Turkish Tea Party

Yesterday we celebrated the conclusion of our geography study on Turkey with a Turkish "tea party". We invited Oma, Zane and one of Lilly's friends whom we affectionately call "Tickle". Oma and Zane arrived a little late but still experienced the Turkish Delights and Black Tea. Remember Edmond in the movie Narnia? He couldn't quit eating the Turkish Delights given to him by the Ice Queen.

Lilly made the Black Tea, a favorite in Turkey. We purchased the Turkish Delights at World Market. They were like powdered sugar coated gummies with a tiny seed in the middle. We still don't know what the seed was. I'm assuming it added a little flavor. These Turkish Delights were actually made in Istanbul, Turkey which is located on the Bosphorous Strait between the Black Sea and the Sea of Marma which lies on the west coast of Turkey. On the eastern side of Turkey lies Mount Ararat which is the supposed resting place of Noah's ark.

Turkey is not only historically significant it is also a fascinating place. Turkey is famous for beautiful rugs called Kilim's, whirling Dervishes, beehive houses, Cleopatra's gate and even Swimming Cats called van kedi's in Turk. Biblically significant places include Mount Ararat, the ancient city of Ephesus; home of the Ephesians. The Tigris & Euphrates rivers begin in Turkey. The Garden of Eden is believed to possibly be in Turkey somewhere north of these two famous rivers. (Genesis 2:10,14). The Hagia Sophia built by the Christian Roman Emperor Justinain in 537 A.D. contains 30 million tiny gold tiles and is now one of the most famous places in Turkey to visit. Just watch the videos in the link included with this post to get a taste of this beautiful land... quite possibly the birth place of the human race!

We Finally Have a World Map!

I finally bought a very large world map. I looked and looked all over the internet and could never decide on the "perfect" map. Hmmm.... is there such a thing as perfect? I was in Office Max, saw the large rolled up world and United States maps bundled together for $6.95 and decided... perfect-o! Up until now we've used Google Earth and small maps provided with our texts.

We rolled out the huge World Map and located our geographical points of study. On current versions of world maps this area is Turkey, Lebanon, Iraq and Israel. We found Turkey....check. Where was Israel?.... Israel?....Israel?---Whoa! Look at how small it is compared to the rest of the world! Oh my.... look at where it is compared to the rest of the world's land masses. Hmmm... pretty interesting! None of this was in our books we are using to study geography and history. I'll let the pictures speak for themselves. You can click on each picture to enlarge them. To quote one of the books we're studying. "...the Israelites left a legacy unlike any other in the world. Instead of riches, knowledge, or fine art, their legacy was a religious one. Thousands of years later, people across the world would know about the Israelites' God."--Ancient Israelites and Their Neighbors.

Ancient Egypt ROCKS!

We've been studying Ancient Civilizations this year. Lilly and

Zane really enjoyed making the crowns that represent both

upper and lower Egypt & learning basic facts about the ancient

Egyptians from the song, "Strut King Tut". Very silly but fun!

Poems and Bible Recitations

Last week was the end of our first twelve weeks of homeschooling. Lilly learned My Kingdom by Robert Louis Stevenson and The Lord's Prayer. Zane decided on Time to Rise, Rain and The Swing--all by Stevenson as well. We posted My Kingdom by Lilly and Time to Rise by Zane. These are the final recitings of their memory work for the last twelve weeks. Enjoy!

Celebrating Susan

Lilly's friend Susan had her story and drawing published in the kids magazine Clubhouse Jr by Focus on the family. She sent in her work to the magazine and it was chosen to be published. Lilly and Susan have been life long friends and both of them love to create, draw and write stories. Below you will find the picture in the magazine of the request for drawings and stories of what the puppy is doing and what Susan drew and wrote. Way to go Susan!

History Highway

The history of ancient civilizations has turned out to be a fascinating subject for all of us. I'm having to do a lot of digging and researching because this was not an area that interested me in school or that was taught in depth. My goal is to give Lilly and Zane a good grasp of the span of mankind from Adam through the birth of Jesus this year with our History Highway and the various texts we are reading. We found this little road and mini-cars at Lakeshore along with the cardstock notebook cards. We are using these to post important dates along our highway. So far, we have made it up to Nimrod attempting to build the Tower of Babel. I thought you might enjoy seeing the pictures they both drew depicting various scenes. Lilly was a little perplexed as to how to draw Adam & Eve in the garden of Eden. She finally decided on hiding them behind some beautiful flowers. I loved Z's drawing of God on day 7 resting on a bed. His simple stick figure of God laying on His bed makes me smile every time I look at it. Another cute drawing is of Eve picking the apple from the Tree of Knowledge. I don't know if you can tell in the picture but she has quite a loooooong arm. Lilly's depiction of Cain killing Abel is fascinating. Cain has his sword drawn up high in the air and Abel is bent over backwards. Notice the lightening bolt in the background. That is "God's anger". The yellow cars driving on the bottom of the highway have the dates, as near as possible written on them. The pictures are attached with paperclips so we can take them off and have the kids put them in chronological order as a way to test what they remember. This is a very fun way to learn about the history of the world!

We are using A Child's History of the World by Hillyer as a broad overview to world history and The Story of the Ancient World by Miller for more specific dates. We have several geography books that we are using alongside our history lessons. More on geography later...