Ancient Egypt hasn't changed much since 1999.

I am finding that Jacob really likes the textbooks rather than the way we have been homeschooling.

So I was at Goodwill the other day and found a social studies textbook. Thumbed through it and noticed that it had some of the same things we were studying this year. Don't know what grade level it is so I bought it...I mean for $2.99 I am not overspending. I get home and do a search and it is a 6th grade textbook. What luck I had!! Glad I decided to buy the book. Then I get online and I found a brand new workbook to accompany it on ebay for $3.87. This is on the way right now. So I was sharing with my mom about my great finds and she says "yes, but how old is the textbook?" I think it is 1999. But you know....Ancient Egypt really hasn't changed that much since 1999! Don't you agree?? LOL
I found the next book in the series for 7th grade too on my paperbackswap.com I really don't need teacher editions to these books either b/c if I can't figure the answer easier than him then I shouldn't be homeschooling. I don't have teacher editions for any of my books. I have some answer keys on my math curriculum.
Not only did I score on the social studies books, but I also was able to use my book credits to get science books for 6th and 7th grade (weather, tornadoes, planets haven't changed much over the years either...and I am not buying books from the 40s. Yes, I will let them know about Pluto, as if they don't already know about what happened to this planet's status) and I found literature books too.

Today when I was working on the lesson plans for this new social studies book I found an accompanying website to this textbook with plans already made for me!! Woohoo!!

Ancient Egypt

We are working on Ancient Egypt still this week. We started this about 1 1/2 weeks ago and are really enjoying this.
Jacob is working with dad on making a pyramid...they drew it out to scale and made a blueprint for it so far. Since he is just returning to his computer privileges I can put his assignments back into his emails. Much easier for me to copy/paste a video link for him to watch. Instead of typing printing all of the articles for him to read..now he can read it online.
These are the first 3 videos for today:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GaInDIv3-V8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yyFtHnJw-xY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWFpA_CjZGU

He is also being given another project to work on where he is a museum curator for Ancient Egypt
artifacts and exhibits. Instead of making it like a diorama though we are going to put it on a poster board or a science fair type of board.

http://www.zunal.com/webquest.php?w=26440


Tomorrow I think we are going to do this one tomorow: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cFZS1U-w4EA And touch up on just some of the basics of Egypt and work on notecards based off of this video and put together a short paper on Egypt. This will cover his social studies, writing and language for the day all in one activity.

Later this week we will turn to the more modern side of Egypt...foods, cultures, religions, apparel, traditions, architecture...those type of things.

PaperBack Swap

Hey everyone, I wanted to let you know of a great program I have found.  Its called PaperBack swap!  I have gotten myself hooked reading the Beverly Lewis series of books...they are Amish Fiction.

Here is how it works:
I have books that I have read and were just collecting dust.  I wanted new books to read.  I took my old ones and input the ISBN numbers to my account.  The picture comes up to post the book.  When someone wants the book they send a request to you if its still available to send.  You accept.  Mail it.  They receive it...you get a book credit.  You use that book credit to request books from other people.  You don't have to pay for the book to be sent to you.  But you do have to pay shipping to send your book to the requesting person.  Media mail runs about 2 dollars.  Not too bad!
When you sign up you get 2 credits to get you started!  Sound good???  I am going to attempt to put the widget in my sidebar.

Egyptian style

As we get started again for this semester we are diving into pyramids and Egyptian cultures and histories.  Tuesday we did an easy Ancient Egypt passage and learned how to outline the paragraphs in topic and sentence form.  Yesterday he completed a word puzzle with Egyptian gods and pharaohs and 2 algebra lessons. He also had two articles that I found from the Smithsonian magazine about Egyptian archaeology and King Tut.
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/egypt-topten.html

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/kingtut.html


After reading these articles he is doing a writing summary on what he read (we are working on reading comprehension).  I will pick which article that he is to write about without him knowing.

I found a Roman Numeral Math worksheet
http://www.educationworld.com/a_lesson/02/lp276-03.shtml

He is still continuing to finish 2 Percy Jackson books...hasn't read in them for a bit.  Hoping we can get finished with them soon!

Tomorrow we are going to go check out two books on ancient egypt from the library and work with those.

New year is coming...oh wait its here!

haha...
I am looking forward to getting started again in this new year!  We did several days of work through the Christmas holiday time.  The other 3 were home from school but Jacob still managed to do 2-3 lessons in math on most days.
While the other kids are supposed to go back to school tomorrow, they are home sick with the flu and sinus infections.  Elizabeth will find herself back to school by Thursday but Jesse and Emily will be home for the rest of the week I think.

I am hoping to get more hands on and field trips in this semester for Jacob.  I am still contemplating a Saturday school that I found at Vanderbilt.

A brand new year with new challenges

 Going to do this a second time...

Emily's diagnosis came as a big surprise to us in December.  An even bigger surprise was the fact that she was pumping 9 days after diagnosis!!

Her purple pump really is the most beautiful pump I have ever seen!  Not sure if I will order this for myself.  But I really do like it.  I am thinking of going "clear" for my next one in April.  We shall see though.

She has taken to the pump really well.  No more shots is the main thing.  Emily and shots did not mix very well with her.  But they didn't stop her either.

I think one thing that I would love for people to walk away thinking about is that Emily's diabetes is so different from her brother Jesse's.  Both of their diabetes is way different from Elizabeth Anne's diabetes.  And I know this may be alot for most people to understand but all three of their diabetes is WAY different from someone else's aunt that had 2 toes and 4 fingers due to complications from diabetes.  I hear this so much from people.   Not as much anymore as I did when it was just me with my diabetes or when it was just one child.  Now that we have 3 children the amazement that people have usually takes over before they can speak about their family history of diabetes. :)

We are a blessed family.  And while I do get overwhelmed at times, it isn't that often.  We really have a great thing going on here and its true that God doesn't give you more than you can handle.  And we are handling things very well here.

A brand new year with new challenges

 Going to do this a second time...

Emily's diagnosis came as a big surprise to us in December.  An even bigger surprise was the fact that she was pumping 9 days after diagnosis!!

Her purple pump really is the most beautiful pump I have ever seen!  Not sure if I will order this for myself.  But I really do like it.  I am thinking of going "clear" for my next one in April.  We shall see though.

She has taken to the pump really well.  No more shots is the main thing.  Emily and shots did not mix very well with her.  But they didn't stop her either.

I think one thing that I would love for people to walk away thinking about is that Emily's diabetes is so different from her brother Jesse's.  Both of their diabetes is way different from Elizabeth Anne's diabetes.  And I know this may be alot for most people to understand but all three of their diabetes is WAY different from someone else's aunt that had 2 toes and 4 fingers due to complications from diabetes.  I hear this so much from people.   Not as much anymore as I did when it was just me with my diabetes or when it was just one child.  Now that we have 3 children the amazement that people have usually takes over before they can speak about their family history of diabetes. :)

We are a blessed family.  And while I do get overwhelmed at times, it isn't that often.  We really have a great thing going on here and its true that God doesn't give you more than you can handle.  And we are handling things very well here.