day we spent tasting tasting some Greek foods. We had an olive tasting and by far the green olives won out :) They tried feta cheese spread on crackers and sprinkled some on their salads. I personally love feta cheese. They were just okay with it :) Of course we always love grapes so that was a freebie. And lastly, we made little english muffin pizzas which they had no problem devouring .

Did you know that the Greeks were the first to eat pizza, using it as a bread plate to pile food on top of ? The tomato sauce came later. They just used olive oil. But we decided to stick with the sauce:)


We also started a unit on the human body. right now we are briefly going over each body system. Last week it was the Integumentary System. We made fake blisters, looked at our hair under a magnifying glass ( need to invest in a microscope! ) and are in the process of our "smelly feet" project in which we are growing microbes from their dirty feet in gelatin.

This is our jar of gelatin for microbe growing

Vania collecting swabbing her feet for the gelatin jar

This week was also the last week of fall co op which I am sad about :( I will really miss getting together with our friends. On the other hand I am excited to see what classes we will be taking in the spring !

Our Week In Review

Last week was a week of review and testing on unit 1 . I decided to make tests for Egypt and the desert using classmarker.com . No testing is "required" but I felt the review was for their benefit after covering a lot of info. & the testing was for my benefit to see how much they were retaining & how I can improve my teaching to meet their learning styles. These will also go in their portfolios since there is little paperwork and mostly hands on projects for science and history.
We also reviewed geography and map skills. The kids individually indentified certain locations on the globe and filled in a blank map of Egypt using a word bank at the bottom of the map. These will also go in their portfolios.

We used board games to review Egypt/Desert
& BINGO for desert vocab.

For the final day of Egypt we had our version of a passover meal to celebrate God leading the Israelites out of Egypt. We had matzah ball soup , potato krugel, roasted turkey and grape juice in our "fancy glasses".

These are 2 more fun projects the kids made for nature enrichment using certain knots they have been learning to tie ;

Carson's spear

Zoe's loofah

And last but not least, we took our last fieldtrip of the unit to the Cleveland Botanical Garden. This is a picture of the kiddos in the the Madagascar Desert Ecosystem.


Tomorrow we move onto Greece :)

Pyramids & Plagues

Okay, we have discovered that we are NOT the best pyramid builders this last week. The kids worked all week painting and decorating their pyramids only to discover that the paint had warped the cardboard which made our pyramids difficult to put together. And we were only able to get three sides to fit together. But..... it was still fun . I can't imagine how difficult it must have been for the Ancient Egyptians & how much skill & hard labor it must have required. Maybe that is the lesson here :)

We also wrapped up the story of Moses in Exodus & covered the Ten Plagues of Egypt. The vote is in & by a land slide BOILS was the most gross & disgusting plague !

Then Friday we took a field trip to General Sherman's House in Lancaster. Unfortunately we were not aloud to take pictures inside of the house. The boys liked all the Civil War memorabilia which was cool for Zane to see since he is taking a Civil War class in Co op.

Zane started guitar lessons at the YMCA Thursday. So far , so good . He woke up Friday morning grabbed his guitar & started practicing the chords ( even before X BOX ). Life is good :)

Out of Egypt

We should be wrapping up our Egypt/desert unit within the next week. At least this is the plan. :)Although it has been a fascinating unit study with lots of cool projects, we are ready for some new material. I love that the length of the units are 30 days. This gives me a chance to regroup & revise things between units to make things run a little smoother. I have learned so much about my kids & how each one of them learn these last 30 days and what IS working and what is NOT working for us as a group.I feel like this has been my trial unit. I've got lots of ideas floating around in my head for the next unit, Greece/Human Body. The hard part is staying focused on the last bit of Egypt/desert. Which is also the case for the kids. Bring on Greece !

Here are some things we have finished up this week......

Maps of Egypt


Desert lap books


Miniature models of structures they could build for shelter in Nature Enrichment Class


Zoe's finished pot holder made in Nature Enrichment Class

OSU Buckeyes

Zoe had a chance to go watch the Ohio State Woman's Soccer Team with HER soccer team last night. Lots of fun & the best part was that it was FREE ! Afterwards the girls were excited to talk to the players and get their shirts signed. GO BUCKS!!!!!!

Kelton House

This Friday the kids & I took a tour of the Kelton House with our co op. The Kelton House was one of the houses used in the Underground Railroad. The house was BEAUTIFUL ! Very nicely preserved & has an amazing history. I'm noticing that I am enjoying the field trips more than the kids. They think that they are too cool for school ( or to admit they dig this stuff :) and I feel like a brand new student learning all over again.

These are pictures of the garden behind the house. They have a lot of weddings here & I can see why. Just Beautiful !

This is the family room where the kids play ? Looks pretty formal to me. Not what today's playrooms look like!


This is where the got the expression " Don't throw the baby out with the bath water". One tub of water , 6 kids..... who do you think got in line first & who was the last ?


This is the formal dining room. Fine linen was only washed once a week. SO your fancy napkin was given a napkin ring with your name on it to keep them seperated . Can you imagine using the same napkin for a week ? Thank God for disposable napkins !

This is a picture of Oscar Kelton. He served in the civil war & died. This is one of the reasons the Keltons became abolitionists.

What's interesting about this picture is that the woman in the portrait is wearing the same piece of jewelry that is displayed in the frame on the right of the desk. The broach is made from her hair which was a common practice among the woman.

Pretty cool tidbits . Great field trip on a cool fall day !

Beach Bums

Last week we finally made it down to Emerald Isle in North Carolina. We have been longing for the beach for sometime. Not a lot of rest & relaxation going on with 4 excited kiddos. But lots of fun & good times to share. They would sit on the beach sometimes for hours just sitting on the beach waiting for the surf to come in and crash up on their feet. Then they would go running & squealing away to higher ground. Our beach house was one row of houses back from the beach & if they had gone down with Adam before me, I could hear them laughing & playing all the way back at the beach house.