Merciful Manna 2-20-17 Weekly Review: The Flood and The Tower of Babel

We began by reviewing the flood story in the Bible. At the end of the story, we transitioned from God's sign in the sky directly to the science behind rainbows.

We reviewed the colors of the light spectrum and discussed the "easy way," blue and purple versus the "science way," blue, indigo, and violet. The kids drew rainbows.

We also talked about the building of the ark, what Noah used, and what we know about how it looked, and why it floated. I sent the kids to look for 1 item they thought would float, 1 item they thought would sink, and 1 they were uncertain about. We made a chart, filled a bucket, and tested our theories! Then we experimented with containers that could be filled with air and float or filled with water and sink. They were truly surprised that the same container could do both!

After the original art project, they decided they wanted to repeat it with the Spanish color words.  I haven't gotten nearly as far as I'd hoped with teaching them Spanish, but evidently what we have done has stuck! 

We also threw every animal vocabulary card I could find on the floor, matched them in like groups, and wrote their names on the "on board" checklist for the ark! 

 

We finally got enough sunlight to check out the prism!  It was neat to see up close how the red bends less than the purple.  The kids really enjoyed moving the prism around to different sunny spots and trying out different angles of refraction.  We also left the prism sit in one spot for a while and noticed how the light coming through it changed over time.  I drew examples and did my best to explain the similarities between the way the prism functions and the drops of rain that separate the light in the sky into a rainbow.

We reviewed the Tower of Babel story from the Bible.  This may be my favorite lesson yet, because I feel like I could have really easily screwed it up and still gotten a "nice result." Fortunately, I was listening to the Spirit move in my heart, and ended up with both a "nice" and Gospel centered result.  I started by getting out 2 colors of playdough.  I would make a "I" statement as I built a block with pink, and a "Thank you, God" statement as I built a block with orange.  "I cook delicious dinners for my family," versus "Thank you, God for providing us with yummy food to nourish our bodies." After adding several blocks to each tower, I stopped to ask the kids which tower was about me and how good I am, and which was about God's goodness and honoring Him.  Then we smashed the tower that was about me, and likened it to the Tower of Babel story.  Then they each built towers in the "Thank you, God' method.  It was absolutely precious to hear the things they were thankful for, and I was so glad to be able to help them change their "I" sentences to glorify God.

After discussing the way God gave the people different languages, we practiced saying "Hello" in several languages.  Then they each wrote the English version and another version of their choice. 

Merciful Manna 2-13-17 Weekly Review: Creation and The Fall

Having recently realized that I was overdoing it a little in the curriculum department, we've made an intentional decision to scale back and slow down.  To be present, enjoy our work, and have enough space to open our hands to what God would have us do each day.

Week 1: Creation and The Fall

We began by reviewing the story of creation in the Bible. Next we made a list of what happened when. I walked them through all of the, " What could you use to show that God made..." questions. Then they performed their first very loosely scripted play!  They also sang and danced to "Genesis 1:1."

We drew diagrams of the plant life cycle and plant anatomy. Then we played a flower identification matching game. Later we took a field trip to the local florist to see a variety of flowers in person and ask lots of questions.  Buttercup loved purple delphiniums and Cricket loved orange roses.  I didn't get pictures because we were way too involved, but you can see the flowers the kids picked out on the table! In that picture the kids are using playdough to make some representations of what God created. They learned the phrase "ex nihilo" which means out of nothing. We talked about how hard it can be for us to create out of something and how easy it was for God to create out of nothing. 

Next we reviewed the story of The Fall of Man in the Bible. I walked them through a story board summary. We reviewed several artists' renditions of the fall. Then the kids each drew their own representation. 

We also did some Biblically inspired Valentine's cards, wrote letters to our friends, and followed along with the Math U See curriculum that's been working so well for us!