Halloween 2013

I only have 3 participating in dress up this year!  And I only bought 1 new costume!  Lyndsey wanted to be a southern belle which we did not have in our dress-up collection.  Lauren chose the 70s costume of Corynne's from a few years ago.  Colleen decided to be a ballerina WITH a ballet bun at the last minute and that was easy enough with 3 sisters who took YEARS of ballet!

 Tonight we went to the church Trunk-or-Treat.  The teens at my house had signed up our car for a game which I had to come develop.  What?!?!  I went to a youth leader who had a stash of possible games, and I was set to go!  Corynne cut out all the candy corn decorations last night, and I taped up trash bags in the back of the Suburban to make it a little more "decorated"!  Corynne and other youth girls supervised our game while I followed Colleen around!  I have no pictures of Lauren for the night, and only this one of Lyndsey!  I guess they are growing up and can do this carnival thing all by themselves!

Annual Pumpkin Carve

We picked the pumpkins the pumpkins yesterday, and today we are going to carve them!  Not much turn around time, but the carving traditional will continue another year!! 

 

 

 

Happy Halloween!

Cornfield Pumpkin Patch

Today I took the girls to Cornfield County Pumpkin Patch.  I had seen a link to this patch on FB and decided to give it a try this year.  We had a GREAT time.  It was smaller than the other 2 pumpkin patches that we have been to in years past and the pumpkins are "dropped"  onto the grass from their fields so it was not a true "patch", but they made up for those to things in FUN! 

 We loved the tire swings, land slides, and corn cob shoot!

 We had sooooo much fun, and we will definitely return next year to Cornfield County Farm!

Autumn Harvest

I love fall.  I love to make pumpkin bread, pumpkin pancakes, and pumpkin pie.  I love the smells, the colors, the foods, and the decorations!!!!  I love the cool temperatures were I can crack the windows and feel the crisp air in the mornings and before I go to bed at night!  It just doesn't last long enough in Alabama, so I will enjoy every minute right now!

I only have to order the parts for the fireplace now!  I want a fire this fall (or at least by Christmas)!

 My new door wreath that I made!  I love to get crafty sometimes!  I think it turned out great!

State-by-State: Mississippi

The capital of the Magnolia State

begins with the letter J.

Jackson is where the laws are passed

we follow every day.

Longwood begins with the letter L.

It's an antebellum home.

This massive house is octagon shaped

and is topped with an onion-shaped dome.

from M is for Magnolia: A Mississippi Alphabet

We are continuing our geography road trip, and each week we get closer to visiting each state!  This week we read M is for Magnolia:  A Mississippi Alphabet.  The girls worked on their scrapbook pages and lap books throughout the week highlighting the important information we are trying to memorize!  

We made Mississippi Mud Pie from The United States Cookbook.  It was a hit with the family!  No one here can turn down chocolate and coffee!  I don't know what happened to the pictures of the girls making the pie...lost in space for now or forever!

State-by-State: Utah

We continued our state-by-state study this week with Utah.

We read A is for Arches:  A Utah Alphabet from the Discover America State-by-State series.  

L is for the Great Salt Lake.

It's saltier than all the rest.

People float like corks in there,

and brine shrimp thrive the best!

from A is for Arches: A Utah Alphabet

Then Lauren made her scrapbook page and Lyndsey completed a mini lap book on The Beehive State.

We read in Eat Your Way Through the USA that the people of Utah love candy!  in fact, they eat twice as much candy per person as any other state!  Cool!  We love candy, too!  Especially, around Halloween!  We made a fun Halloween Candy Bark today for our Utah cooking class.

The Early 19th Century

This year we are continuing our American History Time Travelers' study from Homeschool in the Woods.  It is divided into 7 units.  We covered 3 last year (along with a Presidential Election study), and this year we are planning to cover the remaining 4!  We began with The Early 19th Century in the summer actually.  One of the girls' summer projects was reading Little House in the Big Woods.  Lyndsey used Pockets of Time for story comprehension and Lauren created lapbook pieces from Homeschool Share for each chapter to explain the details of the chapter.  Lauren even built a log cabin with popsicle sticks!

I found them many times re-inacting the scenes from the book or just enjoying the simpler life!

For our study, we read many living history books to go along with each lesson from the Time Travelers' series.  The girls completed lapbook pieces for each lesson and many other things to include in their "treasure notebook for the year.

:::Additional Books:::

American Slave, American Hero: York of the Lewis & Clark Expedition

The Lewis & Clark Expedition ( A TRUE Book)

A Picture Book of Sacagawea

A Picture Book of Lewis & Clark

Francis Scott Key and "The Star-Spangled Banner"

Francis Scott Key's Star-Spangled Banner (Step into Reading)

The War of 1812

The Josefina Story Quilt

By the Great Horn Spoon

The Trail of Tears (Step into Reading)

What was the Gold Rush?

If you Traveled West in a Covered Wagon

America The Beautiful

Apples to Oregon

A Picture Book of Davy Crockett

The California Gold Rush (A TRUE Book)

The Amazing impossible Erie Canal

The Long Way Westward

Trouble for Lucy

Wagon Wheels

:::Additional Activities:::

We spent a little extra time on the Lewis & Clark Expedition.  It was an adventure in faith for these men to go and explore an unknown land.  There were so many different levels to present this Corp of Discovery Expedition!

Corn Husk Dolls

A Praire Wagon

Wheat Weaving

Lauren built a White House with nano blocks!

:::Early 19th Century Lapbook:::

 

The Barbary Pirates, Inventions of the Early 19th Century, The Famous Duel, Everything You can take in a Covered Wagon, The Erie Canal, The White House, An Indian Story Bag, The War of 1812, Presidents 1-12, and Maps to Show the Growth of the United States.  These lapbooks are a lot of work, but a good reminder of the topics we study!

With each lesson, we added the appropriate timeline figures to our Early 19th Century Timeline on the wall.

This was an amazing, fun unit!  I cannot believe that we are enjoying history this much!

We finished our unit with a movie night.  We watched Seven Alone.  It is a true story from 1842 about a family traveling from Missouri to Oregon.  It is an OLD movie so the filming was not great, but the story was perfect!  Everyone enjoyed it and cried when the kids made it to Oregon!

Fall Tennis Tournaments

Tyler and Corynne have been traveling the USTA tournaments since school started.  They have kept us busy!

Pell City 

September 7th

 Tyler - 18s Singles Champion & Doubles Champion

Maggie & Corynne - 16s Doubles Champions

 Wynlakes Country Club

September 28th

Tyler - 18s Singles Champion

Montgomery Country Club

October 12th

Tyler- 18s Singles Champion 

Pioneer Days

The girls and I went to the Pioneer Days in Troy today.  I am loving how I am finding field trips that match up to what we are studying in history.  We are studying the Early 19th Century, and this ties everything up with a living history lesson!

Everyone had a friend on this field trip.  We watched a cowboy show and toured a school house and general store.

We saw the military camps and learned how the woman kept the house and prepared the food.

It was a wonderful day of learning.  It was definitely worth the drive!

State-by-State: Nevada - Texas - California

Over the last few weeks we have visited a few states in our state-by-state geography study.  We started in California while we were studying the Gold Rush of 1849 in our American History course.

G is for the Golden State,

named for the gold they mine,

and some say for the rolling hills

that turn brown in summertime.

from G is for Golden: A California Alphabet

We had so much fun in California!  We read many books about the Gold Rush and the pioneers move westward.  Then the girls created their scrapbook pages and lapbook.

Our next stop was in Nevada.

H is for Hoover Dam,

stell, strong, and might.

Gives us water and power

every day and night.

from S is for Silver:  A Nevada Alphabet

The girls read about the Hoover Dam, Las Vegas, the Black Opal, and more in our books.  Then they completed their scrapbook pages and lap book.

Next we flew over to Texas for a Texas-sized adventure.  We read about Big Tex, Dr. Pepper, San Antonio and the Alamo with our history study, the yellow rose and the "Rose Capital of the World".  It was a fun state to study because we know many people who live in the big state of TEXAS!!!!

F is for Friendship---

we extend our hand to you.

this is our state motto---

please accept our friendship too.

from L is for Lone Star:  A Texas Alphabet

"Texas" comes from an indian word, "tejas."  this means friends.  Texas is "big" and welcomes everyone to the state with a "big" heart!  The girls worked on their scrapbook pages and lapbook throughout the week.

We finally made it to the kitchen to cook and decided to combine all these states for one yummy meal!  For sunny California, we made California Lemon Crunch from Eat Your Way Through the USA.  California grows more lemons and broccoli than any other state.  

Nevada farmers grow lots of onions.  It is one of their main crops along with alfalfa, garlic, and potatoes.  We decided to make onion rings.  They were yummy, but a lot of work and mess! Lauren kept the onion rings going for us in the Fry Daddy.

For Texas, we chose Chicken Fried Steak.  Texas raises more beef cattle than any other state.  Chicken Fried Steak is one of Papa's favorite meals.  He even used to order it at Mexican restaurants!  Lyndsey helped batter the steaks before we fried them!  This was actually a first for mommy also.  I really have never fried chicken or steak before.  The steaks did turn out very yummy!

It all comes together for a delicious feast!  These pictures were hard to take around the disaster that the kitchen became during this cooking class!!!

Two girls were quite proud of their work tonight!  I am glad dad made it home to enjoy all their efforts!