Adventures, Week 12

Note: there will not be a week 13, because we're skipping it, just like an elevator in a hotel! :)

Seriously, the amazing writer of Adventures included a special Thanksgiving study for week 13 that is to be done the week of Thanksgiving, and since we're nowhere near Thanksgiving, we are skipping it. I made sure that we covered the first Thanksgiving pretty thoroughly when we were learning about the Pilgrims. As for all the science with pumpkins, maybe we'll do that next year, and maybe not - have to see how the Lord leads our schedule. T really wants me to take December off from formal curriculum again and do "advent school" like we did last year, so we could do the Thanksgiving unit and go right into Advent. But this is one crazy rabbit trail that has nothing to do with the first states that signed the Constitution!

We are into a tour of each of the fifty states now, in the order that they were admitted to the union. So we started with Delaware, then Pennsylvania (and made a cool Liberty Bell), New Jersey, and Georgia (and baked an awesome GFCF peach cobbler). It is a really neat study for Princess M who loves maps and learning the capitals anyway. She finds the state on the map and colors it in, gets a sticker of the state flag, writes the postal abbreviation, and colors the state flower and state bird. For science, we read about the state bird and learn a new bird fact everyday.

We also read several passages about birds in the Bible; that they were created on Day 5 of creation, how Noah used a dove to find out if the earth was dry after the flood, how we can "mount up with wings as eagles" if we trust in the Lord, how the Holy Spirit descended as a dove after Jesus' baptism, and how the Father feeds the birds of the air. At first I thought it was silly that our Bible theme was birds, but when we got into the lessons, I got a lot out of it myself!

We may kick up the speed on school for awhile and see how it goes. M loves school so much, and it adds so much structure to our lives that we may do six days a week. Thinking and praying on it. It would be a great way to cruise ahead a bit so that we could start the next year's curriculum in September. We're not going to rush and skip anything, though -- it's just too good! :)