Maryland & Delaware

After a delayed start, our arrival to Annapolis, Maryland, was right about 5 pm.  The traffic going downtown was not to bad, and after circling the capitol building a few times with yelling kids I found a parking space.  The capitol was basically empty, so we roamed around and helped ourselves to a tour!

Since we were staying with friends on the "east side of Maryland" I knew a needed to delay our trec across "The Bay Bridge"  until the rush hours had passed.  We ate dinner at Fudrucker's which is a family favorite that we do not get to enjoy in Alabama!  Then, we headed across the bridge to Mrs. Robin's house!

     We stayed a few days with the Workinger Family.  They are friends from our fellowship days in Baltimore.  Our kids are around the same ages--well except for the 2 she added in the last 20 months!!!  The kids had fun together and I enjoyed visiting with my sweet friend! Together we were quite a house full and 12 kids (4 teenage boys)  can go through A LOT of food!  Oh, and popcorn/movie night looked like a party!  Thank you to Mrs. Robin and her mom, Mrs. Diane, who lives next door for hosting our family!  We had so much fun!

We left Mrs. Robin's house Sunday evening and drove to Philadelphia.  We stopped by Dover to see the capitol building on our way.  We had driven into Dover, Delaware, the day before to go to the movies and eat out so our visit this evening was a fast one!

Road Trip 2013-Virginia

After a very successful Thanksgiving Cruise Vacation, I dreamed up this wild 2 week road trip from Virginia up to Boston crossing as many capital cities and states as possible.  I knew JM could not take off work the whole time and go with us, but I am a Supermom and I can do this.  Big Dreams!!!  On Sunday night before we were about to leave, I really wanted to just call the whole thing off!  I had the pre-trip packing and planning jitters.  I could not believe that I signed myself up for this crazy 2.5 weeks!

On Monday morning, I woke up very early and the kids and I loaded up the car to head to the Atlanta airport.  That was enough to make me what to turn around right there.  It was difficult to get 5 kids and our luggage into the airport and through security.  Mission accomplished and there was no turning back!

We flew into Newport, retrieved our checked luggage and rental mini-van.  We grabbed a quick bite to eat at Jason's Deli before driving to The Jamestown Settlement to embark on a journey to 17th-century Virginia.  Jamestown Settlement is a re-creation of America's first permanent English colony founded in 1607-13 years before the Pilgrims landed in Massachusetts.  We enjoyed walking through the different settlements and learning ways of life.  The first re-creation was of the Powhatan village.

We toured the 3 replica ships that sailed from England to Virginia in 1607. 

 The second re-creation was of the colonists' fort.

After our tour of Jamestown, everyone was ready to find our hotel for the next few nights.  We booked our stay at the Great Wolf Lodge.  The kids were very excited to get to spend the evenings swimming. The kids wasted no time getting everything up to the room and getting down to the water park!  We closed the slides and pools down Monday night!  Yes, I was one tired mom at this point!

On Tuesday, we went to Colonial Williamsburg.  WOW!  This place was so fun and so overwhelming!    Our first stop was Great Hopes Plantation were we learned about plantation life from crops to building buildings.

Then we followed our little map for a long walk to the Revolutionary City!  It was a beautiful walk, but it was HOT!  Someone forgot to tell Virginia that the tourists from Alabama wanted to leave the heat in Alabama.  Virginia was having record high temperatures--higher than they had experienced in years!  Just our luck!!!  The younger girls were upset that we had not packed all their "colonial dress up" so they could be part of the city.  After about 30 minutes, they wanted swimsuits to walk around in and water to pour on themselves!

 

The Revolutionary City was fun and we explored all the different exhibits from brick making to food preparation to gardening.  Oh, the girls also took a writing class on how to use a quill and ink!

 We made it to the encampment after lunch, and the girl were drafted into the army much to Tyler's dismay!

 Our last stop for the day was the Powell House.  Here the kids watched the women cook, learned their manners, counted colonial coins and played some colonial games.

5 tired kids and 1 tired mom!  It was time to head back to Great Wolf for some relaxation!  We played at the slides and pools until closing time again Tuesday night.  

Wednesday morning was our checkout, so I treated the girls to some spa time while Tyler slept late.  Tyler took Colleen to eat breakfast with him at Dunkin'Donuts in the lobby.  She thought she was getting to do something special until she saw what the big girls were doing!!!

 After we loaded the car, I took Colleen down to Scoops.  I painted her hands and toes while the girls where finishing up their manicure/pedicures.  She was okay with that!

We drove on to Richmond on Wednesday.  We took a tour of the capitol building.  The Virginia capitol  was designed by Thomas Jefferson.  In 2004, the Capitol was fully restored to its early 20th century appearance and they added an underground extension to increase the size of the capitol.  The original Houdon statue of George Washington (3rd picture) stands in the Virginia Capitol.  It is the only statue that Washington ever actually posed for!  The sculpture on the right is of Thomas Jefferson.

After visiting the capital, I decided to take the kids to Children's Science Museum of Richmond.  This was a last minute change of plans because I was trying to avoid anything outside in the afternoon heat!

Tyler did a google search of top places to eat in Richmond and we ended up at Galaxy Dinner for our evening meal.  I was a little skeptical at first, but it was DELICIOUS and fun!

 Thursday morning we went to Maymont Park - An American Mansion & Gardens.  A mansion from the Gilded Age of the late 1800s when millionaires demonstrated their prosperity through their elaborate homes.  The home of James Dooley was just that--elaborate!  Mrs. Dooley designed the beautiful gardens around the home.  The whole estate was left to the city of Richmond.  The 110 acres includes Italian and Japanese Gardens and a farm and wildlife center.  We only toured the mansion and gardens!

This is one of the reasons I waned to tour the mansion.  Look at this bed!  I new the girls would love to see this in person!

After our tours at Maymont, we headed on up the road to Maryland!

Homeschool EOY Review & Plans for 2013-2014

While I have been making plans for our next school year, this is an easy time to evaluate what did not work for us this year.  Next year I will have a 5th grader, 1st grader, and a PreSchooler at home.

Bible

Last year we used Veritas Press for our Bible Curriculum.  While I was very happy with the curriculum, we have decided to try something different this year.  This year we will be using Bible Road Trip.  It is a free 3 year online Bible Curriculum.  This curriculum has Bible based novels that we will read along with the Bible Study.  We will also use the Picture Smart Bible curriculum with each book of the Bible.

Math

Saxon Math worked for us last year, and we will continue with it this year. Lyndsey will continue in Math 2 and move into Math 3.  Lauren will complete Math 6/5.

Language Arts

Phonics/Reading/Literature
Lyndsey will continue with Sing, Spell, Read & Write program.  This year she will be on Level 2 Grand Tour.
Lauren's reading will be historical novels and novels based on Biblical stories.

I am watching the videos for Teaching the Classics from CenterForLit right now.  I hope this teaches me how to help Lauren critically examine the literature we read.  I am struggling in this area because I just never learned how to see beyond the surface of the story.  We may start the Ready Readers which applies the Teaching the Classics approach to 10 classic stories on a K-3 level.  I think this would applicable to Lauren and Lyndsey.

Spelling
Lyndsey's spelling is included in her Sing, Spell, Read & Write program.
Lauren will use Growing with Spelling & Vocabulary.  Last year she used Phonetic Zoo.  We are just trying something new this year which hopefully will challenge her.

Grammar
Lyndsey- Some grammar is included in Sing, Spell, Read & Write.  She will continue in her Growing with Grammar Level 1 book that she started in January.
Lauren will switch to Growing with Grammar this year.  I really like the format of these books.

Science

For science we are going to stay in the Apologia family!  We loved our year long study of Human Anatomy.  This year we are going to use Exploring Creation with Botany.  We will again use the Notebooking Journal for Lauren and the Jr. Notebooking Journal for Lyndsey.  We will also use the lapbook that was designed to go along with the curriculum.

History

We will continue marching along in US History with The Time Travelers History Series from Homeschool in the Woods.  We only completed 3 of the 7 sections last year, so we WILL work really hard to finish the last 4!!  I had only planned to complete 4 so we did not miss the mark too bad!
Our topics this year will be..
The Early 19th Century
The Civil War
The Industrial Revolution & Great Depression
World War II
We did complete 3 American Girl studies last year-Kaya, Felicity, and Josefina.  This year we will also study the American Girl Historical Character that goes with each section of time.

Geography

We will continue to work our way through the United States while we learn basic geography.  We will be using the Discover America State-by-State Alphabet Series to learn interesting facts about each state.  We will continue making scrapbook pates for each state and cook a recipe from each state.  I covered 22 states last year, and I hope to finish to remaining 28 this year!!!

Latin

We will begin an introduction to Christian Latin using Prima Latina.

Music/Art/Typing

We did so good on the core subjects last year, but the extras were my downfall!  Music/Art/Typing did not happen.  I think my downfall was not having an organized curriculum for these areas.  This year I have regrouped, and I am moving forward with a goal!

Music
This year we are working through The History of Classical Music from Beautiful Feet Books.  We will have a posted timeline of classical music which I think will keep us motivated!  The curriculum is outlined day-by-day, and it tells me what to do each day!  We will cover this 2 times per week.

Art
Our art this year will be drawing the state flowers and coloring the many composers for music and history timeline pieces.  I will pull in any homeschooling coop opportunities that we can on the side.

Typing
Lauren started learning how to type on an online game program Always-IceCream.com.  She will continue advancing in this game format.  Then she will go to Typing Instructor for Kids.

Sports

Both the girls will continue swimming for the Barracuda Swim Team.  They will also continue with the weekly gymnastics classes and tennis lessons.  We are still trying to decide if they will continue dancing or play YMCA volleyball and basketball.

Our School Room

We started out the school year last year upstairs.  Lauren had her set up in her room.  Lyndsey had a set up in a big closet.  It worked ok, but I found myself going back-and-forth.  In February, we cleaned out the exercise room (which we don't use) and turned it into our school room.  We put the desks facing each other which gave us plenty of workspace for History and Science projects.

     I have tweaked the school room a little for this coming year.  I hope to post some pictures soon.  I have made the timelines for Music and History and the Books of the Bible.  We had to add another cabinet/shelf for storage, and I would like to bring our old computer into the room if JM finishes transferring the pictures off of it!  The computer/printer will be so handy to print off lessons, do internet searches, or work on internet review games while I am busy with the other child.  

Everything is ready for school to start!  I have lesson plans formatted.  I have preschool activities outlined.  Books are already in their desks and new colored pencils are ready to go.  I even have the first few weeks lessons and activities printed!  Now, I am going on a summer vacation!

Sending them off...

It has been a busy Father's Day!  We packed Tyler up and sent him off to RYM in Colorado with Trinity Presbyterian Church youth group.  26 hours in a bus with these boys should be FUN!?!???

 Then JM drove Lauren to the University of Alabama for a week of swim camp.

 She is beyond excited to go to swim camp at UA!  I hope she has so much fun this week!

My sweet Corynne is home from Tennessee.  She returned on Friday from a week of Outdoor Adventures with our church youth group.  I missed her so much!  She is my right hand girl--always helpful and willing!  She has a full week of volleyball practice, basketball open gym, tennis and swim team this week to prepare for a tennis tournament on Saturday and swim meet on Friday night.  I think she is enjoying her summer break!

Happy Father's Day!

 Happy Father's Day to an amazing dad, husband and doctor!  We love you!!!

This year we surprised JM with a hot tub (or hot bathtub as Colleen calls it)!

Gridiron

 JM & Tyler took a few days to go to the GridIron Men's Conference in Birmingham.  They went up a day early so they could spend some extra time together.  they went to see the new Superman 3D movie, shot automatic rifles, and played 9holes of golf!  At the conference they had the privilege of hearing from Dan Cathy, Tim Tebow, and Fred Luter.  They both enjoyed the experience of worshiping with a forum of 7500+ men!

Art Camp with Mrs. Barb

This week Lauren & Lyndsey went to Mrs. Barb's art camp for 2 afternoons.  They had not painted with Mrs. Barb in years so they were very excited when I surprised them onTuesday afternoon.  6 paintings in 2 afternoons (4.5 hours total)!  They were busy artists!

Just being a Kid

 Tyler, I am ready for you to take me on a ride!

BEE Camp

Since the girls had finished their Science curriculum by the end of April, we spent a few weeks on Bees to lead up to Lauren going to Bee Camp at the beginning of June.  We read multiple books and made a lapbook about Bees using Bees Express Lapbook and Bees Speedy Lapbook from Currclick.com.  Our favorite book was The Life and Times of the HoneyBee!

 

 

 

On June 7th-8th, Lauren attended BEE Camp at Bear Exploration in Montgomery.  This was the 1st year for the Central Alabama BeeKeepers to put on the camp, and they did a fabulous job!  

 They attended classes for a few hours the first morning - Bee Biology, Bee Chemistry, and Hive making.  The classes went over all the material we had read about a few weeks ago during our bee study.

Then they learned how to suit up in a BeeKeepers suit for protection.  They learned about the fogger and why the Beekeepers use it.  They also extracted honey from the hives.  Lauren is the one holding the fogger in the bottom picture.

For a girl who was not excited about going to Bee Camp.  She came home Friday excited to return on Saturday.  By Saturday afternoon, I got a big "thank you for signing me up for Bee Camp!  It was SOOOOOO much FUNNNNN!"  She came home with the part of the hive she made, honey she extracted, and lip balm she made from the wax!

Summertime

We are barely into June, and I am amazed at all we have done this summer!  It is going by so fast or maybe I am just getting old!

This summer we are trying something new at our house.  For 3 reasons...
1.  I cannot do it all on my own.
2.  To encourage some of the kids to learn to work together.
3.  To give them incentive to continue learning through out the summer.
I made up these "chore charts"  for no better name came to mind!

Yes, some of it is just the basics like laundry, dishes, and cleaning.  I just don't have time to fold all the clothes that get dirtied and washed around here!  Other things are educational like SAT review for Tyler, Ly 1st grade reading lessons that we did not finish at the end of the year, and the girls reading Little House in the Big Woods.  Reading Eggs and Always Ice Cream are learning computer games.  I have wanted La to learn how to type since last summer.  Always Ice Cream presented the lessons as a game, and *tada* she has learned!  And some are to encourage cooperation like Tyler and Lauren's power point project and the girls art projects with Corynne.  If you complete your list by the end of the week, you get to participate in the prize for the week.   The prizes are really basic--go to the movie with a friend, invite a friend over for the afternoon, go to Craze for a special yogurt treat!

I figured that Ty & La would never be able to work together on a project, but they have proved me wrong!  After discovering that Corynne did not know how to use basic computer programs when she started 7th grade, I was determined that Lauren would have a basic working knowledge of how to design and put together power point and word processing documents. Tyler has taught her how to make a slide show this summer.  Each week I tell them a new feature that I want to see on their slides.  They build new slides each week.  They CAN work together!!!

I wondered what was taking Ly so long to come back with the laundry, and this is what I discovered!

The 4 older kids participated in the Alabama Qualifier on the weekend of June 1st.  We had 4 kids playing at 3 different locations around Montgomery.  It was a busy weekend, and we had great friends that helped us out when we needed to be at 3 different places at the SAME time!

Lauren played in the 10&U division.

 Lyndsey played in the 8&U division.  This was her FIRST tournament EVER!  She had so much fun and won a few matches!

 On June 4th, we went with the homeschool group to Sunbright Organic Farm.  It is just a small farm where we got to pick some veggies, blueberries, and black berries.

 Opps, that one was sour!

Colleen got her 1st haircut today!  She was not excited about going to get her hair cut.  Corynne was able to convince her that it would be EASY, and she would get treats.  A cup FULL of smarties later, and the hair cut was over!!!

 Just a trim of 2 inches, but a big change for split ends and shag to healthy looking hair!

 In the middle of all of that fun, Dad moved offices!  His staff moved across the hall to newly refurbished offices and clinic spaces.  We spent a whole day getting his office to look this good!  New blinds and curtains, hanging diplomas, and organizing nicknacks and collectables.  He has a new desk and chair that was handed down from his dad!

 I finally framed the Biscuit jersey that he won years ago.  Now I need to find the baseball card and other items that went along with the jersey to go in the frame.  I know we had them before we moved across town 3 years ago....

The mean old wife made the poor Doc sit in the corner and go through years of ...

...trash.  That was what it had to have been since this is the trash pile when we finished!