London

Lego Tower Bridge–Night Three

We had planned to finish Tower Bridge instruction book one of three last night, but thanks to a tornado warning, we had to stop short of that. We still made some good progress, though, including adding a couple hundred tiny angled pieces!

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Lego Tower Bridge–Night Two

Last night, Ryan and I continued working on the Lego Tower Bridge:

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I know it doesn’t look like a whole lot, but there were a lot of tiny Lego bricks involved in this stage of work. It’s really hard to sort through a big bucket of pieces of one color, looking for the tiniest pieces there are!

Lego Tower Bridge–Night One

Ryan and I started building the Lego Tower Bridge earlier this week. This is what it looked like after night one:

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I have to confess…it’s my fault we only made it this far. Even though I knew how many Lego pieces to expect, after opening the box, and seeing all of the bags, I got a bit overwhelmed. We did get a lot of the pieces sorted by color that night, too, so that’s something, right?

The Third Largest Lego Set Ever Made!

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It’s mine now!

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Yes, it has over 4,000 pieces! And since it’s for ages 16 and up, if I wanted to be difficult, I could tell the children that they can’t help! 🙂

Olympics School–Day Nine

Today we planned a trip to London. A few days ago, I gave Turkey and Bunny an Eyewitness Travel Guide to London, and told them to look through it, and choose places that they’d like to visit. Today, we got out a map of London (included in the travel guide), and marked the different places they had chosen, plus a few I threw in for myself.

It was interesting to see what places they wanted to visit. Turkey was particularly interested in the London Eye, St. Paul’s Cathedral, and Chinatown, while Bunny was very focused on seeing many of the different gardens and parks in London, as well as the Victoria and Albert Museum. Of course, we all wanted to see Buckingham Palace and the Changing of the Guard, the Tower of London and the Crown Jewels, the Tower Bridge, the Museum of London, and the National Gallery. I threw in Harrods, too, because if I’m going to London, I’m going to see their big, fancy department store! We also thought a day trip to see Windsor Castle would be a must, and maybe a visit to Hampton Court Palace, too.

After planning our trip, I gave Turkey and Bunny the task of writing a story about their imagined trip. Bunny decided to do one better, and write a letter home from London. I’m both embarrassed that I didn’t think of that myself, because it’s a fantastic idea, and proud of Bunny for coming up with it, because it was very creative of her. I was also very impressed with her letter, so I’ll share it:

Dear Family,
I have seen much in London. Mother, I love the Tower of London. The Crown Jewels are sooo beautiful! The crowns there were lovely! Sigh. I wish you could see them too, those jewels and crowns. Even though I remain in London, I still love you. Father, brothers, and sisters, you are all very dear to me.
Your Faithful and Loving Daughter,
Bunny

In keeping with our London theme, we colored some London pictures (including a double-decker bus), and we also read Katie in London. I highly recommend this book for introducing children to some of London’s famous landmarks. I bought this book sight unseen, as our library didn’t have it, and there wasn’t even a preview available on Amazon. I’m really glad I did, though…in addition to being educational, it’s a very cute story, and one I know we’ll be reading again and again!

Today’s Passport Stamp: “London Air”

Activities for the Olympics

Let me just start by saying that my favorite place for Olympics printables and craft ideas is Activity Village. I used this site for our Diamond Jubilee coloring pages and worksheets as well, and it has tons of great resources. That being said, I also found other places with great ideas, too, and have chosen quite a few of them for our school. If you look, there are also lapbooks galore available for the Olympics, but I’ve never gotten into the lapbooking craze, so that’s one thing we won’t be doing. I’ve also heard good things about the Amanda Bennett Olympics study, but I just don’t have time for everything! The best part about all of these projects? I’ve had to purchase very few supplies to complete them…most of the items are things we already had around the house!

  • Torch Craft–Our first project, before the Olympics officially start, will be making a torch. There are lots of torch crafts out there, but this my favorite. We may even have our own family torch relay!
  • Olympic Rings–There are also a lot of Olympic Rings crafts, but I thought that paper plate Olympics rings were especially cute. This will be particularly fun for Moose and Ladybug (and good cutting practice, too), but I’m sure Turkey and Bunny will probably want to make their own, as well.
  • Design-a-Flag–Prior to the Opening Ceremonies, we’ll each have a chance to design our own flag. We’ve done this before, and it’s always fun to see how the children’s ideas for their personal flags change!
  • Memory Verse/Handwriting–The New Testament has several verses that are appropriate when discussing the Olympics, and as long as we’re memorizing one, we may as well work on our handwriting at the same time!
  • Trip Planning–One of our big projects will be planing a (fictional) trip to London. I even purchased a travel guide…if I’m lucky, maybe someday I’ll get to use it for real (even if it will be outdated by “someday”). We’ll look for landmarks we want to visit and map it all out. Cost is no object for this trip!
  • Workbooks–Although I did purchase two consumable books for the children to share, the bulk of their worksheets and coloring sheets will come in the form of workbooks I put together for them. There will be lots of different activities, including coloring pages, word searches, Sudoku, word scrambles, mazes, and more. I even found notebooking pages!  They’ll make a nice keepsake of our studies when we’re all done, too.
  • Design-Your-Own Olympics Items–This will become part of the children’s workbooks when it’s done. Each child will design his or her own Olympic logo, mascot, team shirt, and medal.
  • Medal Chart–No Olympics would be complete without tracking the medals won. We’ve chose 10 countries…the United States, of course, and host country England (technically the United Kingdom, to be exact), and then picked other countries we’re interested in, making sure to have at least one from each participating continent. And while we’re counting medals, we can also learn about this year’s design on the NBC Olympics website.
  • Medals–Speaking of medals, one craft project will be making medals as awards for our “Family Olympics.” We might make salt dough medals, or we might just use metallic cardstock. We did glitter last time, so I know that I don’t want to that again, although they did look awesome!
  • Family Olympics–The activities will be whatever we choose. It could be a physical activity like a race, or something silly like who can shuck an ear of corn the quickest. Maybe we could even award a medal for the winner of a family spelling bee!
  • Olive Leaf Crowns–I found a pattern for this in The Olympic Experience in Your School, but all you really need is green leaf shapes and  a green construction paper headband. Since we’ll be learning about both the modern and ancient Olympic games, it seems fitting to make awards that reflect both!
  • Passports–I also got this idea from The Olympic Experience in Your School, but decided to change it around a bit. I ordered some cute sticker book passports from Oriental Trading, and will be using those stickers, as well as some “stamps” I make to mark the different “venues” we’ve visited, including the history of the Olympics, design-your-own, sports, and the Olympic Spirit around the world.
  • Research Project–Turkey and Bunny will be given the task to write a short report on either a famous Olympian, a participating country, or an Olympic event. This report will also go into their workbooks.
  • Union Jack–I looked at a lot of Union Jack crafts, and I thought this would be a fun project for the children to do, and would reflect the host country at the same time. It’s also something a little different, since we just colored Union Jacks for the Diamond Jubilee last month.
  • Union Jack Cake–This activity is all mine…I’m going to make a Union Jack cake for the Opening Ceremonies, provided I can get the conversions figured out. I may also make some different foods from around the world, depending on how adventurous I’m feeling.
And I almost forgot…
  • Tea Party–Anytime we learn about anything British, it’s time for a tea party. We did it for the Royal Wedding, and again for the Diamond Jubilee, and we’ll be doing it once more for the Olympics. I try to switch up the menu, and also serve a different flavor of tea each time, so we get to try new things, and so it’s always a little different!

These are only the big activities. We’ll also be doing a pictogram study, looking for world flags from our flag sticker book during the Opening Ceremonies, learning about the Olympic motto and oath, studying some Olympic vocabulary words, listening to Summon the Heroes, learning a little geography and history, reading a whole bunch of books, plus whatever else I throw in. I love the Olympics, and they provide a great opportunity for fun and learning!

What We’re Reading–The Olympics

The Olympics are almost upon us–just 17 more days! Of course, an event like this means a special school unit (actually, that’s how this whole homeschooling journey started!), with special reading, crafts, and activities. Not to mention TV watching…but that’s kind of the point! I’ll share some of our crafts and other activities later, but for now, here’s our Olympics reading list…I got very lucky in that the library system carries all but one of the books I was looking for, and every one of those books was available. I’m also thankful that there are books out there for such a wide variety of ages, from preschooler on up to adult…there’s definitely something for everyone here!

I chose a selection of biographies of some famous Olympic athletes for Turkey and Bunny to read, all from the “Childhood of Famous Americans” series:

I also got some of the “official” Olympics publications, two of which are consumable books that the children will just have to share:

I have a teacher resource book, as well. The one I have is for up to grade three, which is too young for Turkey and Bunny now, but I had it from the 2008 Olympics, and I can always adjust things upward for them, and use the activities as printed for Moose and Ladybug. There is a book for older elementary students, as well, and I’m sure it’s similarly helpful:

I also found a few books that aren’t readily available here in the States, but would have made great additions to our Olympics study:

  • The Official Countdown to the London 2012 Games—This is another of the “official” books, as the title suggests, and the only one I couldn’t get my hands on. If I can find it between now and then, though, I’m definitely going to get it…it looks pretty cool!
  • Olympic Park Map–I know, not technically a book, but I think it would have been awesome to have a large-sized map to look at and practice map-reading, learn about the geography of London, and see just how many venues there are at the Olympic Games, and how spread out they all are.
  • Meet Wenlock and Mandeville–Cute-looking book featuring the Olympic mascots. I don’t think anything will ever top the Beijing mascots, which were awesome, but I also liked Izzy, so what do I know? I just like cute stuff!

Wow! Upon completing this list, even I was shocked at how many books there are to be found about the Olympics! We have to get busy reading!

Book Review: “5 Cities that Ruled the World”

Douglas Wilson’s book, 5 Cities that Ruled the World, about how major cities throughout time (Jerusalem, Athens, Rome, London, and New York) shaped global history is a fascinating read. I can’t say that I know enough about each city to identify any possible bias regarding their histories, and I’m little surprised at the exclusion of some cities, namely Constantinople, but I think that this is a great book for understanding world history.

Each city’s story is contained within one chapter. Things that are revealed about each city include its history (origin, major leaders, and wars and other events), its effect on the world stage, and its current state.

I found that the chapter on London contained the most “unknown” information. I guess perhaps I just didn’t know much about London history, especially the *very* early years (did you know London burned 15 times before the year 1300?!?).

My only real complaint with the book has nothing to do with its content, and instead is an issue with the materials. I can’t stand what the cover is made of–it’s a paperback, made of a textured paper, and I find it weird to touch. Other than that, the book is a great tool for learning more about our world’s major cities, and how they shaped the society in which we currently live, even from across the centuries and around the globe.