Cain's Sons, Enoch and Some Halloween Fun

As always, we started off the days of our school week with some seasonal songs and verses for the girls, French lessons for all, and math review, spelling, penny whistle lessons and exercises from "The Extra Lesson" book for Grant. Last week I began teaching the French words for face, ears, nose, eyes, and mouth to the kids, and asked them to touch all those different parts of the face. (In French, of course!)

On Monday, I introduced the form drawing for the week and read Grant many short stories about the three sons of Cain.  The story I decided to draw on the chalkboard, and then have Grant and I draw in our lesson books was about Jubal playing music for the animals.

After I read the story, Grant and I drew a picture in our lesson books. We continue to use only our red, blue and yellow block crayons to draw our pictures.

Mom's Picture

Grant's Picture

I also read the kids this book which is fun to read around Halloween:

Everyone was feeling a little under the weather on Tuesday, so I kept it pretty light.  Grant and I reviewed some math and worked on some spelling, then the kids painted some jack-o-lantern lanterns.

On Wednesday, Grant told me the story of Jubal playing for the animals, and then we summarized the story together and Grant copied the summary into his lesson book.

Grant also enjoyed doing some Star Wars Mad Libs.

We also did another Family Fun magazine Halloween activity and made some spiders out of wire and dimensional fabric paint. 

Once we were done with the spiders, Grant and I drew spider webs on some of our windows using puffy fabric paint. 

I set Grant loose with a bottle of the black paint, and let's just say he embellished a few all of his window web drawings.

Once the spiders and the webs were dry, we stuck the spiders to the windows around the webs. 

The nice part is when Halloween is over, they will all peel right off.

On Thursday, I read Grant another handful of short stories.  These stories were about the rise of evil in the hearts of men as they began to forget about God after the death of Seth, who was a very prominent and important priest.  God decided to send Enoch to be born on earth to once again teach men about God and goodness.

The picture I chose for us to draw comes from the story of the birth of Enoch.

Mom's Picture

Grant's Picture

Afterward, I read the kids a fun Halloween story about a little hobgoblin who liked to play tricks on people until they carved jack-o-lanterns to scare him away. The story came from this book:

After I read the story, Grant chose to draw a picture from it.

Grant also drew the form drawing for the week into his book.

On Friday, Grant and I worked together to create a summary for the stories about Enoch.  When we were done he copied it into his lesson book.

On Friday evening, we took the kids to their first "trunk-or-treat" with Grant's Hapkido school. They had hot dogs, apple cider, a bonfire for roasting marshmallows, and lots of trunks for trunk-or-treating.  Our vampire, princess and witch had a blast!

The Sons of Cain

Our days last week started out in the usual way.  Blessing, circle time, penny whistle lesson, math review, spelling, and French lesson.  The kids were learning some new words in French...face, eyes, nose, mouth, ears. 

I have also noticed in Grant's copy work that he has developed a few bad habits when writing his letters, so I have been having him take time to practice writing those letters when we are working on spelling.  I also added in some exercises for Grant from this book:

He does not have any "difficulties" as the title suggests, there are just a lot of great exercises to promote, balance, coordination, reading, writing, drawing, painting, etc.  All kinds of goodness for making good neural pathways and connections. Trust me, it's a good thing!


On Monday, I read Grant the story of Jubal, one of Cain's other sons. He brought music to the earth.

After I read the story, we drew a picture in our lesson books.

Mom's Picture

 Grant's Picture

I also introduced the form drawing for the week.

I read this book to Johanna:

After I finished reading the book, Johanna and I drew a picture from the story.

Mom's Picture

 Johanna's Picture

We also had A LOT of fun the in the afternoon making these monster t-shirts.

We ironed on the background of the monsters, then the kids got to pick from many different, mouths, eyes, etc. to create their own unique monsters.  They came up with some pretty funny combinations before choosing their final designs.



On Tuesday, I had Grant tell me the story of Jubal, and then we came up with a summary together.  He copied the summary in his lesson book, and this time we just underlined all the nouns, verbs and adjectives.  We used different colors for each one.

I read Johanna this book:

After I read the book, she decided to do her own drawing from the story while I was working with Grant.

She also decided to do another drawing of Lono:

To go with the pumpkin theme of our book, Johanna and I made a pumpkin cake topped off with cream cheese frosting.  Johanna did most of it herself (including cracking the eggs), and was once again proud of here baking skills.

It is a bit funny because Johanna didn't like the frosting, while Julia loved the frosting and could care less about the cake.

On Wednesday, we continued working on some of the exercises from The Extra Lesson Book.  This was one Grant really liked. The book called it "Left-Right Ball Exercise"(or bean bags in our case), Grant called it juggling.

I told Grant the story of Cain's third son, Thubal-Cain. He was the first blacksmith.

After I read the story, Grant and I modeled tools out of clay.  Grant made a hammer, and I made a hoe.

The girls were not about to just sit and watch Grant and I play with clay.  They had to have some, too!

I also read Johanna this book:

On Thursday, Grant told me the story of Thubal-Cain, we summarized the story, and then Grant copied it into his lesson book.

He also drew the form drawing he had been practicing during the week in his book.

Afterwards, I read Grant a story about how the three bothers, Jabal, Jubal and Thubal-Cain worked together to build the first houses.  Then we worked on building our own "sentence house".

We used verbs to make up the structure of the house, then we had a box of materials with nouns, adjectives, punctuation, etc.  We talked about how all these components come together to make a sentence, and sentences come together to make paragraphs.

Next week, we will continue to read more stories about the descendants of Adam and Eve, and do some more fun Halloween activities.

Julia in Her New Hat

Cain, Abel and Jabal

On Monday, we reviewed math with the game, "calculating math", using the calculator, and also with Grant rolling his math dice to get equations to work out.  We also continued to work on spelling 5-10 words every day.  We practiced the penny whistle, and did our French lesson.  So far, during French lessons I have been teaching the kids through the use of songs and games for such words and phrases as: hello, how are you, hi, good evening, good night, I love you, see you soon, and good bye. We have also been learning the words for walk, fun, stop, fast, slow, high, and low as I tell the kids to do these actions in French.  Once they knew those words, I added in another little verse with a slow walking snail, and a fast walking ant....who goes right for the belly button. (The girls love that one!) Next, we will begin to learn the words for hands and some of the different actions, such as touch and scratch, that they can do.  Again, using a fun verse.

We also went outside and I drew the form drawing on the driveway for Grant to walk, and then we practiced drawing little ones. 

After that, we came back into the school room, and I read Grant the story of Cain and Abel.

After I read the story, we drew pictures in our lesson books.

Mom's Picture

Grant's Picture 

We also used a fun verse to review the period.

We also started making a wooden boat with Johanna, as how else would a seed son like Johanna get to the island of Lono? Johanna and I traced the pattern for the boats onto wood. (With Grant's help.) We made enough for two bigger boats, and two mini boats, because it was very important that everyone had at least one boat of their own.

On Tuesday, Grant and I reviewed the comma with this verse:

After that review, Grant re-told me the story of Cain and Abel and we came up with a summary together.  Not only did we try to include adjectives, but also commas.

I decided to re-write the summary onto the chalkboard to do our language arts exercises so we could keep Grant's lesson book work neater.

Grant has started back with knitting his elephant.  Hopefully he will get that done within the next couple weeks.

Cory also cut the pieces out for the boats, and we glued them and let them sit overnight.

On Wednesday, Grant wanted to get a picture with the elephant ears on our way into the school room. They weren't quite as elephant sized as they were last year. It was just too hot this summer!

Once inside, we played a new math game and introduced some new French words. We also reviewed the question mark.

Afterward, I told Grant the story of Jabal, who was one of Cain's sons.

After I read the story, Grant and I modeled horses out of clay.

Grant was definitely more focused on his modeling today, but he was in a bit of hurry so he could get to work on finishing his boat.

First, we sanded the boats,

Then we colored them with our beeswax crayons,

After that we put them into a 200 degree oven for about 15 minutes, then we rubbed some beeswax polish on them.

Once we were finished with that, the kids took them straight up to try them out in the tub.

Success!

On Thursday, Julia had a fun time dancing on the walk.

Once inside, we reviewed the exclamation mark with this verse:

I also had Grant re-tell me the story of Jabal, and we came up with a summary together.  We were still trying to make sure we used plenty of adjectives, and now, also trying to use all the different punctuation.  Grant copied the summary into his lesson book.

Grant also copied the form drawing for the week into his book.

Just to review all the punctuation again, I wrote a few sentences on the board, and then had Grant decide which type of punctuation should end each sentence.

Next week our stories will be about two of Cain's other sons, and we will also get a head start on making some fun Halloween crafts.