Painting like Michaelangelo

The girls took turns under the dinning room table creating their own masterpieces!

Ancient China

As part of ancient history, we have been spending some time in ancient China.  We went to Chinatown with Daddy this year, this time just days after the Dragon parade.  We missed out on the strawberry cake at Phoenix Bakery as they sold out of the individual cakes!  The girls enjoyed the Mochi instead.

We went tot he Central Plaza and found the statue of Dr. Sun Yat Sen, founder of the China Republic, the Wishing Well, and five tier pagoda.  After lunch we went to the Phoenix Bakery for Mochi, then onto a Tao Temple.

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Seasons Change, by Hannah Jaffe

When autumn changes to winter,
and Christmas season is near,
wandering close winter,
is lovely time here, yet?
Yes, the lovely season is here.

Heavenly breezes blow,
leaves that lasted fall,
the sun is coming from the south,
butterflies migrate and grass wilts.
That is the lovely season,
but, how does autumn turn to winter?

"The season changes because of me," says God.
"It is me that makes the earth change by season.
I order autumn to change to winter."

"I make the heavenly breezes you know.
It is I that make leaves that lasted fall,
I make the sun come in through the south,
I make butterflies migrate south.
Do you not understand that I make the seasons change?"

Classical Conversations Timeline Weeks 1-4

Ancient History Writing

We are learning about ancient civilizations this year.  Today we specifically tried our hand at writing on clay tablets...

Cleopatra Exhibit @ CA ScienCenter

We are studying ancient civilizations this year, so it was exciting to see that the Cleopatra Exhibit was in town!  Alyssa's favorite part was listening to Cleopatra telling her story on the audio tour.  Part of the fun with that was finding the numbers throughout the exhibit to punch into the wand to listen.  There were a lot of fascinating objects discovered under the sea.  Hannah liked seeing one of the tiny hand held mirrors and the many pieces of jewelry.  Most impressive to me was the huge statues of two of the gods which flanked the entrance to the temple where Cleopatra was crowned queen of Egypt.  Pictured with the girls is Taylor, a family friend who is going to school here in southern CA.  The girls like to call him their cousin.  They are having fun hanging out with him as he waits fro school to start.

Walking With the Harbor Seals

Today we went to the LA Zoo and had a behind the scenes tour of the Harbor Seal exhibit.  One of our home school friends knows one of the zoo keepers there.  The girls got to feed the seals and use hand motions to have them do some tricks.  The highlight was to "walk" the seal by using a q-tip like stick to show the seal where you wanted it to go. 
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