Category Archives: Homeschooling

Jesus and the Early Church

03/17/2015 Danielle Huddleston Leave a comment

To go along with our study of Hero of Alexandria we learned about Jesus the and the early church.

*This post contains Amazon Associate links

At first I thought we would just read the bible but just reading one chapter after another of the new testament was not working.

So I bought “Case for Christ for Kids (Case for… Series for Kids)” by Lee Stobel

We had really enjoyed “Case for a Creator for Kids (Case for… Series for Kids)” by Lee Stobel for our Creation Study.

Case for Christ for kids was a great book!

It laid out the argument against Christ and used logic to look at the fallacies in a kid friendly way.

Both of his kids books we have read have been a great intro into Apologetics.

The Adventures in Odyssey has several audio shows about Jesus as well that would be great for this study.

For the history of the Early Church we read, “The Ides of April (Ray, Mary, Roman Empire Sequence.)” and “Beyond the Desert Gate” by Mary Ray, “Attack at the Arena (AIO Imagination Station Books Book 2)” an imagination station book,

and “For the Temple A Tale of the Fall of Jerusalem” by G.A. Henty(which you can get free for your kindle).

His books seem to be more geared towards 10+, but my oldest(8yrs old) enjoys them.

They are just a bit more of a challenge for him.

I also bought “Spartacus (Young Reading Series Two)” by Russell Punter since it was during that time period.

Homeschooling

Pompeii and Volcanoes

02/23/2015 Danielle Huddleston Leave a comment

Here are the books we used to study the eruption of Mount Vesuvius.

*This post contains Amazon Associate links

“Magic Tree House #13: Vacation Under the Volcano“ by Mary Pope Osborne

“I Survived #10: I Survived the Destruction of Pompeii, AD 79“ by Lauren Tarshis

“You Wouldn’t Want to Live in Pompeii! A Volcanic Eruption You’d Rather Avoid” by John Malam

“Escape from Pompeii” by Christina Balit

We studied Volcanoes along with learning about the Mount Vesuvius eruption.

Here are the books we used.

“The Magic School Bus Inside the Earth (Magic School Bus)” by Joanna Cole

“The Magic School Bus Science Chapter Book #15: Voyage to the Volcano“ by Judith Stamper

“The Explosive World of Volcanoes with Max Axiom, Super Scientist (Graphic Science)” by Christopher L. Harbo

“Big Book of Earth & Sky” by Bodie Hodge

“Volcano Rising” by Susan Swan

“Volcanoes (Let’s-Read-and-Find-Out Science 2)” by Franklin M. Branley

We also used a Magic School Bus Kit, The Magic School Bus -Blasting Off With Erupting Volcanoes.

The boys got a lot out of the labelling the kit had them do!

I was really surprised by that. I thought they would get more out of the actual experiments.

The were really interested in figuring out what types the different volcanoes we read about were.

Sometimes I just never know what will interest them!

They liked this experiment showing how fault lines work.

Drawing the fault lines on his “earth”.

Hopefully our earth does not have to be squished for an eruption to take place…

Total destruction.

I was a little disappointed that most of the experiments had to do with baking soda reactions to different acids.

I guess it is the most kid friendly eruption but I felt like it did not have a lot to do with how an actual eruption takes place.

We decided to try out one I had found online a while ago, here.

Please buy the Corning Pyrex made for laboratory use for this experiment!

We used regular Microwave safe Pyrex and I think it was a horrible idea.

I read about it later and saw that it is not safe for stove tops!

Do not use it!

Yikes!

We will be buying this “Corning Pyrex 1000-600 Glass 600mL Graduated Low Form Griffin Beaker, 50mL Graduation Interval, with Double Scale“ before we try this again!

The wax works it’s way up through the sand when it is heated.

Very cool.

We also watched Nova: Deadliest Volcanoes and Pompeii – The Last Day.

Deadliest Volcanoes was great! It even talked about Vesuvius and that fact it is actually a part of a super volcano!

That is crazy to see!

Pompeii: The Last Day was a little too intense for my 7&8yr old.

They ended up leaving because it was just too much for them.

I enjoyed it though and I think teenagers would find it interesting but it might be too sad for young kids.

It tried to give a story to the cast’s of people and animals that they found from the eruption.

Both of these were available on Netflix when we did this study.

DIY/Crafts, Homeschooling

10 Days in Europe game and how to make your own.

02/13/2015 Danielle Huddleston Leave a comment

My youngest got 10 Days in Europe for his birthday last month and we really like it!

I am so excited to work on my geography!

I am really bad at remembering where places are…

In the game you have to plan a trip through Europe and you need it to connect via land, water, or by air.

Such a fun game!

After playing this game and then seeing the Race Across the States game over at Deceptively Educational, I decided to try to make my own game.

First up was “5 days in the Middle East”

I got the map, here.

You can get the free printable cards I made, here.

We all drew 5 cards, laid them out in front of us, and tried to travel to countries next to each for 5 days.

For your turn, you could choose from the discard pile or the deck and switch out the cards you did not need.

Just like “10 Days in Europe.”

This game was easy, fun, and a great way to figure out where countries are located!

We have been reading G.A. Henty’s book “The Young Carthaginian A Story of The Times of Hannibal“

It is a really good book to learn about Hannibal Barca!

The boys groan everytime I stop reading!

I wanted them to get a better idea of the route he had to take to get to Rome so I printed this map from the Wikipedia page.

This is to attribute the author.

“Hannibal route of invasion” by Frank Martini. Cartographer, Department of History, United States Military Academy – The Department of History, United States Military Academy [1]. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons – http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hannibal_route_of_invasion.gif#mediaviewer/File:Hannibal_route_of_invasion.gif

I then made these cards of the places he went, free printable here.

I printed them all on card stock.

The goal of the game was to follow Hannibal’s route to Rome and then cross the Mediterranean to Carthage first.

We each started with one card and placed it in the correct spot in front of us for our journey.

To win you need, Spain, Gaul, Alps, Rome, Mediterranean, Carthage, in that order.

You draw one card from the discard pile or the deck each turn until someone gets all 6 cards in the right order.

The possibilities are endless!

I am excited to have some fun with geography!