Airport Tour & A Visit to Jasmine Hill Gardens

May 12th

We met our homeschool group at the Montgomery Regional Airport today to take a tour.  Our guide told us the history behind the Montgomery Airport and showed us around.  We even saw a few corporate jets take-off at the end of the tour.

May 19th

Jasmine Hill Gardens and Outdoor Museum, "Alabama's Little Corner of Greece," features over 20 acres of year-round floral beauty and classical sculpture, including new statuary honoring Olympic heroes.  The Olympian Centre was built with its front facade designed as a recreation the Temple of Hera as it looked int the 7th Century B.C. In 1996 the Olympic Flame originated at Olympia, Greece's ancient Temple of Hera ruins and came to the world's only full scale reproduction at Jasmine Hill's Temple of Hera ruins. The Olympic Flame burned there in the cauldron on its way to the 1996 Centennial Olympic Games in Atlanta.

Jasmine Hill Gardens is just beautiful!  The girls enjoyed looking at all the plants and flowers on the grounds.  The girls were able to look at the flowers and tell me things we have been studying in Apologia Botany all year.  It was a great Botany field trip to complete our study!  The Greek statues were also very fascinating!

I can't forget that we got to feed the ponds of fish.  AND we saw the life cycle of a frog in action--tadpoles, froglets, and big frogs!

State-by-State: Maine

This week the girls have flown over to study Maine.  Somehow this state was left behind and forgot until now!  Or maybe I waited for a reason!

L is for Lobster, a two-clawed crustacean

that lives among rocks in shallow parts of the ocean.

Buoys mark traps where lobsters are caught.

They are red when you eat them, but green in the pot!

from L is for Lobster:  A Maine Alphabet

The girls completed their scrapbook page and lap book during this last week of school.  I found many good books for us to enjoy about the great state of Maine.

Other Books:

One Morning in Maine

The Train to Maine

Keep the Lights Burning, Abbie

I Met a Moose in Maine One Day

Beacons of Light LighthousesThe Lighthouse Activity Book by Elinor De Wire

North American Lighthouses Coloring Book by Dover Coloring Books

Craft:

We made these cute lighthouses with plastic cups.  you can see them sitting between the girls desks.  i guess I never took a good picture of just them.

We kept cooking very simple for the state of Maine!  We went to  Red Lobster!  We ordered a lobster.  The girls tasted it, and Daddy ate it!  They were not crazy about it at all!!! 

WWII

Our 7th and final American history unit of the Time Travelers Series from Homeschool in the Woods was World War II.  We read about and discussed the rise of Hitler and the Nazi Regime, German/Italian/Japanese occupations, conflicts and battles between the Axis and Allies, the American home front, the Holocaust, VE and VJ Days, and the events immediately following the war.

Books we read:

Cornerstones of Freedom Rosie the Riveter

The Lily Cupboard

Friedrich

Number the Stars

Additional Workbook:

When, Women, and Children Saved the World!  World War II by Carole Marsh

This workbook was great.  She MANY American history based learning workbooks.  I wish I would have discovered them 2 years ago!!

Learn Our History Series

     World War II: America Under Attack

     World War II: The Pacific

     World War II: Victory in Europe

     The Cold War

My girls have really enjoyed the whole Learn Our History Series!  My plan is to pull the videos out for review throughout the next year.  

Movies:

Hidden in Silence

The Diary of Anne Frank

Tuskegee Airmen

Walking with the Enemy

The girls completed the mini books and note booking pages to go along with each historical event we studied.  We played many games to understand how rations were handed out and used.  

We of course enjoyed learning about all the women of World War II and how so many kept the home front alive.

Pictures of the girls putting together their lapbooks while I had a meeting!  They have gotten really good at assembling all by themselves!!

AWANAs Ceremony

Were are the Vermillions on Wednesday night?  We busy in the AWANAS program at Gateway Baptist Church!  The girls love AWANA Wednesdays, and I enjoy watching them hide more scripture in their hearts.  AWANAS is an awesome scripture memory program for kids ages 3 to sixth grade at our church.   Colleen was in Cubbies this year.  She loved her teachers, and she hide away many verses for the future.  She completed her 1st cubbies book.  She received a little end-of-year award (cup of candy which she quickly ate before mom could take it away!) at the ceremony!

I worked with Lyndsey's age group, the Sparks.  They are a fun, energetic group of kids!  25+ every week from 6-8pm!!!  Lyndsey rocks at memorizing scripture!  She completed her book and review flip-book by February.  Then, Mrs. Buffy kept her busy TruthScripts.  TruthScripts is also an AWANAS program, but it focuses on memorizing passages of scripture at a time.  She completed 4 TruthScripts this year!

Lauren completed her second year of T&T (Truth& Training).  She received her award trophy tonight. As an extra award for completing a book in T&T, the T&T teachers let the girl prepare a bucket of "stuff" to pour on the T&T teacher of their choice.  Lauren chose to dump her bucket on Mrs. Shannon.  I am so sorry!!!!

The girls came home tonight with quite an accumulation of awards!  I am so proud of their hard work and dragging me to church some Wednesday nights!!!

They really do love each other....sometimes!!!

Piano Recital & Choir Concert

This afternoon was the girls piano recital.  I think this is Lauren's 5th recital, but this was Lyndsey's first!!!  She started taking piano lessons the week after the recital last year!

Lyndsey & Lauren did a great job playing their pieces.  They even played a couple of duets!

Lauren received her trophy for scoring Double "O" at district AMTA.  She competed at State AMTA this past weekend.  She scored an "E" for her first time at state.  Yeah!!!!

Tonight the girls also had their homeschool choir performance.  They sang beautifully!  The teacher is working with each group to learn pitch and read the notes.  It is amazing how the little ones pick up on the color coded techniques!  The girls loved going to homeschool choir each week, and we will definitely be going again next year!!!!

Lauren's Birthday

Lauren turned 11 this year!  She is officially a "tween" in every way!!!  She will let you know that is has always been "be-tween" all her siblings!  Poor middle child!  On her actual birthday, we celebrated by going out to eat and having a Peanut-Butter Pie!

She wanted to have a sleepover, and I quickly threw that together at the VERY LAST MINUTE for the next weekend!  Poor middle child!  We had to squeeze her birthday sleepover "be-tween"  her siblings tennis tournaments!

Heather and Stella were both able to come celebrate with her on Friday night and most of the day Saturday, so i think she had a great time!  I treated them to manicures & pedicures down at Angel Nails.  The birthday bonus was they got to drive themselves in the golf cart--woohoo!!!!  Then they painted, crafted, swam, and watched movies until the wee hours of the night!  

ASU Forensic Tour, Science Fair, Chick-fil-A, Water Festival, Dexter Avenue Church, Starfish Dissection

April has been a busy month for homeschool projects and field trips.  It seemed like the year was passing by with very few field trips, but we are making up for it during the home stretch.
April 7th
The girls have been working on their science fair projects this week.

 Colleen wanted her own science project, so we set up a worm observation bottle to see what the worms would do to our layers of sand and dirt.

 

April 8th
Today we had the opportunity to take a backstage tour of Chick-fil-A with our homeschool group.  We could not pass it up because we all love Chick-fil-A for breakfast, lunch and dinner!!!  The guide started with a history of Mr. Cathy and Chick-fil-A.  I reminded the girls that they had been to the original Dwarf Chick-fil-A on the way the Atlanta a few times!  Then we went threw the kitchen and they showed us how they prepare on the food.  We watched how they took orders and processed large crowds.  We ended with a meal from our favorite fast food place!

April 10th
We met up with a group of homeschoolers today at the ASU Forensic Labs.  We were lead on a tour of the facility, learned about their equipment, learned the course requirements to become a CSI detective, observed a crime scene, and followed the crime scene to trial.  It was a wonderful field trip.  Doesn't everyone want to be a CSI after watching it on TV all the time?!?!

 

April 11th
The girls presented their science fair projects at the homeschool fair.  Grammy made it in from Texas to go to the science fair (and many other events over the next few days)!  The girls each placed 2nd in their age divisions.

April 17th
I took Lauren to the Prattville Water Festival today.  It was a city wide 4th-5th grade event.  We had a great time with our homeschool friends.  We learned about the water cycle,  protecting our water, and built an edible aquifer!

April 18th
Lyndsey finished reading Charlotte's Web yesterday.  She completed her goal, and now we get to celebrate!  I made spider PB&J sandwiches, Oreo & chocolate mice, pigs-in-the-mud cups, and Wilbur cupcakes.  We had fun at our County Fair.  We snacked on lunch while watching the movie!

 April 23rd
We went on a tour of Dexter Avenue King Memorial Baptist Church in downtown Montgomery today.  I have always wanted to go inside this historic building.  It was a simple church, but the historical significance of the place was overwhelming.  In the basement, a local artist has painted a mural of Black History which ties everything together for the younger generations.

April 25th

We met our homeschool group at the park today to dissect starfish.  It was fun and challenging!  It was not easy to cut apart, but the girls had fun and learned the parts of a starfish!