Luke, Ben, and Grace have continued their Tapestry of Grace studies on the ancient world. We also finished our Science in the Beginning book and have dived right into Science in the Ancient World. The three oldest are all doing a wonderful job diligently working on their writing and other subjects as well. This house is a house full of readers. We keep a steady stream of job security work for our local librarians.
Each week of school we also have a Bible verse to study, use as copywork practice, and memorize. For the most part this year we have been studying through and memorizing Psalms. It actually worked out that our Psalm to memorize this month fit in perfect with our unit study.
The verses for this month included: Psalm 51:7 "Wash me and I will be whiter then snow." Psalm 14:17 "It was you who set all the boundaries of the earth, you made both summer and winter." Psalm 46:10 "Be still and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations; I will be exalted in the earth."
Thankfully, at the beginning of our study we actually had a snow storm which was convenient since the rest of the month was above average temperatures and spring-like for our area! We at least had one good day of playing in snow! Isaac was not thrilled with all the work to layer up in order to play!
This was one of the books we read that deals with all those layers:
Of course after playing in the snow its time to come in for hot tea and blankets!
We made homemade ice cream out of snow and hot chocolate brownies. We also read one of our favorite stories, Katy and the Big Snow.
We read Ezra Jack Keats The Snowy Day and did Snowman stamping with marshmallows!
We read Snow by Uri Shulevitz and made homemade "Snow Dough" out of baking soda and hair conditioner. This was an entire family favorite. We made several batches and all of the kids enjoyed playing with it several times. It makes quite a mess, but is easy to sweep up!
We read the story of Wilson Bentley, the man who discovered that every snowflake is unique by photographing snowflakes.
Then we made our own unique snowflakes out of q-tips, glue and glitter!
Next, we read Snow by Sam Usher and made our very own snow storm in a jar! (Using white paint, water, baby oil, glitter, and Alka seltzer!)
We tried this several times and it never got old! We experimented with different levels of alka-seltzer to see if we could change our snow storm to a blizzard!
We also read Snip, Snip...Snow! by Nancy Poydar. Then used our own scissors to snip, snip our own snowflakes! Our craft loving Gracie really loved this project and covered our counters with unique snowflakes!
Finally, we read Snow by Cynthia Rylant and painted snowflakes with "sugar-snow" paint (a mixture of powdered sugar, water, and glitter!) This made a really pretty raised snowflake image when it dried.
Our unit studies are a fun way to be creative, read good stories, and have a mental break from some of the meatier studies of math, writing, and reading while still learning! That wraps up our month of January studies including our official 100th day of school this year! Next month.......a unit study on community helpers!
