India

India has probably been our favorite country. We've watched a few Bollywood movies, really expended our palates, and had a lot of fun with our own "Holi" festival. We returned for our South Florida excursion somewhat refreshed and jump in. We cooked various Indian dishes for almost 2 weeks. Many we liked, others not so much but we did learn a lot of Vegetarian cooking. So of our favorites were Butter Chicken, Goobi Aloo, Kachumber salad, and coconut rice.

Chickpea Curry

 Th e most fun this we did is celebrate the 1st day of Spring with our own "Holi" Festival. In India they celebrate the end of the dry season on the 1 st day of Spring with Holi. Holi actauly means "fire" and in India huge bonfires burn symbolizes the burning away of the old to make way for the new. It rained here so no bonfire, but the day after the bonfires are burned is "the Day of Colors". It is the day when you can let you hair down in India and be silly ( kinda of like our April Fools). Huge gatherings occur where rice based color poweders and water are thrown and sprayed on anyone walking by as a blessing for the new year. Smearing someone in the brightest colors is showing love and your wishes for the greatest blessings on that person. So my kids really enjoyed being allowed to mess each other up.

We made our own "colors" Using cornstarch and gel food coloring. It takes a few days so you need to plan ahead... Make your own Holi colors

We started the day with trying our hands at Rangoli Art... it lasted 10 min max.....

Then it was time to spread the blessings of Springtime......

We also took a field trip to local India buffet for lunch where the kids proceeded to try a little bit of everything on the buffet. Hulk really like Tikki Masala. Ying and Yang liked these Zucchini fritters and Spicy/Sweet chicken. Grandma came along for the Adventures as Daddy had had enough Indian food....

So this has little to do really with India, but its more of a proud Mom moment.... Hulk has been a very different kid from my olders to teach. I didn't do home school K and 1 st with the girls. My girls could read and write before Kindergarten and sort of competed with each other to see who could do more. It just sort of happened. Hulk has needed a much more laid back approach to reading and writing. Its working but internally I have had to struggle with the need for him to " be further ahead". So when he showed me this I had my "ah ha" moment from the Lord that I am doing the right thing for his unique creation. This is his first real original writing. Four colors is a true triumph, but so is his first real sentence... God is real!

Resources for India:

Pintrest Pages with recipes and crafts: 

South Florida Expedition-Everglades and Biscayne National Parks+ JohnPennekamp Coral Reef State Park

We took  a week break from ECC to take a Road trip to South Florida. We had a family wedding to attend and decided to make it into an adventure. The week before we left the kids began to work on the Junior Ranger Packets from the South Florida National Parks which includes Everglades National Park, Biscayne National Park, and Big Cypress National Preserve. It took the whole week to adequately cover the material in the  entire packet and watch a few videos. After driving the entire distance of Atlanta to Miami in one day, we crashed at the hotel after working off some energy at the pool. The next day we headed off to the Everglades.  We attended a walk along the Anahinga trail with a Park Ranger who pointed out  various species of of plants and animals. The kids enjoyed and kept a running tally of the Alligators the saw (28 that day..lol). After the walk, we turned in the kids packets at the visitor center. The rangers asked them a few questions about what they had learned which the kids answered easily and they were sworn. It made their day when the Rangers announced their inductions over the PA system.

Ying in front of an impressive Strangler Fig tree.

Can you find the Gator?

A few Cormac hanging out with the kids

American Alligator

Newest Junior Rangers at the Royal Palms Visitor Center. Everglades National Park.

 Later in the afternoon, We visited Biscayne National Park which is just about 30 min from the Everglades. Most of Biscayne National Park is underwater. there is a small area with trails and a jetty but most of the park is the water around the coral reefs off shore and is only accessible by boat. Currently the park is not running boat tours, but hope to start them up soon. We were able to go on a hike with a Ranger and a representative from the the Audubon society along the canals just outside the park in search of the West Indian Manatee.  We are able to spot two hanging out near  the lock doors at the end of the Brevard canal. The kids were very impressed with these gentle giants and ad to see that the bigger of the two had had at least one run in with a propeller blade based on an old scar on the tail.

Western Manatee

After our hike we headed back to the visitors center to turn in our packets and answer some questions unquie to Biscayne National Park. The Rangers were very impressed by how much the kids really knew about the parks from the packets. It was a great day.

The next day we headed out to John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park in Key Largo. We had hoped to go on a snorkeling tour that day but the weather did not cooperate. The winds were too high and the seas rough, so the kids played around with there snorkel in the protected back beach of the park. We only took this one pic because Mom and Dad had to get in on the snorkeling fun. The rest of the trip was family fun and wedding events, which included a tour of the farm the wedding was on.

Africa- pictures only

Sorry, I am behind in getting stuff posted with writing. I am just going to post the pics from these  countries right now and hopefully get to elaborate later.

Chalk Sunsets with African Animal Silhouettes.....

North African Carrot Soup.  Recipe 

This on got 6 thumbs up!

Making Kenyan Chapati ( a type of flat bread)

Sukuma Wiki w. Chapati. Umm... the bread was good. the kids were not fans of the rest especially the greens, Recipe

Pintrest Page for Africa: https://www.pinterest.com/lettinghimlead/mfw-ecc-africa/

Deutschland- Pictures only

Sorry, I am behind in getting stuff posted with writing. I am just going to post the pics from these  countries right now and hopefully get to elaborate later.

France......

Let me be honest. Blogging this year has been MUCH harder. One ECC is much more unit study like and we do stuff in blocks more..lol.. lends its self better to a entry per country as a recap then weekly like Adventures. So here is our French exploration.... We looked at 2 French artists.. Monet and Seurat. Ying and Yang of course chose to try the 2 very different styles... Hulk? Yeah he's not into painting or coloring. He ran for the LEGOs when the paints came out.

We again got very into the food of our country. We visited a local French cafe,and had a Pariasn cheese tasting night with Daddy.  The kids like 95% of the cheese we tried, eventually. Brie was not a hit on crackers but they loved it as grilled brie and turkey sandwiches. We even tried a cheese based fudge which was surprisingly good. No one ever like the Roquefort so we passed that on the Grandpa who likes "stinky cheese".

 We did a lot of French style dinners, which were pretty easy to come by since much of my cooking techniques are French anyway. Here is our French Country Chickn with Mushrooms  serve with a side of  French Lentils with Onions and Carrots. We also had Fondue night with cheese and chocolate fondues done in the crockpot. Also a  wonderful  Roast Pork Loin with Balsamic,Dijon, and Thyme.

 In Science/art/history/health we used a kit from Micheal's to make our own cool soap. This was a crafty project even Hulk got into. We've been having a lot of conversations lately about bathing and why we have to take baths. ( Yeah we are at the age to hate anyone telling us we HAVE to do something). But with their new soap in hand everyone took a bath without complaining. Score one for mom! Now if I could just get Hulk to understand its not for his hair...lol. We also built the Eiffle Tower and a Parisian Cafe out of Legos and Duplos but the pictures are lost right now in my DH's computer.

Our France Pintrest Page with art projects, French Language videos, and more recipes is here: MFW ECC- France

Norway and all things Scandinavian...

 We really enjoyed our return to ECC  these past two weeks. We took it easy and just stuck to the plan with no extra lapbooks, etc.  We did do some extra fun cooking projects. Above were our Norwegian Open Faced Sandwhiches. The learned they really really like smoke salmon..lol. Despite Hulk's face in the picture ( He was mad I wanted a pic before he could eat ;)) they were a hit. Another hit were our mini Smorgastarta. I never thought I would make a frosting with only sour cream and cream cheese , and decorate a cake with veggies but it worked.  I got the idea from: Mini Smorgastarta

They were very simple make with canned biscuits and chicken salad for the "cake and filling".

 We didn't really get to do our art projects like Rosemailing because Grandpa was in the hospital for about 10 days. We made several trips to visit him and talk with the Doctors. He's now home and much better. We hope he stays this way, but we are prepared for all possibilities. But I think he really got scared this time and listen more about how him not managing his blood sugars just compunds all his other issues realted to the transplant. The transplant team is very good about the kids visiting him partially because they no we never come sick and the kids are at lower risk for being sick with our homeschooling ;).. Doesn't hurt that theyare doing school work and aren't running around like little wild animals. One of his nursing assiants even took time to talk with the kids about growing up in Nigeria, and what it was like to move to the US. I think she was shocked to have the kids pay attention to her that way.

The girls got very good with Europe in the Geography game, so next week we will add back in North and South America. We took a Scandinavian twist to the game this day and played with  Swedish Fish..lol...

We also managed to  get in a good day of climbing in for some PE. They love it and are getting very good. Hulk really like bouldering without his harness attached..lol

Check out some of the recipies and ideas we collected for Norway on Pintrest....

http://www.pinterest.com/lettinghimlead/mfw-norway/

Some curriculum changes for the new year.......

 So the year has evolved and we are making some changes, swaps, and addition to our curriculum.... here's an update:
 We are back to our primary spine of Exploring Countries and Cultures (ECC) by My Father's World for Bible, Geography, and partial Science, music, and art.
*denotes co-op classes starting in Aug/*starting in Jan. 
Our biggest swap is getting rid of Cello..lol.. we over extended here and have had to pull back. It was just too much for me and the kids. We've also given up our Earth Sciences class via co-op due to the choice of textbook that doesn't fit our worldview. I would say we are among the more "liberal" in our co-op so sometimes we just have to adjust ;)... I find it funny calling us "liberal"... but it is a relative term... Also Hulk is progressing faster than anticipated especially in Math so he has moved on to 1st grade Saxon Math 1 and I will be exploring additional phonics programs over the next few months.

For Hulk  (k/1):
Bible: ECC and The Adventure Bible Devotions for Early Readers.
Math: Flash Kids Math K  Saxon Math 1 and Reflex math daily for drill
Reading/Phonics/handwriting: First Start Reading by Memoria Press (got this at an amazing price @ our local used curriculum sale) ( We re continuing with this though we are almost done and will be adding additional reading exercises from Reading a-z.com for now)
Dolch sight words pre-primer and primer list.
*Storybook cooking 1 & 2
Science: *Adventures in Space/ Wacky Weather, tag along with ECC science
Music: *Music for Young Mozarts 1&2
PE: Soccer 2 nights per week, Continue 1 mile training
Fine Motor/math/sci: *Lego Free Building/ Lego Early Simple Machines

For Ying "My Logic child" (3rd):
Bible:  ECC and The Adventure Bible Devotions for Early Readers
Math: Teaching textbooks. 2nd half of  Math 3, and moving on to Math 4 when ready. Reflex math daily for drill
Handwriting: Cursive Writing: around the World in 26 Letters
LA: A combo of Flash Kids  Reading Skills/Language Arts/Writing Skills 3, *Lego Story Starter 1 & 2
Reading: Assigned and self chosen novels/bookbasket
Science: ECC & *Earth Science 1 & 2;  STEM: Parachutes and airplanes.
Music: ECC & * Beginning Cello
Art: Global art from ECC
PE: *Choi Kwang Do, Soccer 3 nights a week, continue 5K training Youth climb club 2 nights per week plus additional climbs.
electives: *Lego stop animation movie making,* Claymation movie making, *The Middle Ages (a fun history class that focuses on the food, and social life of the middle ages)

For Yang " My artsy social butterfly" (3rd):
Bible:  ECC and The Adventure Bible Devotions for Early Readers
Math: Teaching textbooks. 2nd half of  Math 3, and moving on to Math 4 when ready. Reflex math daily for drill
Handwriting: Cursive Writing: around the World in 26 Letters
LA: A combo of Flash Kids  Reading Skills/Language Arts/Writing Skills 3,
Reading: Assigned and self chosen novels/bookbasket-
Science: ECC & *Earth Science 1 & 2 *STEM: Parachutes and airplanes.
Music: ECC & * Beginning Cello
Art: Global Art and *Art exploration through mixed media,   *Papercrafting,
PE: *Choi Kwang Do, Soccer 3 nights a week, continue 5K training ; Swimming lessons 2 days per week.
electives: * Loom knitting for beginners , *Girls in Grace ( basic home ec and social graces for young ladies), *Claymation movie making