Playing Catch-up: School

I am playing catch-up today with this blog.  In September, I had some technical difficulties with my phone and felt as though I would rather wait to blog until I could get my pictures off my phone.  Now the issues have been solved, so, working my way forward:

Our school year has been going really well so far.  We are immensly enjoying geography.  We began learning the seven contients and made a salt-dough map. 

 Next, we learned about China and made our Great Wall model.  

 The kids still enjoy playing with it! 

 We learned how to make paper, like the Chinese did so long ago.  When we were done making the paper we wrote our numbers in Chinese on it.  We added marigold petals for flair.

 While in "Japan," we held a tea ceremony.  Darth Vador attended.   My brother and sister-in-law lived in Japan for several years and so many of the things we used were actually from Japan including the cloth, tea-set and tea.  While the kids sipped their tea, I read them some japanese childrens stories from the book Uncle Jason and Aunt Becky sent for Christmas one year. 

This tea ceremony made a huge impression on Ryan.  He continues to ask for more tea ceremonies.  Right before leaving for vacation, we studied India.  We happen to have an authentic south Indian restaurant nearby so we tried it out.  Ryan actually really enjoyed the curry and the bread and several of the sauces.  

 We also built a replica of the taj-mahal. 

Co-Op:  Our little co-op committed to taking fieldtrips all of September.  One of those was to a place called Meadowcroft, a replica village of early coloniel life.  They had an indian village so we enjoyed learning about the differences between tee-pees and wigwams and everyday life.  

 Ryan's favorite activity was throwing spears with the atladle at a "deer." 

 Here they are trying on clothes at the trading post.

 They "attended" a colonial school.  The school marm let them ring the bell and read from the primer.  She showed them the water bucket and ladle and let them play coloniel games at recess, including rolling large hoops with a stick.

 Finally, we were able to see the rockshelter, the oldest in America.  It is still an authentic archeologist digging site to this day.