Saturday, November 6, 2010

Weeks 5 and 6


In weeks 5 and 6 we studied Mexico. This was our first country that we studied outside of the United States, so we needed to use our passports! The kids loved putting the Mexico flag sticker into their passports.


We had lots of fun with this country and learned much about the culture and also enjoyed the Mexican food! Tacos were already a favorite meal in this household, so it was definitely on the menu! With our homeschool co-op we also had a fiesta and tried other Mexican foods such as taquitoes, cheese quessadillas, bean and corn tortilla soup, chips and salsa, and Mexican hot chocolate.









We also made tissue paper flowers....


 
  

 and also made our very own pinatas!!! The kids had fun breaking them open and gathering all the candy.


 

Along with studying Mexico, we also studied about deserts. We learned how plants survive living in the deserts. I found this great lesson/experiment online:
Here is a picture of the plant we used for our experiment - the Aloe Vera plant. We learned how the waxy skin of desert plants work, how the spongy roots work, and why the pore size of these plants matter. And of course when we were finished we broke open one of the leaves and examined the aloe vera and discussed the importance of it.



Here are some of the books that we read and loved:



We used water paints to illustrate a picture of the desert and also made a collage of desert animals using some cut-outs from magazines.





We ended our study of Mexico by visiting a local desert. Yes, there is a desert in Maine!!! We had lots of fun on this family trip although it was very chilly. Thankfully, they had blankets on the tour ride. For those of you who are interested, here is a link to their website:





After the tour was over they searched for gems, panned for fossils, and also got to see butterflies up close in the butterfly room.















We had so much fun studying this country!

2 comments:

  1. I really enjoyed reading this post, and I'd never thought of making homemade pinatas or studying about the aloe plant, but those are such great suggestions! It would be fun to do something like this around Cinco de Mayo. Thanks for sharing some wonderful ideas with the rest of us!

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  2. so many wonderful pictures! You are a brave momma for doing those pinatas! We just decorated a paper grocery sack stuffed w/ our goodies and then stapled the top shut!

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