Tots and Me... Growing Up Together: Our Week in Review: December 6, 2014

This week we have been working on finishing the unit we started the week before Thanksgiving. At first I was going to move on to Week 17, but I realized we hadn't quite done everything I wanted to accomplish. I am very glad we took the extra week as we did a few more hands on activities and I feel like we got a lot more out of the lessons.

Our focus for the weeks of November 17th and December 1st:
(We took Thanksgiving week off.)

Tabitha and Amelia- Week 16 MFW 1st, Science unit- Rainbows
Hannah and Harold - were tagging along

We haven't been having a story time every day, though I would like to go back to that schedule. I think we are a bit off schedule because we have been spending time with Melk the Christmas Monkey, doing his activities before putting him back to bed (as he is a nocturnal animal). I think next week we will read our books with Melk before putting him to bed.

Though our schedule hasn't been the same, we have read some of the books I took out for the rainbow unit. We read A Rainbow of My Own by Don Freeman, The Rainbow and You by E.C. Krupp, All the Colors of the Rainbow by Allan Fowler, The Magic School Bus Makes a Rainbow: A Book About Color by Joanna Cole, and Fox Walked Alone by Barbara Reid (about Noah's Ark).

The older girls are doing a wonderful job remembering the order of the books of the Bible. I love learning about one each day and writing it on a slip of cardstock to add to the envelopes. Once a week, the children take them out and we put them in order. On the other days, I just have them recite them. We have made it to Proverbs.

Here is Hannah writing "Job."

We have sort of neglected the timeline pictures, mainly because I misplaced them. They weren't in my folder or in the files. I found them yesterday in the back of my teacher manual (go figure). Guess we will be doing some catching up next week.

Our Proverb of the Week was Proverbs 30:5- "Every word of God is flawless; he is a shield to those who take refuge in him." Our character trait from Little Lads and Ladies of Virtue was Helpfulness. Though we have now put that aside until after Christmas so we can focus on the characteristics of God that Melk is teaching us. This week we learned that God Gives Good Gifts, God Keeps His Promises, God Cares For Us, God's Word is Sweet, and God is Light.

Melk brought the children gifts and taught us that God blesses us whether we are good or bad.

We made paper countdown chains in anticipation of celebrating the birth of Jesus. Melk taught us that Scripture teaches us to watch and wait.

We made paper plate angels to remind us of God's care for us.

Melk was found stuck in the bag of candy because he had been getting some out to put in a jar to share with us to remind us that God's word is sweet.

Yesterday, Melk was all excited about putting up Christmas lights because we had driven around the night before to look at some lovely lit up houses. Of course, he taught us the God is Light.

Now onto our MFW activities:

Yesterday, I made a Rainbow/Noah's Ark Muffin Tin. The children made the Fruity Ringer Rainbows to go in the muffin tins.

In addition to the rainbows I added the foods in the colors of the rainbow: red grape tomatoes, orange carrots, yellow pineapple, green broccoli, blue Jello, and purple yogurt. Then I cut a Noah's Ark shape out of their peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

We also made boats out of foil and floated them in our kitchen sink. Each child took a turn to see how many pennies it would take to sink their boat.

We also discovered how long Noah's Ark would have been. First we measured our forearms to see how long they were. We discussed that a cubit is the length from the tip of the finger to the bend of the elbow. The children have already heard of the term "non-standard unit of measure," so I explained that a cubit would fit in this category as everyone has a slightly different arm length. We used daddy's arm to measure for Noah's Ark, seeing his was the closest to the 18 inch mark.

I cut a piece of yarn that was 10 cubits long. Then we headed over to the park to measure 300 cubits.

I took a picture from the spot we ended measuring, all the way through to where we started at the entrance to the park.

The children were a bit surprised at how long Noah's Ark would have been, especially when you take into account how tiny the typical ark is pictured as being. If it hadn't been so cold we may have measured the width too.

I have to admit, the individual lessons have been neglected these last few weeks. The older girls have still been working on copy work though. They have their proverb once a week, plus they have been working on Advent Bible verses from our Celebrate Jesus book.

They are also supposed to be recording what Melk teaches us about God's character.

Besides the daily math with number of the day and learning about measuring cubits with Noah's Ark, we have been playing a math card game called "I Knew That!" which we are reviewing.

This review won't be shared on my blog. It is one of two products I am reviewing for the Old Schoolhouse Magazine. Their website has a whole section for reviews of homeschool related products, which I only just recently learned about. You can check them out here.

I also have several reviews upcoming on my blog:

Farfaria app

Cardiff Booster Seat Headrest

Inspirational Christmas CD
Animal Trackers Club

Linking up at:

I am linking to: