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Happy 7th Birthday Amelie!

Happy Birthday Amelie! We love you so much! This has been a good year for you because you have matured more and really found things that you love. The greatest thing that happened to you in the last year is that you learned how to read. I think it changed your life more than anything else I have seen in your 5 years in our family. You have so desperately  needed to have a way to take in information that isn’t auditory. Every time we have been to the library in the last month you have picked out non-fiction books and you share all the cool facts you learn with us. We also found that you love ALL the performing arts, not just dance. It’s fun to see you bloom in this way.

You love flashy clothes and things that sparkle. You are constantly drawing and painting. You would eat Doritos at every meal if possible. You enjoy mopping the floor and are learning to cook things. Making up games with your sisters is your favorite playtime. You sing all the time. Your best friend is Fiona and it’s great to see you two so happy when you are together.

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Amelie’s 7th birthday party!

We won a party at Lone Star Gymnastics at our church silent auction, so I told Amelie we could use it for her birthday party and she was very excited. It was her, her sisters and 7 friends. The two ladies running the party kept them busy with all kinds of fun games and things to play on. Then we had cake and Amelie opened her presents. They had a great time!!

Lone Star gave this to the birthday girl. So cute! Thanks to everyone who joined us this year!

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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.