Explorers are done (weekly review)

We have finished the 24 explorers from the Time Traveler cd....whew!, what an information overload. There were some I knew and some I never heard of. For Emma I just read the highlights of each explorer and the main thing they were noted for. The information TT gave was just too much for her. But with that said, I think it was a great way of getting her to understand how Spain, Portugal, and England had a big hand in the exploration of the newly found half of the world and what some of the impact of their exploring did...both good and bad. Next week we move onto Pirates and then we will be done the first Time Traveler cd. I will post a picture of the finished lapbook next week. I think it is coming out quite nice.

Another thing we finished up this week was the book Walk the Worlds Rim. It has been an enjoyable read but glad it is over. I was getting tired of the internal battle Chakoh was having with slaves, his idea of them versus what he was seeing with Esteban. Oh and the constant eating of food or thinking of food, always made me hungry. Emma was very sad how it ended but not enough that it was a problem. She will be watching National Treasure 2 just for fun as a reward for us finishing this book. We also started the next Sonlight book, The Sign of the Beaver. Emma was very disapproving of the dad leaving a 12yr old home alone in the wilderness, mumbling her disapproval several times, even after I tried to explain a 12yr old boy back then was more mature then now...she still things it was wrong.

The Native American study is going strong and will continue for a few more weeks. I am only reading 4 pages from the Welcome to Kaya's World a day so it will take a while to finish the book. This week we read about children and what they did for fun. One of the things we read was how the children made a hoop and would shoot arrows through it as it rolled around. We modified the game some and used a tire swing and sticks. Just as we started to play, the neighborhood kids came over and after hearing about the game they all took turns. I left them to play but heard plans on making different levels they had to try...swinging the tire slowly, spinning it, standing at different spots....each time you made it you moved up a level. I heard them laughing and squealing for a while. Later at dinner Emma was telling me how much fun they had and how they were making up new rules. Apparently you could go up to 20 levels. No one made it past level 6....standing with your back against the tree and throwing the stick with your left hand white the tire swung fast past you.

The library did not have a good selection of Native American craft books but I did find one we were able to get the directions for making a Dream Catcher. I knew they were believed to catch bad dreams (Thanks to one of the Twilight movies) but not the actual legend. The book told about how the Lakota Indians and the Iktome (spider) who was tricked into revealing how to spin a web. The Lakota use Willow branches to make their dream catchers but we did not have a willow tree near by, instead I found a supple branch that was straight...good enough for us. I showed Emma how to carefully bend the branch, slowly so it does not crease, and form a circle. We used tape to hold it in circle form while she took yarn and wound it over the tape.

The next day she took yarn and wove the web. She added beads and a feather from our stash of feathers. As she worked on the dream catcher I read to her from Meet Kaya.

Finished and hanging over her bed.

In science this week we started Chapter 2 in Apologia's Flying Creatures. I have been debating starting chapter 2 or skipping ahead to ch 9, insects. I want to be sure to hit this chapter when the bugs are still out and not when it gets too cold. I also want to get the bird study in when we have more birds at our feeder. I figured to go ahead with the order of the book but if it looks like we will not read the insect chapters in time I will just skip ahead then and come back to birds. So...chapter 2. One of the things I wanted for her notebook was a feather she finds. Sadly the birds are not dropping them yet. But, on one morning when I sent her out to look she came running back in all excited, I was to drop everything and come at once. there under the bushes was a baby bird, dead. We moved to to the deck to get a better look at it. Poor thing must have been attacked (hole in it's side and no nest above where it was found). We were able to look at it real good, seeing the different parts, and the tiny wings with pin feathers just forming. Very interesting and the pictures will be a great addition to her notebook when we get to baby birds.

Afterward  we put it back where we found it. At first Emma did not want it under the bushes. But I explained the alternative was either throwing it away or burying it (which might get dug up). This way we let nature take care of it. She has peeked on it several times and found the ants have taken care of it quite well.
For the feather, we just pulled one from our stash, which is getting low now that we have used 2 this week.

For art Emma worked on her mushroom house picture. It is finally finished and I promised her we would frame. Hopefully we will be able to speed up the art some. Doing 1 lesson over 2 weeks is longer then I figured. Maybe once we move from summer mode(3 days a week school) to school mode (5 days a week) she will be more willing to speed up. She does not want to do anything school related on Tuesdays and Thursdays...and who can blame her.