Our Dinosaur homeschooling experience

Dinosaurs, Dinosaurs, Dinosaurs!

No we did not go to see the Dinosaurs, but we had fun with our own dinosaurs.  We still would like to go to Sudwala caves and visit the Dino's there, hopefully soon.  

The kids really loved this theme.

We read the book "What Really happened to the dinosaurs" and used a Creationism approach to teach them about the Dinosaurs and that they did not live millions and millions of years ago, but only a couple of thousand!

I took some picture on my phone, the quality is not so good but you can still see it.

We made a volcano

Doing some "real work" hie he

Jac painting some Dino's

Making Dino cookies

Archaeology - digging for dinosaurs 

Found something!

Jac's nature book about Dinos, volcanos and countries and flags!

We were also discussing volcano's  and ofcouse we had to make one!  We decided to make 2, one was a science project, the other one was a volcano cake!

Jac made his volcano from moon-sand and play clay

Jac making his volcano.

The books we used this time

Grade 1 reading and maths.

Really nice books with lots of facts and "lies" about dinosaurs

We looked through the books but told the children to ignore the extensive time lines of the dinosaurs and mentioned that God created all the animals.

The kids also made lapbooks about dinosaurs and here is a couple of photos of the lapbooks.

Making an Apatosaurus from macaroni 

Making and Euoploceophalus from macaroni

Fossils

Making a Pterodactyl from Macaroni

Already the middle of the year for us

I can't believe it is June already! Were did the year go.  I was on course for 6 weeks but we did manage to homeschool.

Here are the other lapbooks we did so far this year.

The kids wanted a spy theme so we did a lapbook on that and on the FBI. They really loved being spies for a while.

We spoke about the 12 spies in the Bible and they were really impressed that there were spies in the Bible

The Bible verse they memorized

We continued to pray for the Nations and  learned about the countries they come from:

• Akebu
• Ica
• Gusilay
• Swafwa
• Elkei
• Melanau

Here are some of the extra books we worked on - Still doing "My Fathers World" and "Footprint in our land"  We did the story on Old Bob's Brown Bear"

We also did some "real" schooling and finished these books for the first two semesters.

The Grade 1 books

Grade 3 and 4 books

Other lapbooks we did was the one on the Solar system - I have posted a separate blog on that.


Another one was on Ocean life and the book "To the Rescue"  We went to KwaZulu Natal on holiday and homeschooled while we were there - only the fun stuff, the rest we did when we returned.

We visited Bloedrivier (both sides of the river and learned about the Zulus and the Voortrekkers)

This is the Octupus "Klippies" We had to fight to keep it in the ocean and not to bring it back home

Building Sandcastles is always part of homeschooling

The books we read and used

Our lapbooks (mostly with photos)

My daughter started reading and is very happy with herself for finishing her first book - the same book that was my first book to finish in school.  "Boet en Saartjie"

She is still changing her letters around and even when reading but we are working on this and hope this will soon pass.

My youngest son who is autistic is also doing great. These are the books he is working on.

 I through in a "Frozen lapbook" just to boost the kids and do something totally different.

The Creation

Our first lapbook this year was about the creation.  All three the kids participated, some did more than others.

They also had to draw or paint their favorite part of creation.  Jac chose the planets! Neo-Rie chose horses, and all types of animals she could find. With Zane it is always difficult to make decisions. But he finally made a collage of animals

The books we used for school are the following:

We are doing "My Father's World Grade 1 combined with Kindergarden and some other books for school this year.  Zane does not have his own curriculum but we are using the CAPS curriculum mostly for this transition period.

Art Appreciation

Praying for the Nations

For Art Appreciation we are doing the Come Look with me books.  
We are also Praying for the Nations each week. Starting again at A for Akebu.

I will post some more pics and homeschool stuff next time.

We are back in White River

It's been a long time since I've posted on this blog.  Our year in Thabazimbi is done and we are back in White River for about 6 months or so.  Still on our way to Macedonia.  So we picked up Homeschooling again. It's been busy with courses and visits  in-between but we are managing. 

Here are some pictures of our temporary home for a while. Most of the furniture and curtains etc was donated and borrowed from all over! I will post the homeschool stuff next time

Our living room

Home school room

More homeschool room

Kids bedroom

Kids bedroom

More of the kids bedroom

Kitchen

Living room again

The Solar system

Our next project was the Solar system.

Jac really enjoyed this part of homeschooling since this is his favorite topic in the world right now.

I was on a course for a little bit more than a month, so hubby did most of the "formal" homeschooling and I just did the lapbooks with the kids