RTR - Weeks 1 & 2

[Marie]

Weeks 1 & 2.

[Tina]

Posted: Tue Aug 14, 2007 11:15 am

We did the little craft in How the Bible Came to Us with the match boxes for the bible library. Here's how I made it work:

I couldn't find a large matchbox that fit just six small boxes in it, so I bought six toothpick boxes instead. They didn't fit in the large match box either. So, we decided to just use the toothpick boxes.

We were looking at the toothpick boxes trying to decide how we would cover them, because we didn't have sticky brown paper. Well, we turned the toothpick boxes inside out! It worked! they unfold so easily and fold back up, inside out, so nicely. They are cardboard colored on the inside and we just turned the whole thing inside out.

My son colored the sides of them with a color that matched the words on each spine "the law", "history", songs and poems", etc.

We then took little slips of paper and wrote the names of all the books on each slip and placed it into the right "drawer" or box. Having each book of the bible that belongs to that particular group is neat too. Makes for great memory games.

We turned this into a game where we take out all the books, put them face-down onto a table and draw from them and have to place the book into the correct box. This was neat. We already know the books of the bible, but now the children are learning where they are grouped, and hopefully, a better grasp on knowing all the books.

Funny how these small things can excite a homeschool mom! We were going to skip this activity, but I'm glad we put our heads together and made the toothpick boxes work. This is the stuff that homeschooling is made up of!

I hope the tooth pick boxes work for others too!

Oh, and we read today in How the Bible Came to Us "clay to books" and this was cool because the kids saw their clay tablets in there! I love the way it all fits together so well!

PS on the clay tablets, the three year olds need them too, don't forget about the little ones!

[4Truth]

Thu Jan 18, 2007 1:22 pm

Does the gelatin we use for the first science experiment (the cell) have to be lemon flavored, or does it matter? We were supposed to do the lemon gelatin thing yesterday, but for some reason I missed it when prepping for the week and didn't have lemon flavored on hand. So I wondered if lime would work, or if there was a special reason lemon was mentioned.


Posted: Thu Jan 18, 2007 4:02 pm
Posted by: kellybell

I personally think lemon flavored cells are the best. No, you don't have to use lemon, but it is a light color and is easy to see through. I'm guessing just about any jello flavor would work. Or, the flavorless Knox stuff would work too.

My kids loved making the cell. One of my favorite homeschool memories is when my 5.5 year old went to the doctor for something (can't remember what, so I guess it wasn't a big deal) and the PA (not quite a doctor) that we see (she's not adverse to homeschooling, thankfully!) asked Stephanie what she was learning in homeschool and Stephanie said, "cells." The PA asked what she learned about cells and Stephanie said (with her little five year old lispy voice), "they are little and have endoplasmic reticulum." The PA's jaw dropped.

Enjoy your cell making!


Posted: Fri Jan 19, 2007 9:22 pm
Posted by: nehschooler2three

We made ours yesterday! I didn't see the lemon word in my teachers manual, and thought oh i've got jello at home. Well all we had was strawberry, and it really worked fine! the kids loved it!


Posted: Mon Jan 22, 2007 4:24 pm
Posted by: 4Truth

Well, we ended up doing two... one with lemon and one with lime. Guess I didn't need the lemon after all, because the girls ate the lime jello afterwards... they didn't like the lemon! LOL!

So after all that agonizing over lemon jello, we finally get to the experiment and guess what.. NO GRAPES! We *had* grapes, but I didn't realize someone had finished them off. So we used blueberries. ;o) Sheesh.

[Julie in MN]

* In weeks 1 & 2, the materials lists include several types of dried peas & beans. My grocery store had a bag of mixed beans that covered all of these & more.

* Math-U-See Delta has two lessons on Roman numerals and some good info in their teacher's manual, if you can borrow it from someone.

* Also there is a page on Roman numerals in the back of English From the Roots Up that I forgot about. This was a great topic for us!

* If you want to photocopy the Augustus Caesar's World for a child who does *not* want to color but only uses it for reference, it can all fit on one page if you set the copier at 75%.

* Date we used for Julius Caesar notebook page: ~49 BC

[DS4home]

This year I bought those little 2 ring binders made for index cards. This was what we used for our vocabulary cards with English from the Roots Up. They stored nicely in the kids cubbies, better than the index card box that we had used the year before. Just thought I'd pass that storage idea along.

Dawn

[DS4home]

I want to encourage everyone to do this fun project! We ended up using it several times throughout the year. My husband helped me cut and glue them together the night before. We made one per child. The next day the kids got to press the clay in and make the cover. For our fabric cover we used a piece of colored felt ( 8 1/2 X 11 ) trimmed to fit. They turned out fabulous!!

[southernshae]

I thought I'd pass along a sort of "impromptu" addition we did to RTR week 2 on Wednesday. After reading the short text in Streams "The Power of Public Speaking," I asked ds (12 going into 7thgrade) if he'd like to plan and give a speech in hopes of swaying us to his side. His eyes literally lit up........this ds loves all things like this! The one condition I set forth was that I wanted him to speak on something that we either were not well informed about or were neutral about.

Since this ds is very interested in government and politics, I see that this study is going to be great for him going onto little bunny trails as we study Rome. He always wants to dig deeper (and does it mostly independently), so I've also asked him to research one of the projects (not scheduled by MFW but in the streams text) about comparing a democracy and a republic. (#3 from chapter 7). He presented it orally and we all learned a lot.

Just wanted to pass this along in case any of you have dc that are overly interested in government/politcs. (Ds is now asking who he can have a debate with...LOL!)

Southernshae

[NCMom]

Instead of cutting up a box to make the frame, I used the tops and bottoms of small greeting card boxes.
They measured approx. 7 1/2"x5 1/2". I had four kids making these, so this was much easier than cutting separate frames for everyone.
HTH,
Nancy C

[Archiver2]

We just started R2R and need non-hardening clay for a project this week. What is it exactly? I can find air drying clay in a big tub and little (expensive!) sticks of non- hardening clay in multicolor packs but what I really need is a big tub of non-hardening clay. Any ideas?

Post Posted Wed Aug 27, 2008 10:52 am by Julie in MN

They had some at Dick Blicks, a local art store.

But I always just grab whatever we have. It never seems really crucial to the projects we've done.

Post Posted Wed Aug 27, 2008 11:00 am by cbollin

For that activity I think we just used the cheap modeling clay, like Rose Art. about $1 or $2 for a box of 4 colors.

It was enough for the activity to be fun even if it wasn't perfect.

-crystal

Post Posted Wed Aug 27, 2008 1:35 pm by mamaofredheads

We used the same type Crystal did. If I remember correctly, I found it at Walmart but had to do some searching as everything was the hardening kind. My boys still pull their tablets out sometimes. They were also a big hit at our home school group's history night.

Glenna

[my 2 sons]

Postby my 2 sons » Wed Sep 13, 2006 11:40 pm

Week 1 RTR. Upgraded Bible Project. How the Bible came to us pg. 2.

I made the books as per directions but made it so the tray in the match-box can slide in and out. I then cut the books of the Bible list and put them into the match box books they belong in. This way you can actually open up the match-box books and see whats inside.

[bbs-mom]

We made the Bible library but I didn't want to spend the money to buy a bunch of match boxes or toothpicks. I know they don't cost much but everything adds up. So I saved up raising boxes. We just wrapped them with construction paper like a present and then put paper with lines drawn on around three edges to look like pages. They were big enough that we were able to write each of the books of the bible that are included in that category. We then just set them on our shelf. I will say though we used 7 boxes instead of 6. The book mentions Revelations as its own category so we made a book just for that.