Monday, February 21, 2011

The Assyrians, History Kart, and A Sunny Day

For history last week, we learned about the Assyrians.  I have to say, History has turned out to be one of Davin's favorite subjects (and mine too!)  It is just so fascinating, and I am glad we are starting with ancient history and learning chronologically.  It just makes sense that you'd want to start at the beginning of the story and move on from there, right?  We're using Story of the World for history:

The Story of the World, Activity Book 1: Ancient Times - From the Earliest Nomad to the Last Roman Emperor

After reading the chapter in the book, here's the narrations from Davin.  I just love doing narrations as it really shows me if he has retained what he has heard or read.  It also amazes me what he remembers and can put in his own words!:

"Shamshi-Adad was a king of Assur.  He was a bad dedicator (*he meant, "dictator").  His empire was called Assyria.  Babylonia was too great and mighty for him to conquer, so Babylonia conquered Assyria."

"Gilgamesh was a half-man, half-god creature.  He was a bad man.  A half-man, half-beast named Enkidu came down to defeat Gilgamesh.  Then a trapper's boy saw Enkidu and taught him how to talk, eat, and wear clothes.  They had a fight, but Gilgamesh said, "Let's be friends." 

Then it was time for some map work:


 We read the story of "Gilgamesh" and discovered it's one of the world's oldest fairy tales!  Davin colored this picture:


Next, he was to draw a picture of what he imagined "Enkidu", the half-man, half-beast, to look like:


This gave him an idea to draw "Enkidu's Kart", his own take on a historical "Mario Kart."  Is that totally adorable or what?  He also has Abraham with his beard shown below:


After that he wanted to go through our history book and illustrate every person we've read about so far to be a character in his "History Kart" set.  Here we have the "White Crown King" or "King Narmer" of upper Egypt (I think!) and the "Red Crown King" of lower Egypt:


Next are some Egyptian gods:


The last project was for him to write his own fairy tale, and here it is:

Super Yoshi and the Giant

"Once upon a time there was someone named Super Yoshi.  He got lost in the forest once and ran out of all the food and water he supplied.  At last, he found a house.  It looked like a giant house.  He thought, "There's no such thing as a giant!"  Was he right?  No!  "Fee fi fo fum!"  He heard a giant.  But, Yoshi didn't hear this until he ran into the house.  Slam!  The door slammed shut.  The Giant ran into see what was happening.  Yoshi hid under a giant chair.  Then the Giant locked the door!  Yoshi knew the Giant might eat him.  He had to escape!  He ran out from under the chair to hide somewhere else.  Yoshi was right; he got under the Giant's refrigerator just in time.  Ding dong!  The doorbell rang.  The Giant ran to see who rang the doorbell.  It was his wife.  As soon as the Giant opened the door, Yoshi got some food and water and ran out the door just in time!  And he found his way back home.  The End.


Last week we were blessed with the most beautiful day!  A day of sunshine and temps in the 60s does wonders for lifting the spirits in the last weeks of winter.  It also melted a lot of snow, but there were still areas where the snow piles were still 1-2 feet tall.  My boys played outside for hours on end and got oh-so-muddy, but it was so worth it!

Here's smiley Dorian, jumping on the little trampoline:


Davin, looking cute in his boots:


Quinnlyn was napping most of the afternoon, and then played in the sunporch.  Here she is trying to play peek-a-boo!:


Davin saying "Hi Quinny!" and felt sorry that his little sis was missing out on the fun outside!  I held her outside for a while, though, so we could soak up some Vitamin D :)


Watching her brothers:


Look who I found when I went to get Quinnlyn from her crib!  My sister mentioned that it looks like something my brother Matt would have done (who is 2 years older than me).  My mom said that it certainly was something that happened!  There's a lot of Uncle Matt in Dorian, I'm told :)


Hugging little sissy:


We had some fun times last week!  I'm hoping to blog a little more frequently, but we shall see.... :)

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