Party time! (1 of 2)

We have been to quite a few parties recently. SIX in one month! Three birthday parties and three Halloween parties. Here is a small peek at what the birthday parties looked like.

The festivities began with Vinny's birthday party. He turned 6 years old.

 Vinny's birthday party was a Star Wars Ninja Camp theme.

 Each kid got backpacks filled with items they needed for their training to be a ninja.

 They all took turns whacking the piñatas.

 There were TWO birthday cakes!

 Elsa told the kids a story about the princess being captured, and how she was saved.

 The boys gathered to play Bey Blades.

 And Caitlin and Victoria played house with Elsa!

The very next day we went to an Egyptian birthday party. We celebrated Caelum turning 7!

 The kids started off with an Egyptian dig, searching for artifacts.

Then they did a Mummy Mystery game. Caelum's mom Julie wrapped up several items in tissue paper. The kids had to guess what each item was.

In the end they all received a papyrus bookmark!

Image borrowed from here because I am too busy to get a picture of his bookmark!

  For lunch they made mummy pizzas! (Recipe here)

They played several games such as "Crocodiles chasing archeologists" and "Snake Toss." They also had to put together an Egyptian puzzle from their artifact dig. They even got to make their own trinket boxes which they filled with "gems".

And Caelum had a really awesome looking birthday cake!

 

The 3rd and final birthday party we attended was Tyler's 8th birthday. He had a military party.

All of the kids dressed up in camo gear.

 They played games such as manhunt,

 capture the flag,

 and wounded soldier.

 Tyler even had camo cupcakes!

The kids have been wearing some sort of camo gear every single day since the party!

History

In history we learned about the Assyrians and Shamshi-Adad, the king of Assyria.

We also read The Story of Gilgamesh. We checked out a clip on youtube explaining the Story of Gilgamesh (here).

After learning about Assyria, we read about Ancient India and the first cities built there. We learned that people lived by the river. Their rivers were the best means of travel.

We learned new vocabulary words such as citadel and river road.  We also learned that there was a communal bathtub. Neither kid thought that was a great idea.

We read all about the lost city of Mohenjo- Daro, one of the largest cities in the Indus Valley and we watched a short clip on youtube about Mohenjo-Daro (here.)


The kids colored in pictures of the Story of Gilgamesh, ceremonial masks from the Indus Valley, and a Statue from Mohenjo-Daro.

We are currently working on Ancient China. We read about Lei Zu (a Chinese Empress) discovering silk. We also read about Chinese picture writing, which is known as pictograms. The kids created their own pictograms of their house.

Spanish

Remember my review on R.E.A.L. Homeschool Spanish? Well Jayden was looking through the activity guide one day and all on his own decided to give it a try.

I thought it was going to be too difficult for him but it actually isn't! We work on it together, just like any other assignment he needs assistance with.

He loves the scrambled letters and words, and of course the word searches!

We are still working on the first unit because this is a brand new language we are learning together (them from scratch!). I absolutely do not mind how slow we are taking it. Working at their pace is one of the many perks of homeschooling!

According to Jayden this is now one of his favorite subjects!

Topsfield Fair (Part 2)

During the fair we had a homeschool class set up for  the children to search for treasure.

 They found gemstones and sharks teeth!

 They each had a turn squeezing apples with this contraption and extracting the juice.

 We saw some old farm tools.

This man serenaded us with his banjo! He sang "America the Beautiful" and had a big smile when we all applauded him.

 Jayden wanted me to take a picture of the skulls we saw.

We stopped at a booth and wrote Christmas letters to soldiers who won't be home with their families this holiday season.

There was a sensory bun set up for the kids. They got to dig potatoes out of sand/dirt. Can you guess who did NOT do this activity?

 We stopped at a whittler's booth and saw some of his awesome creations.

 Caitlin got to pet a taxidermied cat. Yuck.

 We saw dead sea creatures and the kids felt them.

 We checked out some weapons (Jayden is really interested in guns).

 

There was also a booth for Curious Creatures set up. We went to a party once where the people from Curious Creatures brought animals. It was cool!

 We stopped at the police station.

 We paused for snacks.

 We saw a lot of different animals.

The kids all got to pet a rabbit

And finally we saw a man douse himself with gasoline, climb up to a tiny step, ignite himself on fire, and leap into a pool. 

Needless to say we will be going back again next year!