International PenPals

The kids are studying Germany right now, and we're lucky to now have not one, but two international penpals, both in Germany! Woot!

One of our penpals, Sybille, stayed with my family when I was in high school.

I can't imagine how hard it must be for foreign exchange students,

to be thrust into totally new surroundings.

But I am so thankful that she braved the new country and joined our family!

Over 15 years later, and we still consider Sybille one of our sisters.

She lives in Kassel, Germany. So it's one of our first places to study.

As far as the mail goes, it costs $1.10 to send an ounce to Germany, and takes about a week to get there.

Our other penpals, Miriam and her family, live in Kandern.

Their family recently moved there, as missionaries.

When I was in high school, I met Miriam through our local homeschool group. I still remember spending the night with her, and getting up eeeearly in the morning to count cows. ;) Never could have imagined that, nearly 20 years later, our children would be writing letters back and forth across the world.

Here is our outgoing mail to them.

I do so loooove snail mail, giving and receiving.

The kids wrote letters, drew pictures, included some play American money, seals, verses.

I contributed by decorating the envelope with happy little characters.

(I have a love for stamps, too, and finally got to use some of these awesome blue cougar stamps!)

India Unit Study

My Dad ("Poppy," as the kids call him) just returned from a business trip in India.

He brought us all kinds of souvenirs: t-shirts for the little boys, an Indian outfit for NatureMan, beautiful embroidered,embellished shirt for TheArtist, and a sari (also spelled "saree") for me. I haven't figured out how to put it on yet. You would not believe how much silk fabric is here!!

We've been looking at pictures, hearing the stories about the culture, cuisine, dress, and travel.

I've decided to spend a few evenings creating a unit study that we can go through. Started by checking these books out from the library. I'll go back in a few days for the others I'm interested in.
And I made this for myself with some zucchini that Papaw brought over from his garden. Yum.

And will follow this plan again, from Heart of Wisdom, to create the unit study:

Phase 1: Pray and seek God's wisdom and guidance.

Phase 2: Decide on a topic.

Phase 3: Decide on a schedule. (I plan to study India for two weeks)

Phase 4: Create the list of lessons. (current culture, animals, food, government-- and a lot of mini lesssons within these)

Phase 5: Make a list of resources. (My Dad, internet, library books, a video I checked out, the clothes and other souveniers)

Phase 6: Create vocabulary lists. (I'll compile a list from our library books, and Wikepedia's info on India)

Phase 7: Create four steps for each lesson.
~~Step 1: Make it interesting! (start with a field trip, video, interview...)

~~Step 2: Examine. Find out the facts. (internet, reference books, historical fiction and/or biographies...)
~~Step 3: Do something with what was learned. (make a book or a game, cook a dish, create a photo journal, design a costume, make a travel brochure, write a book review, or s song or news report...)
~~Step 4: Excel. Put it all together. (Add corrected work, map, illustrations to portfolio, use each word or term in a sentence, add to your vocab notebook any new words or terms used during the lesson, along with definitions...)

If you've already created or used a unit study on India, please let me know!

natural mosaics and map work

We've been studying a lot about plants lately, and working on various related lapbooks (to be posted soon.) Yesterday afternoon we created "seed" mosaics.

First the kids sketched their pictures on pieces of cardboard.

Then they worked, with one foreground area at a time, covering in various beans and noodles.
Until, finally, every foreground image was covered, and they filled in the background to complete the picture:

These will go up on display in the playroom for awhile. :-)

In other news, one of my sweet friends left today on a 5,800-mile road trip. We'll be tracking her progress on the map in the kitchen. Lucky gal gets to stay in one of my all-time favorite cities, Monterey, CA.