Kaleidoscope of Missions

Every year our "Children In Action" and "Mission Friends" groups at our church get to attend a mission function sponsored by the Tennessee Women's Missionary Union . This year it was called "Kaleidoscope of Missions" .
It was a wonderful opportunity for children and youth to get to talk to missionaries and hear about how their work in other countries had an impact on lives of children and others like them. They got to see and touch item from other countries that the missionaries had brought back from each of the various lands they were commissioned to.
They played a "Bible Trivia" game set up like Jeopardy, heard lots of different stories about distant lands and what life was like there, listened to songs of praise sung in different languages and just had a great time of learning and fellowship with people who had experienced so much doing the Lord's work.

Sam Houston School

                                               ~Sam Houston ~
 A great man in history. We took a field trip to the Sam Houston Schoolhouse and learned so much in such a short time. He was a teacher, practicing attorney, 2 term US Congressman from TN, Governor of TN, and then as a Texan he achieved even more ~ helped liberate Texas from Mexican rule, served 3 terms as President of the Republic of Texas, helped annex Texas to the US, and was a US Senator from Texas for 14 yrs. All this was accomplished in a lifespan of 70yrs.
                  (an excellent book we read prior to the field trip)

The kids retained so much from this trip that it amazes me. They got to actually have some lessons taught by a "schoolmarm" in period dress and manner in the actual one room schoolhouse where Houston first taught school. Attended displays and watched various craftsmen use a spinning wheel to make various kinds of yarn, flax and silks, make ammunition for rifles of the period, grind corn into meal by hand (very hard work) and take a tour of the on-site museum.
                           The One Room Sam Houston School House                                                    Having class                                       Grinding corn by hand

More info about Houston ~ he was a friend to the Native American people, married 3 times and died with the last words on his lips being "Texas, Texas". 
You can learn more about this amazing legend in TN and Texas History  here
and here.

A Fungus Among Us...

We recently completed a unit study on Fungus... It was very interesting and informative on my part.. 
I ordered the e-book "A Fungus Among Us"  from TOS and it was great.

Luckily it has been a wet season with lots of mushrooms to study.

We took many nature walks, compared wild mushrooms to those bought in a package from the grocery, dissected various forms of fungi that we found on journeys through the yard and woods, and grew our own mold on bread and other various food items to see if there was a difference in the type according to the type of food used.

We finished our plans with worksheets found across the net and books from the library...


DS looking at the gills of a mushroom.



DD having fun with dissection.

Some great worksheets about mushrooms can be found here, at ENCHANTED LEARNING.
More info can be found here along with great teaching ideas and activities.
Order your own "Mushroom Growing Kit" here.