Homeschooling Through History: Biblical Times Fun

This week I had a few goals:

prepare and practice a chore system.... check
practice having a school time.... check
continue through history lessons.... check
have fun.... oh, yeah!

But what I didn't plan was how much fun we'd have with history this week!!! The plan for this year is to do history together during our morning, so this week we did history in the morning with everyone:) What was nice was that the two chapters we completed were relatively short and very familiar... Jesus's life and the Jewish nation under Roman rule!

We read the chapters and did the narration exercises over 3 days, but then for Anna's reading we worked through an Abeka reader called Growing Up Where Jesus Lived. I had picked it up at a consignment sale for $1!! But it was such a fun reader and just above Anna's level so it could challenge, but not frustrate, her!

Between the activity suggestions in the Story of the World Activity Book and then little things we added in after reading the Abeka reader.... we had so much fun:)

We made Crosses out of tissue paper, looked almost like stained glass:) They turned out sooo well... and all the glue washed off us, our clothes and the table!

Then we made dreidels! And really had fun playing dreidel with Smarties and then chocolate chips with Daddy after lunch!!

Then today we tried to do some of the activities that the people of Jesus' time would have had to do. The kids especially liked trying to carry "pitchers" of water on their heads:)

We definitely had some "spills"....
we wouldn't have gotten much water home to cook and clean with!
But we had a blast!! Lydia was a little reluctant to try... but she did:)



Finally we tried our shoulders... and that worked a lot better.
Chris is a natural:)
Even manages two containers!!!
This was supposed to be all three kids with "pitchers" on their heads... but you see Lydia's in mid-air!!!! I"m sure the neighbors are wondering WHAt In The World we are doing and teaching the kids... LOL!!!

Another "experience" was to have lunch in the living room... "sitting" on towels using a low table (or the homeschool table bench... hehee). Anna and I made bread from scratch, then served fresh fruits, and cooked carrots. We tried to make it authentic by taking the focus of the meal off the MEAT by using lunch meat. I didn't take pictures... too much going on!

Best history classes I've ever been apart of:)

Just another reason I am soo thankful that we are continuing to homeschool this year.... not only do they get to learn cool stuff, but I get to do it with them!!