Ancient Mesopotamia

I am teaching a one hour co op class on Ancient History using HOW I (Konos) to high school students and I am thoroughly enjoying it. I have discovered that one hour is just not enough time.

In addition to the homework I assign, such as Streams of Civilization and various websites, we have done some really fun things to help the lessons stick.

We studied Abraham and his journey and placed him on a time line and plotted his journey. I will say that map work is my weak point. I envisioned beautiful colored maps and frankly it hasn't worked out that way, but we all have the idea. Next we added Issac and Jacob and Esau to our time lines. We ate a traditional red lentil stew. I found this amazing website that gave me history and recipe. http://theshiksa.com/2011/02/23/jacobs-lentil-stew/ You must check out her fabulous website.

Finally we studied the tower of Babel and added it to the time line and then we proceeded to build the tower out of sugar cubes. I honestly wasn't sure how well received this project would be among highschool students but I was pleasantly surprised. They enjoyed the process and were pretty particular that it did not look like a pyramid but a ziggarut.

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The Bible is not a self-help book

My dear sweet friend has invited me and my children to come once a week and study I Peter via video web cast. It is a church in Washington State, Mars Hill Church. www.marshillchurch.org. Anyway, he was speaking of the Old Testament being about Jesus and the New Testament being about Jesus. He reviewed many prophesies fulfilled and it was beautiful to be reminded of all that Jesus has done and will do. It is all about Jesus! Out of all the things he said the thing that struck me the most was that the Bible is not a self-help book. Big deal you say. Think about this. How many books in the Christian book store are self-help books. If you do this, you will get this result. If you have this problem read, pray and meditate on this verse, chapter, principle etc. The Bible is not some rule book. Follow the rules and you will get xyz. If you have this problem and follow this formula your results will be..... That is not to say that there is not instruction and warning and tho...

the worst thing he could think of

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I yearn for order, I love order, I crave order.

Messes seem to paralyze me. You would not guess this from the state of my house. (this is our sock and laundry pile) However, I am also a low key, not a high energy person mostly due to health issues and fatigue. So... I plan. I love to plan actually. I plan meals, I plan organizational ideas, I plan school, I plan to plan. My school year starts out with me reflecting on what I didn't like and did like about the last school year. There are some years I realize that we used a method or curriculum that is diametrically opposed to our homeschool philosophy. This past year is a good example of this reflection. For our family, workbooks aren't necessarily a good tool for us to learn, neither are lapbooks. This year I picked up a workbook for everything. I even had more than one for most subjects. Just the 3 R's took hours, retention was lower than I wanted and the fun Konos stuff tended to be left out in favor for, another workbook. So armed with ...

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