Throughout this school year we’ve been celebrating Mexican holidays & doing crafts to go along with them. Recently we celebrated Cinco de Mayo.

I was really hoping we’d be able to finish off our year with a trip to Mexico. I’d love to see Chichen Itza & other Mayan ruins. But, that didn’t happen. Bummer.

But, we did create some fun crafts.

Double Headed Serpent Mosaic

Years ago we went on a cruise through the Mexican Riviera. On the ship was a version of the Double Headed Serpent. So when I saw the mosaic craft at That Artist Woman, I knew it was one we were going to do.

I cut the serpent shapes out of stiff cardboard.

The kids used tempera paint on the entire serpent. This doubled as “grout” on their mosaic.

I must admit the other thing that drew me to this craft was that it required egg shells. I’m always on the lookout for ways to use eggs. I had recently colored eggs to place in the background of a few photos of our new chicks. This was a perfect way to use up those shells.

The kids used watered down clear Elmer’s glue to adhere the colored egg shells.

Farm Girl & Farm Kid1 chose to use buttons as their eyes. Farm Kid2 cut out circles from index paper.

The mouth & teeth were cut from white index paper.

Mosaic Masterpieces

Other Crafts Inspired by Mexico:

Papel Picaco

I checked out a book from the library to look at for our papel picado craft.

We used tissue paper and scissors to create designs from the book.

We strung them all together on string & hung them in our house.

Sombrero

I saw a photo on Flickr and loved the craft. So, we put together our own version.

I created a hat template out of index paper. Then, the kids traced the template onto old file folders & cut them out.

I got out a pile of crafting goodies for the kids to use as they wanted. Farm Kid1 decided to use the shavings of a colored pencil for decoration, which I thought was an original idea.

Then they cut out an oval & drew on a nose & mouth. I love that the eyes are covered.

Fun Crafts = Fun Times

The post Double Headed Serpent Mosaic appeared first on .

To hold all their papers and crafts from our study of Mexico, the kids made quick and easy lapbooks.

The lapbook is made from two index folders taped together. A third index folder was cut to make pockets, which were taped to the full index folders.

We kept it pretty simple. The cover has the Mexican flag glued to it and stamped letters to spell Mexico.

Inside the lapbook holds a variety of items we worked on throughout the year, including the double headed serpent mosaic.

Celebrating Dia de los Muertos?
Check out the printables at Ridgetop Digital Shop.

The post Mexico Lapbook appeared first on .

On the 5th of May the kids did not work on their regular curriculum. Instead, we had a Mexican themed party day.

I took the items in the pocket chart out and replaced them with Mexico related things. My mom gave me the map with info on it, which was a placemat from a restaurant. The photos, money, and dress up dolls came out of our North American Continent Box.

I read Tomie dePaola’s Adelita to the kids. It is a Mexican Cinderella story.

As a comparison, I also read Cinders by Jan Brett. This book is a Chicken Cinderella story, which of course, we loved. We also discussed Disney’s version of Cinderella.

This was a win, win, win conversation. I love Jan Brett, I love Tomie dePaola, and I love Disney.

For lunch we had one of my favorite meals: chicken tacos, with Spanish rice and beans. I even pulled out the hand painted dishes we bought in Mexico many moons ago.

We ate homemade churros after lunch.

Spanish bingo has been a huge hit on our Mexico days, so we played it again. Bingo prizes were leftover pencils & erasers.

The kids also made a few crafts that day.

It’s a lot of work to put together a theme day, but they are so much fun.

The post Cinco de Mayo appeared first on .

To go along with our study of Mexico, we spent January 6th learning about Three Kings Day. It is 12 days after Christmas & celebrates the three wise men bringing their gifts to baby Jesus. We don’t typically celebrate this day in our family, but many Latin Americans do so we explored it.

Kings Bread

We started the morning with our version of Rosca de Reyes, or Kings’ Bread.

Making bread is easy, but I needed something even easier that day. So, I used cinnamon rolls from a tube. I placed them in a crown shape & hid an almond in one of the rolls. The almond represented baby Jesus.

Traditionally the person who finds baby Jesus in the bread is supposed to host a party on February 2nd. Instead, I gave the kid who found the almond a 3 Kings Day Bar.

Gold, Frankincense & Myrrh

Representing the gifts of frankincense & myrrh I used a scented warmer in the school room. I don’t typically use a warmer and the kids enjoyed the new smell that day.

Representing gold were chocolate coins.

Spanish Word Bingo

Just for fun we played Spanish Bingo. The template is from the Scholastic Monthly Idea books.

Silhouette Craft

The kids made a craft I found at Crayola. It is very similar to a silhouette craft we made a couple years ago.

They began by painting their background with watered down paint, then adding salt to the wet paint. The salt soaks up the color and leaves “stars” in the sky.

While the paint was drying they cut out wise men & camel shapes out of black construction paper.

Next, they painted a simple foreground. And finally, they glued their silhouette shapes to the painted paper.

This was a fun day expanding our knowledge about both Christmas & Mexico. These hands-on days are my favorite way to school my children.

The post Three Kings Day appeared first on .

The first stop on our world tour was a temperate rainforest in North America. This is very similar to the biome we live in, so it was a great place to start. Although, I think the idea of a temperate rainforest confused Farm Kid1 a little bit. He’s only ever heard about tropical rainforests. I could have also chosen a coniferous forest as our home biome.

Wikipedia‘s basic definition of a temperate rainforest is:

Temperate rainforests are coniferous or broadleaf forests that occur in the temperate zone and receive heavy rainfall.

School Room

This week the pocket chart showed the following information:
• average high temperature around 76°
• average low around 35°
• annual rainfall definitely varies, but averages around 100″
• example plant producers are salmon berry and moss
(Click here for a quick peek of our hike at Munson Creek Falls, with a stop for picking salmon berries)
• example herbivores are deer and elk
• example carnivores are black bear and cougar
• example decomposers are slugs and worms
(Click here for a post on how slugs mate)

Left: I stamped Farm Kid1’s “passport” with evergreen trees.
Right: Farm Kid1 chose to do his temperate rainforest animal report on the coyote.

Front side of his temperate rainforest postcard.

I sent Farm Kid1 on a mission to collect things from his bedroom that are found in the temperate rainforest. These are the things he came back with. They are placed near our world map and continent boxes.

Since we were visiting North America, we rummaged through our North America continent box – even though there wasn’t much on the temperate rainforest.

Field Trips

We had fun visiting both the Tillamook Forest Center and the World Forestry Center.

Around our House

Some maps state we live in a temperate rainforest, some don’t. Either way, we have many of the same plants and animals as Olympic National Park, which is a temperate rainforest. The temperate rainforest is dominated by large trees, but is also home to many mosses, lichens and epiphytes. Right now one of my favorite wildflowers is in bloom, the trillium.

This was a fun week. I actually learned a few things about our environment, as well.

For more information on a temperate rainforest check out this post from Marietta College or this pdf from Nasa.

Links to our Continents & Biomes:
North America – Temperate Rainforest
South America – Tropical Rainforest
Antarctica – Ice Cap
Africa – Sahara Desert
Australia – Coral Reef
Asia – Tundra
Europe – Deciduous Forest

The post Biomes of the World: Temperate Rainforest appeared first on .

Since we live here, the North America continent box was the easiest to put together. There are many more items I could add to this box – eventually I will.

North American art, animals, and landmarks.

Currency from Canada, United States, Mexico & Netherland Antilles. I chose the rarer coins for the US such as the $2 bill and the Susan B. Anthony dollar. Before we had kids we went on a diving vacation in Bonaire, which is part of the Netherland Antilles. Bonaire is only 50 miles off the coast of Venezuela, South America. But, I think technically it’s considered part of North America. So, that money went in this box.

Left: A variety of pics, mostly from Mexico. We will be studying the 50 states next year. I think I will save my US pics until then. The airplane photo was taken as we were flying over Greenland.

Right: My mom let me borrow these old (both are postmarked 1926) postcards.

Left: Native American paper dolls from Practical Pages & landmarks from Paper Toys.

Right: Paper Dolls from Making Friends & Road Trip paper activity from Made by Joel

Other North American goodies including a book counting in Spanish from Enchanted Learning and a cross made in Mazatlan.

Our Continent Boxes:
Africa
Antarctica
Asia
Australia
Europe
North America
South America

To learn more about our continent boxes click here.

The post Continent Box – North America appeared first on .

Farm Kid1 & I are both enjoying this unit. It has been a great way to discuss other countries, even if it hasn’t been in great detail. I like learning about so many countries, but next year I think we will only do 1 or 2 countries per week so we can study each country more in depth. I would like to learn a song, do a craft & cook something from each country. We just don’t have the time to do that with this set up.

Mexico
Feliz Navidad

I chose Mexico as a country to study because when Farm Kid1 was 3 years old & Farm Kid2 was 1 we had the opportunity to go on a Mexican cruise with some friends of ours. This was a nice way to throw in real life conversation along with learning something new. (Although, I don’t recommend going on a cruise with such young children.)

TAMALES
This couldn’t have worked out more perfectly. My hubby wanted to make tamales, so I asked him if Farm Kid1 could help. And, voila our Mexican themed activity was complete. Although, Farm Kid1 didn’t really care for the taste of the finished tamale.

Philippines
Maligayang Pasko

This year, through our church, our family put together 2 gift boxes for Samaritan’s Purse. I received an email saying our gifts were sent to the Philippines, which is why I chose to study this country.

PAROL
The parol is a common Christmas decoration in the Philippines. This one Farm Kid1 made is not lighted or near as fancy as the ones seen in the Philippines, but for some reason it makes me happy. It just seems cheery.

Switzerland
Schoni Faschttag

I didn’t have a real reason to study Switzerland, I just simply chose it. The Switzerland activity was creating a natural bell. The instructions are on Homeschool share. It turned out so-so.

Our Christmas Around the World Links:
Week 1 – Finland, France & Australia
Week 2 – Mexico, Philippines & Switzerland
Week 3 – England, Italy & Israel

The post Christmas Around the World – Week 2 appeared first on .