Saudi Arabia - MFW ECC & 1st, Weeks 21 & 22

These last couple weeks we've been studying Saudi Arabia and the rest of the Middle East. Our favorite part was our end of unit feast! Caleb helped me make homemade pita bread, hummus, chicken shish kebabs, and tzatziki sauce. I followed the recipe in The Kids' Multicultural Cookbook for pita bread, tzatziki sauce and the kebabs (well, except we used chicken). The pita breads were amazing! And we already made another batch. We'll be making them often around here!  The hummus came from Another Trip Around the World. We didn't like it at all, I actually had to dump it... It was too runny and tasted too much like chickpeas!

Don't the pita breads look amazing though?

Here is a close up of our center piece. It was called a No-Ruz Centerpiece from the book, Global Art. In the pie tin are sprouting lentils, which is also part of the project. The kids had fun making the stand, and then we got a bonus science lesson while watching the lentils sprout!

Here are a few worksheets they did. I found a free color page of a camel online (thanks Google), and had them copy two facts from a website we found. We also watched a few Youtube videos of camels (just do a search). We also spent some time reading books and watching DVDs about deserts for science. In our Properties of Ecosystem's science book, we learned about acid rain, pollution, and recycling.

For bible, Caleb copied the Lord's Prayer, found in Matthew 6. His spelling, language arts and math were about the same, nothing profound to share. Then we also read about Esther and watched VeggieTales: Esther: The Girl Who Became Queen.

But, we have added Spanish to our learning adventure! Our pastor announced recently that we will be starting a Spanish speaking church in our church, that will meet Sunday afternoons. It won't be ready to launch for a while, but in the meantime, we decided to learn Spanish so we can communicate with these people! We're starting with Salsa videos and just practicing some vocabulary. I think I may purchase The Complete Book of Spanish for all of us, me included. I also found a great app on my phone (Samsung) called Dualingo. I've been using it every day, but I'd say it's definitely for adults, not children. 

Rebekah is still doing great in 1st grade. Here are her latest bible notebook pages:

During school one day, Joshua got ahold of Rebekah's tea set and broke the spout right off of her tea pot. She was VERY upset, so a few days later we went to the thrift store and found her a new one! So I brought my Samantha doll out of storage and we had a tea party! Making memories with my little girl!