Simple Joy Crafting: Mexico - MFW ECC & 1st, Weeks 5 & 6

We studied Mexico this week! The kids were excited to get their "passports" and some Mexican money! They took a "train" around the driveway, and then entered Mexico! They had to use their pesos to buy their snacks. We tried Mexican soda, crackers, cookies, marzipan, chips and salsa, and lots of other homemade food.

The kids worked on several notebook pages. We listened to some Spanish worship songs on Youtube and tried to learn a few words in Spanish. I also found a few videos of some traditional dances. Rebekah is awe of some of the ladies dresses! The library had a few documentaries the kids enjoyed as well.

Below is a picture of us playing the Geography Game for North America. This game is part of our curriculum. It's very simple, but it really does help you remember where the countries are! The first time we played we were getting all the Central American countries wrong, but now I think we all know them, even Rebekah!

Here are a few books the kids really enjoyed:

We did a few art projects too. They really enjoyed making yarn art!

In the picture below you can see their yarn arts on the bottom. We also did some paper cut outs, and made a banner with them too. I'm really excited about the poster you see here too! It's of all the missionary kids that are part of the United Pentecostal Church. We also were able to write to one of them in Bolivia!

You can't study Mexico without a pinata! Unfortunately, it wasn't dry in time for our fiesta, so we improvised with a paper bag! It worked great though! I filled it with suckers, dollar store toys, pencils, and peanuts. One of our books mentioned that they filled them with peanuts and oranges as well as candy.

While in Mexico, our science topic was deserts! Since we don't live anywhere near a desert, we had to watch a documentary.

I've been reading a biography of Cameron Townsend during our read aloud time. We're really enjoying it, although sometimes it's a bit boring for Rebekah. Below is a sample of Caleb's bible time. We've been reading the book of Matthew, and this was one of his memory verses. I don't make him memorize it because we'll be starting bible quizzing though our church soon, so he'll be memorizing those verses instead. The top is his copywork, and the bottom is the same verse, but I dictated it to him instead. If you're interested in learning more about copywork and dictation, here's a great blog post about it from a fellow MFW user: christephi.com.

Here is a poem he copied during our English time. His handwriting is really getting better!

Caleb has started learning multiplication with the 2s and 3s. It was VERY rough going for a few days, but then it must have "clicked". He earned himself a few stickers!

Rebekah is cruising right along with her reading! She learned the sounds for sh, ch, th, ng, and now is on long vowels. It's so easy to teach her since she really wants to learn. She's such a different student than Caleb!