Expedition Earth – ASIA

Years ago I bought this geography curriculum from Confessions Of A Homeschooler and just waited for Amelie to get old enough to for us to start. So in January of this year we started working our way through 42 countries of the world. Here are some of the things included in the curriculum from the COH website: 7 Wonders of the World, World Lap Book, Geographical Locations, Mapping Skills, Science: Ecosystems Study, Geography Vocabulary, People of the Region, How to Pray for the Regions, Christmas around the world (we haven’t done any of this – I want to do it as a separate study), Children like me, Science: Animals mini-books for each country, Food and recipes, Craft activities, Country Songs, Review Games and more.

The first week of the curriculum is a basic introduction to geography and then you start with the continent of Asia. I posted already about our special guest from Japan but here are some fun photos and information from the rest of our Asia study.

For China we made Chinese fans. We eat a lot of Chinese food so we didn’t do anything special for food.

For South Korea we made Jeweled Crowns for our craft. And for dinner at the end of the unit we tried a Korean restaurant called Namoo. We immediately became hooked on the place and have been back for Gotcha Day’s and birthdays.

For India our craft was to make our version of “inlaid stone tile.”  One fun fact about India is that they invented chess.

For Israel our craft was to paint the “Dome of the Rock.”  One fun fact we learned is that Israel has more doctors per patient ration compared to the US.

For Thailand our craft was to make a Floating Thai boat. We took the girls to Sweet Basil for Thai food. The photo above is of Thai dumplings which were different than Chinese, but just as delicious! Fun fact was that Thai people eat 4 or 5 times a day and that chopsticks are not widely used like in other Asian countries.

Nadia’s Torii Gate was a craft for Japan along with lots of origami.

We had a wonderful time doing this study on the continent of Asia. There was a lot more than was photographed here and we learned all sorts of cool things about far off places. We watched quite a few videos on Youtube and checked out lots of books from the library. After finishing Asia we moved on to Europe.

Discover the Senses

We started this study and it just seemed to take us forever to get through it because we did all sorts of things in between. It was a really interesting study and I especially liked the part on eyes.

Smell experiments caused lots of screaming. HA!!

Touch experiments and fingerprinting. 

Sight

Taste

Cute photo of Dani looking at all the Senses books we got from the library. To buy the study from Amanda Bennett’s site, go here.

Whale Unit Study

The finished lapbook
Whale Unit Study (click to see album)

Next up on our unit study list was “Whale Tales” which we got from the Amanda Bennett site. This was a really interesting one and the first time that Dani wanted to be in the mix for everything. She spent a lot of time on my lap and never wanted to miss any of the videos. While Nadia was doing a lot of reading and writing she would go off and play with toys, but she always kept an eye on me to make sure she wasn’t missing anything. The cutest part was when she would mimic the whale sounds – I should have made a video of her because it was so cute.

Nadia "working hard"
Nadia said, "Take a picture of me making this face. Pretend I am thinking really hard."
Whale Unit Study
The world map rug from Costco comes in handy.
Whale Unit Study
All three girls coloring whales from a coloring book I ordered off Amazon.
Whale Unit Study
One morning Nadia woke up and made whales for everyone in the house.
Whale Unit Study
Dani coloring more whales.

The unit was broken down into five days.

Day 1: What is a Whale?

Day 2: Getting to know Whales.

Day 3: Where are Whales?

Day 4: The Science of Whales

Day 5: Cool things about Whales

Nadia declared the beluga whale her favorite and Amelie liked the blue whale the best. I agreed with Amelie because I think it’s amazing that the blue whale is the largest and loudest animal ever in the history of the world. We checked out a lot of really wonderful books from the library with great photos of whales in action.

Expedition China Unit Study

China Unit Study 2014
Do-A-Dots make learning fun! (click to see album)

*A catching up blog post*

As we were preparing to leave for our trip to China in February to meet Dani, I did a Chinese New Year unit with Amelie and a more in depth China Unit study with Nadia. I thought it would be fun to study because our house was filled with endless discussions about China already. We used one of the Amanda Bennett studies again because they are so convenient and easy to use.

China Unit Study 2014

China Unit Study 2014

China Unit Study 2014

On each of the 5 days of study we learned about a place in China, a Chinese animal, a Chinese invention and a missionary to China. It was very informative and we watched quite a few interesting and beautifully filmed videos.

China Unit Study 2014

As always Nadia loves putting together her lapbook at the end. It gives us a chance to review everything we have learned and talk about our favorite parts of the study.