Ocho de Mayo!

     Well, in my Cinco de Mayo celebration planning phase, I didn't anticipate a yard sale, bake sale and car wash at the church. We were all tired de Mayo, so we had to celebrate on the following Tuesday instead.

     I had originally planned to do a study of the Ancient Aztecs, Inca and Maya, which we did, and follow that with a week long study of Mexico, which we did, and end that week with the Cinco de Mayo celebration, which we did the following Tuesday.

These are a few of the resources I had on hand.....

....and I checked out the rest of what we used from the library.


Here is what we did:

-mapwork, labeling Mexico and surrounding areas, older kids labeled the different Mexican states
-colored the flag
-took a look at how different/similar our lives are to families in Mexico
-made a timeline of major Mexican events
-read a book about Vaqueros
-read about the Chicle tree and sampled Chiclets gum
-read a book about Day of the Dead
-researched Volcano Paricutin
-researched various chili peppers
-looked at some artwork by Diego Rivera
-listed to Mariachi music
-read books about the country's facts (temperature, exports, government, etc.)
-looked at several books on animals

One day was CHOCOLATE DAY! We......

-read a book about the history of chocolate
-read how chocolate is made
-read biographies on Milton Hershey, and the Mars Family
-chocolate games and worksheets from the chocolate unit studies books
-did an online tour of the Hershey factory
-used the Hershey's and M & M's candy math books for some yummy math lessons............

Then, Cinco de Mayo!!

We made these mini chili pepper pinatas. It's basically a half sheet of card stock folded into a cone, then rolled in green tissue paper. Put in your candy, fold and tape the bottom, then twist the top of the green tissue paper. Take red crepe paper, make slits with tissue for a "fringe" effect, then wrap it around your green tissue, leaving the green twist exposed for the stem. Just secure the red crepe paper with tape or glue stick at each end.

A Maya mummy race with the left over crepe paper.

We also made tissue paper flowers. These are so easy. Choose 6 or so layers of tissue paper, fold them accordian style, secure them in the middle with a pipe cleaner, then separate out the layers.

I had a whole list of fun recipes to make, but we ended up having tacos. Because that was easy. And I was still tired. But, we did have a fun time!


Chocolate Printables

Chocolate Unit Study by Homeschool Share

Mexico Recipes
Coloring Page

Maracas Color Page

Sombrero Color Page

Flag of Mexico

Map of Mexico

Another Map and Questions

Color Page of Traditional Clothes

How to Make Castanets

Aztec Printables

Mexico Printables

Ojo de Dios Craft

The Story of Paricutin

Recipe for Chicken Mole

A Mexican Food Pyramid

Chicle

Chili Pepper Color Sheet and Scoville Scale

Another Chili Pepper Sheet and information on Chili Peppers

A Painting by Diego Rivera and a copy to color

Mush!

We followed the Iditarod this year-it was last month and I’m just now blogging about it. Yeah, remember like two years ago we were planning on following it and then one thing after another happened and we never got to it. But now the kids are looking forward to following it every year.
The kids each chose a musher to follow and chart their race....

I chose Dee Dee Jonrowe, but Bethany’s person scratched so I let her take over following her—12th place
Brittany chose Ramey Smith—2nd Place finisher!
Tyler chose Ken Anderson –11th place
Timothy chose Peter Kaiser—8th place
Brooke chose Christi Berrington-- 29th place
Tristan chose Lance Mackey—16th place

We made dog booties…………….



(This is the best picture I could get. Does that tell you anything?)


And a celebration dinner of “Sled Dogs”, “McGrath-aroni and Cheese”, and “Idita-rods”…………….




And what better way to finish out a study of the Iditarod than to meet Gary Paulson, two time Iditarod racer and author of “Woodsong”. He came to our library to accept a Sequoyah Literary award. He spoke a little about his life and adventures and took some questions. I took all the kids and believe it or not, the little kids sat quietly for the hour he and another author were speaking. Now, granted at some point I did have to bring out the cocoa puffs and Travis only screamed once, so overall it was a success. And it only took another hour and 45 minutes of waiting in line to get his signature. By that point Brittany took some of the kids out to the van, then I had to go out to the van to settle them down, so only Bethany, Timothy and Brooke got to actually talk to him.

Special Week Units

We wrapped up our first week of homeschooling this week. I didn't get everything done that I had wanted to beforehand, so we had a light week. I like to plan several weeklong units that are something different that what we normally do to give the kids a change of pace. I decided to just go ahead and do one of those units this week. We studied economics. I know. Very lightweight, indeed.



We used "Whatever Happened to Penny Candy" (which I even learned a lot from) and some free comic books from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. I found various worksheets and vocabulary games and activites for the older kids on the internet, and some lapbook suitable items for the younger kids here and here.



I'm planning another weeklong unit for Thanksgiving. Last year we focused on Jamestown and the Pilgrim settlement, but this year I think we'll take it easier and just make some treats and read some books from that time period.



We'll do a two week long unit before Christmas with a Jesse tree. Here are the devotionals and here are the ornaments to cut out. (I have not explored everything on that website, and have even changed a little of the wording in the devotionals, so use these at your own discretion.) I also have some fun treats and crafts planned.



In the spring, we are also going to do a weeklong unit on Resurrection Day (Easter). I'm really excited about this one. I found a copy of a Haggadah online, (here is a copy of one, it is not the exact one I am using-I can't seem to find the link to it.) so we are going to have a Passover feast. We had a Messianic Jew come to the church we attended about ten years ago and give a presentation of the Passover feast with explanations to all the prophecies that it represented- that Christ fulfilled. It was so interesting. We have the vidoe tape that was made from the presentation. We'll also do some other fun treats and crafts. I found some neat monologues from The Joyful Heart, we'll make Resurrection buns and Resurrection cookies. I'll supplement with various other coloring sheets and minibooklets to make a lapbook.



And last, but certainly not McLeast, we'll do a St. Patrick's Day one-day unit. I have a free lapbook unit that I got as a freebie from Hands of Child and a free unit study from Homeschool in the Woods. I don't believe either of these are available as freebies anymore, but there are many free goodies to be found just by using your search engine. Here is a fun Lucky Charms graph.