Homeschool activities

Today we finished our study of the kings of Israel, and therefore completed the timeline we have been working on ever since we began with King Saul. At the end of the line is the last king of Judah, King Zedekiah, and we then drew the statue from Nebuchadnezzar's dream to show the end of the line of kings and the start of the captivity of Judah. The kids had fun drawing symbols to tell which kings were wicked and which were good.

On a similar note, we have been working on our own family tree. We have found ancestors in Holland, Denmark, Sweden, Germany, Hungary, Luxembourg, Austria, Prussia, and Wales. The kids are on the trunk, and then it branches off to mom and dad, and then further. One line goes back as far as 1739. However, we did not draw symbols to denote which ancestors were wicked and which were good. :)

Here is a picture of the ice castle the kids recently built, using icicles that were hanging from a building.



And here is Hannah, preparing for our trip to Laura Ingalls Wilder Days in Pepin. (We like to plan ahead. The weekend is in September!)


One of my favorite homeschooling memories comes from the year we started. We were reading the Little House books aloud, and had just started "On the Shores of Silver Lake." One of the earliest chapters was a tribute from Laura to her dog, Jack. He was old and about to die. It was such a heart-rendering tribute that by the end of the chapter, I was sobbing! I was so choked up that I couldn't finish reading it to the kids and Hannah had to read it for me. The kids stared at me like I was from Mars, but I couldn't get ahold of myself. "Uh, mom, this is a story from, oh, about 150 years ago. It's about a DOG. You don't even LIKE dogs, remember??"


Go figure. It just shows how good writing can be very moving and persuasive!