And Away We Go!

This week, the Arts Academy completed their semester with some incredible showcases of their work. This week, the Homeschool Programs wrap up the semester as well. Read more below!

MARK YOUR CALENDARS!

OAKS/GARDEN Final Presentation - Thursday, December 14 at 3:45pm

SEEDS Final Presentation - Friday, December 15 at 4:00pm

Showtime

The cast of “Twas the Night Before…” gets ready before the house opens.

READINGS FOR THE WEEK - Family Book Package

The readings listed below are optional, but are great ways to reinforce the lessons taught at the center and for the entire family to explore together the topics we cover from week to week.

Our Memory verse can be found at the end of this page.

The Bible - the Book of Matthew

Matthew 12:1-45

Window on the World

pp. 168-169 (Turkey)

Children’s Atlas to God’s World

pp. 38-41

Additional Read-Alouds:

HERO TALES
- pp. 176-187 - John Wesley
The Usborne Living World Encyclopedia
- pp. 84-85; 90-91

The Garden

This week for worship we reviewed Jesus’ birth story. How wonderful to think that our Lord and Savior came humbly to this world to give us the hope of eternal life with Him. “Yo tengo a Jesús en mi corazón”, said Cesare. We have also been preparing during our worship time for our special presentation on our last day. Let’s not forget to keep practicing our two songs: “Angels We Have Heard on High” and “Go Tell It on the Mountain.”

This week at the big park the children learned how to play Duck, Duck, Goose. Laughter and excited shouts filled the air. At the small park, they continued to enjoy playing policemen. The children also had the opportunity to water the plants, as they all took turns with the hose.

During activity time we have been working on making angels. This creation has involved painting, tearing, drawing and making collages. This craft will be a beautiful decoration at home that reminds us of God’s faithful promise of sending the Messiah and using his messengers the angels to announce the good news of His coming.

This week at drama we had different characters that helped them get familiarized with next week’s presentation. They loved getting dressed up as Mary, Joseph, an angel, shepherds and sheep. Everybody was getting involved in taking care of the doll playing baby Jesus. These Garden girls are very nurturing.

We look forward to this week’s presentation where we will sing praises to our King!

SEEDS

Seeds Worship

We have been blessed to celebrate so many of our students over the last few weeks and thank God for their lives. Josie, Luke, and Emma have all had birthdays over the last few weeks and what a delight it has been to praise God for them and be able to read their birthday books. Emma received a book about the hymn write Fanny Crosby. Fanny was a woman who lost her sight as a baby, but that didn’t stop her from “seeing” all the wonderful things God had done for her. She dedicated her life to praising him through song and poetry. It is estimated that over the course of her life, she wrote over 9,000 hymns! She understood that our God is a god worth praising! This is the same God we will be praising at this week’s end of semester presentation. Mrs. Emily and Mr. Jean have both been amazing with the kids in getting them ready. We look forward to sharing this with you at the end of this week.

Seeds Science

What did you learn? I asked my children what they remember from class this past week and thankfully they were excited to tell me! We learned about the freshwater biomes that include lakes, ponds, rivers, and streams.

We finally got to answer a question that occasionally surfaces in our home conversations: “What is the difference between lakes and ponds?” Essentially, lakes are deeper and have two zones, similar to oceans. The eupohotic zone is called the sunlit zone because the suns rays still reach. The deeper layer, where the light no longer reaches, is the aphotic zone and is also called the midnight zone. Ponds are shallower and do not have the aphotic zone.

The difference between rivers and streams has to do with size as well. Streams are smaller and join together to form rivers. A tributary is a stream or a river that flows into a larger river or lake. The Amazon River is the largest river while the Nile River is considered by many to be the longest river but there is still some debate because both rivers are so similar in length. Both are over 4,000 miles long! Francisco de Orellana was the first European to explore the Amazon River. Because he was chased by fierce women warriors, the river was named “Amazon” after the mythical Greek female warriors.

My kids agree that the most memorable part of our science class had to do with the vast size of the Amazon. During the fllood season, the river can reach over 30 miles across. To put this in perspective we talked about how Puerto Rico is 100 miles long and 35 miles wide. Our entire island could possibly fit into a 100 mile stretch of the Amazon River!!!

Seeds Geography

The semester has flown by and so have our travels to so many countries. We have traveled to the coasts of North and South America and have been traversing the landscapes of Europe for weeks. Our last stop has taken us to Germany, where we have learned about German food, clothing and the complicated history of the country.

Seeds Studio

We used most of our arts time this week practicing our hymns for the final presentation. We are so thankful to have the help of Mr. Jean and Mrs. Emily. They are both excellent musicians and love our children so much! On Friday, the students were finally able to complete their portraits of each other as we had planned to do when we learned about Leonardo da Vinci and the famous Mona Lisa painting. They worked on observing and sketching quickly (they only had 10 minutes!) Also, since they all had the opportunity to draw and pose, they learned that staying still and being a model for an artist is hard work!

THE OAKS PROGRAM

Oaks Worship

It’s been pretty exciting to see how the life of Jesus according to the Gospel of Matthew has unfolded. The Oaks have been watching how masterfully Jesus began his ministry with teaching and then miracles and healing, all the while training his disciples to do the same according to the will of the Father. As we close this week, the students are practicing the song that they will be performing at the presentation this week.

Oaks Geography

One of the most important things to do when studying Geography is to understand the basic shape and topography of a country. The students were asked to study the outline of Germany to imagine what they thought it looked like. Some said a mushroom, others said Pacman, but in the end, they were able to “see” something that could help them identify the country’s shape. They also learned that the further south you go in Germany, the higher up you go. The southernmost border of Germany is the Bavarian Alps, a mountain range shared by some of the other countries we’ve visited this unit, including France and Italy.

Germany is also home to the largest number of zoos and circuses in Europe. As a connection to that, we enjoyed some catching and juggling workshops in the park this week.

Oaks Science

Lakes, ponds, rivers, and streams were our topics on the last week of Science for the year. The students have been getting better at doing their assigned readings and coming in with their notes to turn in. This facilitates the discussion and is preparing them for more independent work in the future. On Tuesday, we had our second quiz of the year. They all improved significantly from the first time! We will continue to announce short quiz dates to them in the Spring semester.

On Thursday, after defining the differences between ponds and lakes, we discussed the importance of rivers and how they differ from lakes. They worked on two maps to identify rivers in the world. The first map was of Puerto Rico. They used this map to trace two of the most important rivers in Puerto Rico, The Río La Plata and the Río Grande de Loíza. It was cool to see how the Río La Plata river runs South to North and traverses many municipalities on its way from Guayama to Dorado. We also drew two of the man made lakes that form from this river, the Carite Lake and La Plata Lake (both serve as reservoirs and for family recreation). Lastly, we used our classroom atlases and resources to search and label the major rivers around the world from the Mississippi in the United States to the Yangtze River in China.

Memory Verse #14

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.””

— Matthew 11:28-30