One week down, 33 to go!  This week in History, we not only discussed our classroom routine and policies, but we did a very QUICK review of the first 23 chapters.  We pointed out that no matter where in the world we went there was an established government and a leader in charge.  These people in charge liked their power and often let jealousy, greed, and pride rule their lives.  They went through extreme measures to stay on the throne.  We also discussed that every where we visited also had an established religion and this often led to a lot of conflicts.  The last thing we discussed in almost every chapter was that these countries all at one time or another wanted to expand their territory which often caused conflicts and wars.  That's the short version.  For those that are new, I probably threw a lot of names and events at them (just to support what I listed above) and for those who were returning it was good to summarize last year into some key themes.  It was important to discuss this because the book is only half way finished.  We will continue to see these themes and how we have and can learn from history.

I made a couple of changes to the schedule already.  As Kari and I went shopping for all the fun supplies we'll need this year in History, we realized that the amount of flour I needed for a couple of activities equaled 150lbs.  We decided it would be really helpful if we had parents send in the flour and then help with the 50lbs of salt we need (salt maps and pinatas).  The dates have been revised so please view those, as 1c flour per student will be needed on Sept.5th (start the pinatas).  We are going to finish the pinatas much later, but since that Mon. is a holiday and pinatas take a lot of time to dry, we will start them then and finish decorating with tissue paper later.

Last year we visited 5 continents, next week we explore the last two!