Week 9

Weeks 4-8 were kind of harsh. We welcomed our 4th and 5th children in a 2 week span! Chicks get maternity leave for a reason right? I allowed myself 5 weeks of "Oh SNAP" leave where they did independent study, but finally we are back on track. I desperately missed our 1 hour together before lunch to read interesting things!

This week at Integrity Academy:

Geography

We learned about the Apostle Paul speaking at the Temple of Artemis in Ephesus, which was once the 7th Wonder of the World.

It is now just one pillar. We wrapped up our study on Turkey by learning about the Whirling Dervishes (NOW I know what they are!)
and a brief study on Islam. The girls had to learn the 5 pillars of the Islamic Faith. I don't agree with Islam but I think we should teach our children about other religions so their Christian worldview is not ignorant, but rather well-informed. I learned about the Islamic 5 Pillars in college and it helps me make more sense of what I hear on world news. I want them to understand what a Hajj is, even though it is on the other side of the world. I desperately want them to be deeply rooted in their Christian faith and know WHY it is the TRUE faith!

Mecca

Shakespeare

We're still in 12th Night. Viola now realizes that disguising herself as a man named Cesario is ruining the world. Now she is in love with Orsino. Orsino is having her/him hang out with Oliva to win Olivia to Orsino, and Olivia is in love with Viola, who she thinks is a man. Viola and her brother Sebastian both think the other is dead. Sebastian has a friend Antonio who Tara thinks has gay love for Sebastian. Charlotte Mason advocated studying Shakespeare. However, I do think there are some things here we could parallel in 100 ways to our modern society. 'Nuff said. Tara could sit and read nothing but Shakespeare and Geography.

History

Sometimes you gotta just pick and choose. We were using 4 books for our textbooks. I dropped one on Lewis and Clark because it seemed like chapter-to-chapter we were just getting nowhere but bored. I did add on two short books since we are getting into slavery study: bios on Sojourner Truth ("Ain't I a Woman?") and Harriet Tubman (Go Free or Die). This week's study centered more on there being rising opposition in the North and South on slavery. Abe Lincoln's mammy died and they moved to Indiana (as many poor did) to get work, because it was a slave-free state where the poor could earn a living. The next year his daddy went home to Kentucky and picked up a new mammy. She was a caring mammy. His birth mammy had been very sick and unable to care for him. His father completely inept at raising children. So when Sarah came, he was bathed, he was encouarged to read/write/cipher, though she was illiterate herself, and he found a soul mate in his angel mother, Sarah.

" All that I am, or hope to be, I owe to my angel mother."
Abraham Lincoln on his stepmother, Sarah Bush Lincoln

Science

This week we learned more about the variety of things the sun does for us. That would be a 17 post job to describe. We also learned about the tools God gave animals ON their bodies! Man is inventive, so he can create his own tools. Animals are created to have a quest and a special diet, and their bodies help them fulfill that. Just amazes me! We also learned about a cottontail rabbit who is being taught by his mother how to avoid being killed....lessons such as "FREEZE" so the enemy cannot see you, and if all else fails, hide in the thicket! This old book Wild Animals I Have Known really impacts Tara and I! We could read it over and over all day. It is really for nature study but I put it in with our Science reading.

Which makes me curious...how do you explain Brer Rabbit to kids who have no idea what you're talking about? I'm going to try to get the DVD on AA folktales from the library.

Literature

We've been reading about King Arthur and His Knights, and for some reason, we are the least motivated to read this book than anything. So I dropped it. We're just bored with it. So we are just going to move on to Oliver Twist and A Christmas Carol in addition to our weekly briefings on Greek Mythology. I don't think I have ever read Oliver Twist. Looking forward to that. We are going to get into some Mark Twain later in the year. I am stoked!

Reading

They are going through the Little House Series (cuz I want them to). They are about to finish Farmer Boy. I am hoping by the time we get to The Long Winter it is going to be like freezing cold for a couple of days and we can really feel for Laura and her starving family.

They are also reading Anne of Avonlea and I just remembered! Since we finished Anne of Green Gables we can now watch the DVD! So I hope to pick that up from the library after dinner for CHICK FLICK NIGHT! Hannah read 2 big books this week and is foaming at the mouth until she has something more to read.