Today we studied the terrestrial earth.  We studied from this website…

http://www.geography4kids.com/ 

I just read to them from the pages on this website.  Today was not met with the same oohs and aahs from yesterday but I wanted to introduce these concepts.  I feel though that I can spend another day on this to insure understanding.  I think I may need to go thru GACE again just to make sure I am outlining this clear.  Or maybe I can just leave it at this for an introduction and move on to the individuality of the continents and living things in the next unit(which is Moses where we’ll take a look at Egypt and the continent of Asia…)

Yesterday we finally got to the Geography portion of our Creation unit. We started with these scriptures as our leading ideas…pointing to God’s Principle of Individuality….these scriptures could actually be principles in themselves.

Isaiah 45:18
For thus saith the LORD that created the heavens; God himself that formed the earth and made it; he hath established it, he created it not in vain, he formed it to be inhabited: I am the LORD; and there is none else.

Psalm 115:16

The heaven, even the heavens, are the LORD’s: but the earth hath he given to the children of men.

Job 26:7

He stretcheth out the north over the empty place, and hangeth the earth upon nothing.

In the NIVr version of my dc’s bible it says that God hung the earth FIRMLY in place…and we discussed that and what all of these verses mean.

As suggested in GACE(p 269-270) we started discussing the indivduality of the earth in the universe, in the solar system, and the terrestrial globe. I tried to highlight the following(as I was amazed myself that)

1. out of all the galaxies and phenomenon and the vastness of space(there are galaxies and stars billions of light years away) that God made earth just for man.

2. the earth is special-why and how

3. That out of all the galaxies we exist in a galaxy(Milky Way) and are located right on the edge of the galaxy where we won’t burn up with radiation. Any closer to the center of the galaxy the radiation is so strong that no life could exist.

4. That out of all the planets in our solar system orbiting the sun that earth is the only one that has conditions right for life…perfect distance from the sun where we are not too hot nor cold; the perfect distance where the water can stay in liquid form…etc.

This was a wonderful study on the first day.

Overall I think it went well(mainly b/c I was not sure how to even teach these ideas but I got thru it and more understanding came to me as I was teaching my dc…understanding of how to make my points clearer).

I found these websites to supplement our scripture study…to illustrate the universe, solar system and terrestrial globe.

http://www.godandscience.org/love/design.html

http://www.kidsastronomy.com/deep_space.htm

http://solarviews.com/eng/homepage.htm

These are the drawings/geography-astronomy projects my dc made after our first lesson.

This nebula was drawn by the boy(5yo), written by his own hand, mom assisting with the spelling only. I thought this was an excellent rendition of a nebula from a 5 year old taught by a mom who had no idea what a nebula was or that they even existed!! We observed nebulas from this sight…

http://www.godandscience.org/love/tourjs.html click on the Orion Nebula from the slide show tour of the universe.

Or

Here is another good picture of it..http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap020213.html

He also drew Jupiter…(I wrote Jupiter for him

Ok, now my 5yo girl recorded this for her notebook…

Her scripture verse is Gen. 1:1. She added her own little commentary to the end of this…she says…that in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth….(her commentary) HE WAS SO GOOD AT IT.

I thought that was precious!