First Day of School ~ 2015

If you have read my blog for more than a year, you know that our first day of school tradition is to go out for breakfast and then make cookie dough maps of the part of the world we will be studying in history.  It's a tradition!  So out to breakfast we went (forgot to take picture).  When we got home we began working on our cookie dough maps of the Byzantine Empire.  We are studying Year 2 of Tapestry of Grace this year, which begins with the fall of the Roman Empire and goes to the 1800's ~ quite a span of time to study in one year!  For detailed directions on how to make cookie dough maps, please go here.

After much prayer and deliberation we allowed daughter H to attend public high school this year (she longed for it), so at home school this year I am now in boy world!  We have a junior, a sophomore, an eighth grader, and a fifth grader.

Figuring out how to make a cookie map of the large, spread-around-the-Mediterranean-Sea Byzantine Empire presented a bit of a challenge.

But the cookie dough maps are always a huge hit.  This year the boys spent a good two hours on them.

They did create "mountains" (loaded with chocolate chips) where none are in real life, but I gave them some latitude on that. ;)

Baking does cause the dough to spread out some, so the distinct lines, borders, and geologic features are harder to see after baking.  So all the boys wanted a "before" picture and an "after" picture.  Here is son C's map:  (The Byzantine Empire is everything inside the red border)

Son L's:

Son G's:

And last but not least, Little Man's:

After that we did a bit of math, and called it a good day.

So thankful for the privilege and responsibility of teaching my children at home!