Joyfully Homeschooling: Week 5 in American History

This is Doodlebug's start to the week. We were getting a kick out of his morning do so we thought we would share it with you. ;)

For art this week we made sand paintings. We used food coloring to die salt different colors. About half way through we ran out of table salt and had to use sea salt... it actually worked better so if you haven't done this project yet there is a tip for you. Doodlebug was a little disappointed in his finished project because you couldn't see his original drawing. They still had fun though and Inchworm even enjoyed it and had to show Daddy as soon as he got home.

Here are the finished projects.. as you can see Doodlebug improvised on his.

Here Doodlebug is working on his adventure story with items from around the house that he drew out of a mystery bag to kick off our adventure genre study with Drawn Into the Heart of Reading. He really enjoyed this activity.

In science we learned why so many of the colonists from early American history died from disease by covering our hands with germs (glitter glue) and then washing them in cold water with no soap. You could still see most of the germs on their hands and then we washed in warm soapy water and it took just about all of the germs off.

Here the kids are adding the Mayflowers journey to their map.

I loved their timeline entries this week. Not sure which kid thought of it first but you can see a tiny Myles Standish holding a big huge sword stabbing a native since he was hot tempered and referred to as Captain Shrimp for his small size. Also you can see Squanto added with a photo of corn and fish to represent him showing the settlers how to plant corn.

They learned that the colonists had to bring the bare essentials on the Mayflower as it was pretty crowded. So we did this page to show the difference between needs and wants... they had a hard time deciding if money was a need or a want so they put it on both sides.

Since Doodlebug wasn't feeling well this week I was only able to get Pollywog singing our hymn.. I will forever cherish this video!!! <3 <3 <3

I finally finished our wall timeline that I have been wanting to add to the stairway for a few years now. I am pretty happy with it. Here is a view from the bottom of the stairs.

Here are some of our pieces. I found most of them online by just googling the name of the person or event. On the bottom of the line are the books that each kid has read for the time period. These are laminated and stuck up with that tacky puddy stuff. Eventually I plan to paint the line on the wall but for now painters tape did the job.

Here are our the pieces for each of our sweet blessings. I had to blur the names though for safety reasons. I am working on adding our wedding piece as well.

For goody bag this week the kiddos got a Halloween activity book and they have been well worth the money.

Here is a picture of why my post is late this week. When we started HOD I only planned out six weeks because I wasn't sure we would like it. Well, we have come to the end of the six weeks and are still loving HOD so I went ahead with the next six weeks. These are the accordion folders I use to put all our materials for the next six weeks in for each kid. Then each week all I have to do is transfer it to the kids' binders. Saves me SO much time.

For Inchworm's school this week he learned how to wash potatoes with Mama :) AND

We attempted to teach color sorting.. I think we may have to try this at a later time as all he wanted to do was make vrooming noises and crash the cars off the table :)