Playing God {MoH Volume 1, Lesson 2}

If we continue to have this much fun with our history unit then the year is going to zoom by at lightening speed.

Yesterday we got to imagine what it was like to be God creating all the animals and Adam naming them.  I like to close my eyes and envision God chuckling to himself when he stretched out the giraffe's neck and made a dinosaur with tiny arms and giant teeth.  Seriously.  To think of it.

Oh wait.  This is about the children. 

Right...

So, their task was to create an animal and then name it.  Creating wasn't hard for the children.  They had a delightful time imagining an animal to life.  Naming them was tougher, but then, it *is* hard to think of an awesome original name when so many equally fantastic animals already exist.

I let them mix colors.  Eek.  Big day in the Beeler house!

 Xavier created a one eyed, long tailed spotted hoppy animal.  The longer blue piece is the tail - the yellow dot in the middle is the eye and the blue dot under it is the mouth.

 He also made green "tree balls" for his animal to play with.  He he he.

Natalee created a big, orange striped water animal (similar to a hippo, in her mind).  She really really wanted it to be 3D but I didn't want to take over her project and she couldn't get it to stand up alone.  Maybe we'll try again with clay instead of play doh.

 {Why yes, that is tape holding Natalee's glasses together.  Her new ones are coming, if they'd only hurry!}

I also introduced the kids to the Mystery of History timeline.  For each lesson we'll add a picture depicting that person or era in time.  I decided this needed to be a very, very interactive piece in our lessons so the pieces themselves are laminated (we're using the corresponding pieces from Confessions of Homeschool Mom) and then we are using velcro to adhere them to the board.  This way the children can take them off and put them on and take them off and put them on and repeat.  Which they will.  Many times.  Because they are children.  And they love stuff like this...

 

(the green lines are tape lines where I need to adhere more velcro strips when I buy them)

The 7 circles represent the 7 days of creation, and the square following them depicts Adam and Eve, symbolizing the first sin and fall of man. 

Today we added Jubal and Tubal-Cain.

I am continually amazed at what little minds can soak up.  I'm condensing the lessons a little for the sake of the age and understanding of the children but Natalee can now tell me that Jubal was a musician (and we discussed what a musician is) and that Tubal-Cain worked with iron.  That's good stuff for a 5 year old.  Indeed.

Friday is our "off day" from school work so tomorrow we rest and play and read more of our fun books.  We completed all the lesson plans I laid out for week one and Natalee is a bit ahead in math, as she thought week two's learning looked intriguing so I sat down with her tonight to begin it (catch 'em while their hot!). 

Loving our journey!