Tapestry of Grace Year 1: Weeks 1-3, A Look at Egypt

Every year, I have these grand dreams of blogging each week about what we did in school. I usually make it about 10 weeks before I fall off, if even that.  So this year, I'm not having any expectations of myself, and maybe, ever few weeks, I'll get around to re-capping what we've done.

The first three weeks of Year 1 are an in-depth look at Egypt and the context in which Moses grew up and was educated, learning about the Israelites in slavery, their exodus, Egyptian religion and mythology, mummification and pyramids.  Egypt is such a fascinating place, and we have so much evidence of their lifestyle that it's a fascinating thing to study!

Here's some highlights from our last three weeks!

Handwriting!

Luke working on math!

We started a timeline this year.  I am loving this, and so are the kids. I wasn't sure if they would enjoy it, but they really have gotten into it and are starting to make some connections as a result. 

Math studies...

We celebrated our first week of school by one last trip to the pool!

Levi and Meryn created a sugar cube pyramid.  We only had one small accident with the hot glue gun. Yikes!

Luke made a sphinx out of clay.

Kiryn made clay bricks and built a pyramid with them. 

We had our first ever Latin class!  We are so excited to have now five students in class.  We are using Latin for Children A, and the kids are really enjoying their chants and being together for this.  

Thank you, Dr. Perrin, for our grammar instruction every week!

We spent half a Saturday out in nature at a park. 

We are studying insects in depth this year, and so we're on the lookout for interesting bugs.  Kiryn found this awesome praying mantis and we kept him for a few hours to observe him. 

This is what our read-aloud time looks like right now.  Coloring, shape blocks, whatever can keep hands busy while I read aloud!

Kiryn really enjoys creating beautiful designs with these blocks!

We successfully accomplished our first ever Tapestry co-op!  The little kids made Egyptian paddle dolls...

The big kids made reed boats out of wheat stalks.  

The finished paddle dolls, full of creativity! :) (These kids are 3-7 years old!)

We have been having such gorgeous weather the past week that we've taken school outside quite a bit.  For some reason, Meryn is wearing a superman cape.  Kiryn looks like she has a hijab on!  But earlier she had been in the tree reading Peter Pan, and a bird landed on her head!  She wanted to camoflouge herself to try to get a bird to land on her again, thus the black drape?!? 

Another Kiryn original.

We're off to a great start! I'm really enjoying in particular our timeline, the Memoria Press Insect study, and our re-vamped Morning Time with our Memory Notebooks. I have been very impressed with what the kids have committed to memory already, and how meaningful it has become to them.  They whip their insect facts out when we're out looking for them and find something interesting.  Today we figured out a way to remember the eight orders of insects we're studying in this book!  :)  Levi is also doing great with his reading, picking it up really well and moving right along with All About Reading and Math-U-See.  We've been enjoying reading The Burgess Book about Grandfather Frog, and the Christian Liberty Nature Reader, as well as the Veritas Press readers.  The older kids have LOVED A Cry From Egypt, which tells the story of an Israelite family of slaves in Egypt and their experience of living through the plagues.  We've learned a lot in just the first ten percent of our year! :)