We have finished our North America unit!

We visited North and Central America.

We visited the United States, Mexico, Canada and some of the Islands.  We had our passports stamped and exchanged currency. This was fun and we actually learned something as well.

Our first stop was the USA

We mapped the major rivers and mountains, learned about the flag and the national symbols

We read the book about quilting and made American quilts by cutting out pieces of cloth and we glued it to paper and laminated  it.

Neo-Rie's placemat quilt

Zane's quilt

Jac's quilt

We learned about Eco systems and Niche's and things in Nature, About Bears, Wolfs and Squirrels

The books we used and the cards they made with new words.

They drew the nut tree outside the house

We learned about wolves

We tasted different nuts and made a graph on what we liked!

The bold eagle and the squirrel

Then we boarded a plane and flew to Mexico!

Danie is the Captain - Zane missed the flight!

They exchanged their dollars for Peso's  and got their passports stamped!

In Mexico we learned about the people, the country, the food and deserts! We made paper flowers and had a Mexican meal with a real Mexican friend, Carmen.

We made the Mexican sun, but our clay dried to quick and cracked.

Just working on Maths

Jac painting his clay sculptures

Mexican paper dolls

All the English books Neo-Rie read

All her Afrikaans books

Extra English books accompanying her LLATL curriculum

The book Zane finished for English

The book I read to them for "aloud reading" 

Zane is busy with Trompie for Afrikaans reading

This is Jac's English books

We learned about Beavers, and Spider monkeys!
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We took a boat to all the different islands in the area. We visited Jamaica and Columbia and a few others

We then boarded a plane to Canada!  This time Zane made the flight!

Suitcases with passport, money and flight ticket

We learned about the food chain

We are also doing art. Learning to draw and also about primary and secondary colours and colour mixing.

Here are just some extra pictures the kids made.

Jac drew a plane

The solar system and our house

NeoRie made this

Jac is also doing his SNAP program.  this is one of the things we worked on.  

Different clothes for different seasons

Homeschooling in Macedonia

Well we are in our 3rd week of homeschooling.
We have moved to Macedonia and had a month just settling in. We started in January (same as South African Schools)  So now I have one child in grade 5, one in grade 2 and one in grade R.

I sometimes wonder how those super families do it with 8 children and 2 that are special needs, and then they do sports and bake and even have a veggie garden!

I am struggling to get through the day.  We are busy doing 3 languages. Afrikaans, English and we started with Macedonian.

I have decided to do My Father's World curriculum again this year. I love it. We are doing Countries and Cultures which fit in well with our new country we moved to.

We named our school " Global School".  Jac wanted his own class name so we did that at well. He is in the "Rocket Class".

For English We are doing Learning Laguage Arts Through Litrature. I decided to to First Language English and moved them down one grade level

Here are some of the work they have done the past 3 weeks.

Reading Chart

Coup Sticks of the Sioux trib - Telling stories (Neo-Rie)

Jac has a lot of stories

Zane's stories

Artwork by Jac

We are doing two differrent types of Art this year, the one is  Global Art, where you do things spesific to a country for example the paper men holding hands is for all the nations in the world.
The other art we are doing is the "I can do all things" art book where the kids learn to draw and how to hold their brush and about colouring and shading.

We have a lot of worksheets about the world and also for Science.  The first 2 weeks we focused on the world and now we are visiting North America. First the USA, we have a passport and everything.

 Here are some of the books we are using - the kids love it. And I love teaching it.

Jac is busy with Grade R

 With Jac I am doing 3 things right now.  Regular Grade R (South African curriculum) the My Father's World curriculum with his brother and sister and for English we are doing Letterland.

I am also still doing his SNAP program with him ( Special Needs Adaptive Programme)  Sometimes I do not get to everything and this stresses me out a bit.

I have decided to use visual schedules for all the children - it makes it so much easier.  This is kind of a like a PECS file that they use for kids with Autism, so I am using it with all my children, now Jac does not feel like he is the only one with a visual schedule

Even our daily routine is visual

This is our logo for school and Jac's new classroom

Just some photos of our classroom/dinning room.

Our wold cake made with added banana and carrots

We are excited about the new year ahead and will post more as we learn about all the countries and continents and the people living there.