Israel

We finished our Israel study several months ago, but I am just now finding time to blog about it. There were so many things we learned. One experience is still with us. Learning to blow a shofar! It is not easy and is a learned skill. You should have seen our excitement the first time I squeeked out a sound from the shofar I purchased! We learned about the Jordan River and were surprised at the size. In addition to that we also learned about the size of Israel and it's diversity. In some ways it seemed almost like it was familiar.. Below are some of the videos we watched that started the unit off.

                                                                  Tour of Israel

                                                             Archeology Tour of Israel

                                                                  Culture and History


We also watched a video that taught how to speak Hebrew. The girls and I discovered we would need a lot of practice before we would be able to speak fluently. Below is the video we watched.

                                                                           
                                                                      Hebrew 101


                                      We learned Israel leads the world in science.

                                            Israel has more scientists that any other country!

            I had the girls color a  flag of Israel.  They also completed a map of Israel. 
 Another really cool interactive map can be found here.  For a craft project they made a matzah cover. There is a link here to a webpage with instructions so you can make your own matzah cover. The girls also made driedels. You can go here to print one out and make one too.

One fun thing we did was learning different ways to tie on headscarves. Oh my word did we find out it isn't something you just do so easily. We had to practice, but we loved the different ways to tie one and how it looked. The girls still like to get them out once in awhile and tie their headscarves on. We used this  webpage to learn how. This page also gave a lot of information about why headscarves are worn.

We used a combination of several unit studies on Israel. They can be found here and here and here.

Passover Seder Game

Israel Currency

Paper Dolls

Hebrew Alphabet

Timeline

Coloring pages for different Jewish Holidays

Happy 13th Birthday! And Happy 23rd Birthday Too!

Painted crosses at Pocket Picasso class.

Today was our daughter, McKenna's thirteenth birthday. We celebrated by taking her, McLarin and three of our granddaughter's to Pocket Picasso to paint a cross. They had so much fun that our granddaughter Gracie said she wanted to do this for her birthday too! Even me and my daughter-in-law joined the girls in painting our own cross. Then it was back home for ice cream and cupcakes.

Just so happens that McKenna and her brother Levi share a birthday. Yes, we celebrate two birthdays on the same day every year! Levi has always called McKenna his birthday present since she was born in his tenth birthday. Hard to believe he is married now and has a little boy of his own. Levi turned twenty-three today. He had to work today, but we are planning a big birthday celebration for him and McKenna on Tuesday. Most of the older kids will be here to celebrate. McKenna had to call her brother when we got home to wish him Happy Birthday.