Last week in our history curriculum, we were studying the Indus River Civilization. Okay, I have never even heard of* the Indus River Valley, but apparently it is modern day Pakistan.One of the arts and craft activities was to build a Lego structure to resemble a building from this time period. I thought that Briggs would really love this opportunity to build something with Lego's and count it as school. It took a while for him to get past no instructions/ I've never built a city or building like this before/ I just don't know where to start, Mom. He finally got past his apprehension and here is what he came up with: (He suggested I put this on the blog)
For Christmas, we got the boys a Zillio. It is a really awesome contraption that helps secretly teach math skills thinly veiled as games with names like "Mountain Goat Scramble" and "Homing Pigeon II." The thing I really love is that it can be adapted for a very wide age range, from preschoolers to 6th graders. It teaches 10 essential math skills:
Basically, when Max plays, he just practices counting. When Briggs plays, he multiples and divides. They can even play the same game at the same time, using different skills. In mom world, it just doesn't get any better than that!
*Confession: I NEVER got history. I just never really understood it. It wasn't taught chronologically and I just memorized the facts hoping I could ace the test that way. I remember taking Western Civilization as an AP class as a senior in high school. The whole time I was thinking, when did this happen? Where are we talking about? Was this BC or AD? How does this fit in with anything that I have a frame of reference for? Calgon take me away! So my ulterior plan with this whole homeschool thing is to re-learn some history and hopefully understand it this time:)