Happy Halloween

Happy Halloween from Tyler, Medevial Times servant, Cleopatra, Gypsie Princess, and An Angel!

The 3 trick-or-treaters this year...

Checking out the loot...

We carved pumpkins on Sunday night, and this is the only picture that survived a computer crash that ATE my last download of pictures!

Texas Roadhouse

I joined a homeschool field trip group here in Montgomery, and we have enjoyed going on a few tours that Mom does not have to organize!  Today, we ditched the books (except the math lessons) and headed to Texas Roadhouse for a kitchen tour and lunch!  We watched them make homemade rolls.

We learned how to make those Awesome Blossoms!

The butcher talked to us about cuts of meat.  Did you know Texas Roadhouse cuts your steak when you order.  They get slabs of meat-not precut steaks!

Time to sample some peanuts, rolls and awesome blossom onions!

FUN! FUN! FUN! FUN! FUN! FUN! 

We begin this week with a big BANG!

I had big plans (like always) to start this week off with an intense Monday of homeschool!  We got up and moving fast!  We really like to tackle our weeks work in four day, so that on Friday we can take it easy!  I decided to take Colleen to early room this morning.  I was only home for a few minutes when the phone rang.  Now, most of the time during "school hours" I look at the caller ID and let voicemail take the call.  I looked at the ID and saw it was the preschool.  It was the director and my heart sank as she continued to tell me that I needed to come get Colleen because she needs stitches.  Well, I do NOT do blood and my husband does stitches!  I called Dr. Dad and we decided that he was closer and would go get her and take her back to his office for stitches.  I would just meet them at his office.

Colleen was a brave little girl.  We decided she just wanted to even things up this year since it was back in January that she got stitches on the left side of her head!  Again, Dad stitched the girl without any pain/numbing meds.  He tells me the needle for the meds is more traumatic than the stitches.  I don't know if I agree!  Her screams ripped through my heart and brought tears to my eyes and I was not even in the room!!!  She came out of the room with a pocket full of candy, a smile, and a big hug for Mom!

I think we will go home and just cuddle for the rest of the morning!

Anatomy Lapbook -Part A

As I have said before, picking a history and science curriculum for 4th grade (and K) was the hardest part of deciding to homeschool!  I do not like these subjects, but I do not want to prejudge the girls against them.  I know other people like these subjects, including Dr. Dad, so I definitely what them to have fun with the subjects.  I chose Apologia for our science curriculum.  I liked how they presented a topic for the entire year instead of just brushing over 10 different topics just like Lauren has done for 3 years.  This year we (or I) chose to dive deeper into Anatomy.  We have covered 3 chapters which included the intro to Anatomy, cells, skeletal system and muscular system.  We have done many experiments and projects which I have also blogged about.  The girls each have their own Notebooking Journal that goes along with the book.  Each of the foldables goes along with a section in each chapter. These foldables have helped Lauren understand/memorize information without her realizing it!  Here is our lapbook for the first 3 chapters.

Chapter 1-Intro & Cells

Chapter 2 Skeletal System

Chapter 3- Muscular System

Learning is fun!

Hillcrest Orchards

To continue our "homeschool field trip weekend", we headed to Elijay, GA north of Atlanta for some Apple Picking at Hillcrest Orchards.  None of us had ever picked apples from the tree, so this was a unique experience for us all!

It was worth the long drive!  We had so much fun!

Hillcrest Orchards had plenty of entertainment for the whole family!  From slides and swings to petting zoos to live entertainment, we stayed busy all day!

A little snack and some shopping before we go!  By the way, the best apple fritters in the world are made here!  Yummy!!!!!

Westville Historical Village

Today we drove over to Historic Westville for a day of 1850s fun.  Tyler was less than excited because we were keeping him from important teenage things for a "homeschool field trip"-that is what he labeled the weekend!

EVERYONE, even Tyler, did have fun roaming the little buildings and learning.  We visited a cotton gin and watched a lady cook as they would have back then.

Then everyone participated at the blacksmith shop!

Colleen helped dip candles!

We found the doctor's office where Dad would have worked back then.

The kids danced, watched basked weaving, threw hatchets, and played in the hay!

Of course, we could not resist leaving cotton in Dad's way!  He will not touch cotton!

New World Explorers

When we decided to homeschool for 4th grade & Kindergarten, I think History and Science intimidated me the most.  I homeschooled my son for K/1st grade, so Lyndsey's Reading/Writing/Math did not scare me in the least.  4th grade did make me nervous!  Ugh, I have to teach history and science.  Anyone who knows me, knows that I did not like history and science!  I knew I had to be careful and pick a curriculum that I could "stick with" this first year and feel successful!   I found The Time Travelers  from Homeschool in the Woods to be very hands on and crafty.  The girls and I have loved it!  We just completed the first unit of six, The New World Explorers.  We have sailed through the explorers by building ships, baking with spices, learning about knots, and creating detailed maps of each sailors voyages.  We have read MANY books about Lief Erikson, Ponce deLeon, Cortez, and Columbus.  We did not get to overwhelmed with dates, but we did place a few explorers on our Record of Time timeline.  

One of our final projects was making Doubloons & Pieces of Eight for our treasure box in our lapbook.

The last 2 lessons were on Pirates.  We played a dress the pirate dice game as we talked about the Pirate Way of Life!

Then we took all our projects for the last few months and spread them out to create our lapbook!

When you open this FAT folder up, this is what you see!  We made little foldables about many of the explorers we studied.

Flip the middle section up to reveal even more! Our treasure box of doubloons and Pieces of Eight and the drawing were we learned the parts of a ship.

Flip the middle section down to find even more!  

This lapbook is packed full of months of work  FUN!