Brazil - MFW ECC & 1st, Weeks 9, 10 & 11

Here we are "flying" to Brazil! I was the pilot, and I held out books with pictures of the rain forest as we were "flying" over the jungle. It was fun! We didn't try much Brazilian food because the kids were sick for 2 weeks. Ugh! But we did try tapioca pudding. I had to make it with almond milk since Rebekah is allergic to milk. It wasn't very thick, but it did taste good. Unfortunately, the only kid that liked it was Matthew. Since I have a lot of tapioca left, next time I'm making it with milk!

Can you guess our science topic? The rain forest! We made a rain forest model to help us remember the layers. I stuffed some green tissue paper in the tops of the tree trunks to make the leaves, but I forgot to take a picture before it got played with. Their favorite part was making the vines! We also had play dough fungi and foam monkeys.

Here is Caleb measuring 30 feet, which is the length a female anaconda can get, yikes!

We've been using The Complete Book of Animals to add to our animal study too, here is the spider monkey page.

And here are a few pages Caleb did for Brazil. I decided to let them add some of the Brazil play money to their flag page.

We read several books, and watched Wild South America (beware of nude Indians). My favorite part of South America was reading our missionary biography of Nate Saint. My son really loved this book because Nate came from an inventing family, and he also came up with some neat inventions as an adult. But while the story is tragic, it shows God's amazing grace!  When we finished the book, we watched the Torchlighters: The Jim Elliot Story , and we also found a series on Youtube called Journey to the Amazon that was very enjoyable and without violence or nudity.

Our curriculum came with some yellow paper airplane models too!

In math, Caleb started a new math book, Singapore 2B! So far, so good!

Along with the rain forest, we also talked about birds and how strong the arch shape is.  Here are 4 egg shells holding up 20 pounds of books!

For bible time, Caleb's been copying some verses from Matthew 5.  We also read about the Quechua Indians in Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia in our book, Window on the World.

Caleb's been doing a good job writing lately.  If I set the timer, and tell him he can be done when the timer goes off, he writes without complaining.

We're still using Spelling Power, but I'm still not sure I like it.  I think we might modify it so that he doesn't get a test every day.  Even though it's not as efficient, he would probably do better if he studies every word.  That way, he'll feel good about himself when he gets more correct.  Here are a few activities we added to practice his words, a fill in the blank and letter tiles.

Rebekah just loves math!  She's been doing subtraction and is really good at it.  She's doing her workbook pages faster then scheduled.

Here are a few Proverbs copywork pages.  Her handwriting looks very good to me.

Lastly, we started a homeschooling group through our church!  I'm so excited about this group.  We'll be having a Mom's Coffee Night once a month and then at least one field trip with the kids.  Our first field trip was a meet and greet at a local pizza place.  We got a tour and then everyone made their own pizza, yum!