Colonial Williamsburg for Homeschoolers

Hands on learning and living history are two of my kids favorite learning tools.   We are blessed to live in an area that gives us access to a vast array of historical sites, museums and learning experiences. Thankfully, more and more of these venues are setting aside special times and activities for the homeschool community.

Colonial Williamsburg designates several weeks as Homeschooler Experiences. In addition to the variety of activities and programming throughout the Historic Area, special programs are scheduled for homeschool participants including a variety of hands-on opportunities. Special rates are available during this period for homeschoolers.

This fall the dates for the Homeschooler Experience are September 11 – September 26, 2010. In the fall, the experience focuses on government, politics, and the Revolution. Families are encouraged to participate in the Revolutionary City® programs as well as the other diverse offerings in the Historic Area. In addition, homeschoolers have the opportunity to participate in exclusive meetings with a Person of the Past.

The pricing is phenomenal!  If you pre-register $7.50/adult, $5.50 for children 6 and up.  Walk-ins are also available for $9.50/adult, $7.50/children 6 and up.  To get a copy of the pre-order form, click here.

Scheduled homeschool events for 2001 are February 26 – March 5, 2011 and September 10 – September 25, 2011.

Weekly Wrap Up: The One I Forgot About

Somehow my week went POOF!  I sat down a bit ago to catch up on blogs and wondered why on earth the Weekly Wrap Up at WUS was posted so early in the week.  Imagine my surprise when I realized that it was Friday!  So yeah…let’s try to remember the week here.

Uh, well…I know we had baseball practice three nights this week.  Practice starts at 7:45pm (yeah, like 45 minutes before the girls bedtime).  We’ve been getting home somewhere around 9:30 or later.  Tomorrow morning we have practice at 9:45 (good thing I now know what day of the week we’re on).  Sunday is the first scrimmage and the season opens Monday.  Yippee.

Besides baseball, this week we had a play date, library trip, and a trip to the pool.   I finished getting the classroom organized and we are ready to start our new school year on Monday morning.  I also managed to set up a field trip for October, schedule piano lessons for Olivia and trim all the hedges around the house.

Yeeeep….pretty exciting stuff going on over here!  So, feel free to go check out the  Weekly Wrap Up and see how productive everyone else was…at least they got the day of the week right!

Extra Curricular Activities

I was reading through last weeks Weekly Wrap Up posts and realized that I was one of the few people who didn’t include the extra curricular activities in my list.   So as not to appear like my children are sheltered from contact with the world, I thought I’d do a second post.

Baseball/Softball -

Fall baseball for Olivia started last week and will run through mid-September.  Currently, we have 2-3 practices and/or games scheduled each week.  In the spring, Olivia will be moving to softball and Lindsey will be starting her first year of tee-ball.

Awana-

As usual, Awana will be a big part of our school year.  Olivia will be in her 3rd year of Sparks, and Lindsey will be starting her first year of Sparks.  The church where the girls attend hosts their Awana on Wednesday nights from 6pm – 8pm.   Awana is a wonderful children’s Bible program, typically hosted by Baptist churches in the community.  You do not have to be a member of the host church, or Baptist for that matter to attend.  Kids memorize Bible scriptures, compete in games and earn prizes.   To find a location near you, click here.

Ballet and Tap -

Olivia will be taking Junior Level 2 Ballet and Tap this year.  Her classes are for one hour, once a week.  She will also be auditioning for a part in the Nutcracker.   

Lindsey will be in moving up to Primary Ballet and Tap.  Her classes are for 45 minutes, once a week.  This will be Lindsey’s first year with Tap.   She’s a shoe gal, so the opportunity to get new tap shoes is a thrill for her.

An added bonus for me, is that this year I can schedule both classes on the same day!  The classes will be back to back, with a bit of overlap time.  So this frees up one entire evening for us during the week.

Piano -

Olivia will be starting piano lessons in late August or early September.  This will be our first venture into musical instruments.  A lovely couple from church has allowed us to borrow their keyboard until we see if this is something she really wants to do.   Once we see that she really is going to stick with it, we’ll begin the search for our own keyboard or piano.

Activity Day -

Our local support group has a monthly activity day class, lasting for 2 hours.    Lindsey will be in my Dr. Seuss class.  Olivia will be in the 7-8 year old girl class and I believe they are focusing on American Girls.

Book-It -

Free is our friend.  Free food is a better friend!  Throw in reading in order to get that free food and it’s a homeschool family’s dream come true!  Ok, that may be a bit of a stretch, but it’s still an awesome program.  Pizza Hut hosts the Book-It! program each year.  The program is open to public, private, parochial, and homeschooled children (K-6th)  You set a monthly goal for reading, and if the child meets that goal, they get a certificate for a free personal pan pizza from Pizza Hut! 

4-H -

We’re looking at joining 4-H this year.   Since Olivia has such an interest in animals I thought this might be a good fit for her.  Imagine my surprise when I found out that the club I’ve been looking at is hosted by a homeschool family from Olivia’s baseball team!  So this will serve a dual function, learning about animals and building stronger relationships with some wonderful folks we’ve already bonded with!

The wonderful thing about this list, is that it’s all free other than the dance and piano lessons!  It sounds really busy, but there are only 2 days a week involved typically (baseball ends before any of the others start).  The activity day and 4-H both fall on the same day, once a month so that’s not bad either.

So see, we really do get out of the house and interact with other people….in case you’re a family member who still isn’t convinced about this homeschooling thing.

2010-2011 Curriculum Choices

Oh July, when a homeschooling Mom’s heart starts to flutter with anticipation of the new school year!!  The choices are made (you hope), products are ordered (you hope) and the packages have started to arrive (dear God PLEASE let the packages arrive on time)!  The poor UPS guy should be met with a plate of warm cookies with each delivery.  

Lindsey will be moving into K-5 with Abeka this year.  We’re using the K-5 phonics, writing (cursive) and math product line.  This is what I used with Olivia and had wonderful results, so I’m sticking with what works!  And well, I already have all the parent/teacher portions of the curriculum.

Olivia is moving into 2nd grade.  I’ve changed everything for her this year, with the exception of math.  We’re sticking with Abeka 2 Mathematics.  Olivia has done really well with this program, and even though it’s accelerated, she enjoys it a great deal.

Language Arts is where all the big changes landed.   After reviewing All About Spelling this past year, I decided to use this as our spelling curriculum.  We’ll be speeding through Level 1 and then start Level 2 as soon as possible.   We’ll be working through First Language Lessons and Writing With Ease to round out our language arts program.

Now comes the fun part.  The things we’ll be working on together.  Lindsey is a VERY bright child for her age (heck, she’s brighter than a lot of adults I know).  So even though she’s in kindergarten, I think she can keep up with Olivia in these areas, although I’ll need to help her with some of the reading and writing until her skill level and speed improve.

We’ll continue to plug along with Cantering the Country for our geography/history study.   However, I’m going to try to move a lot faster this year, but we all know how that goes.  We’ll also be adding some unit studies to this portion of our school year as we come across interesting people, places and historical facts.

We didn’t do a great deal of science last year.  This year we’ll be working through Considering God’s Creation.  I already have some really fun projects lined up as we move through the curriculum and create our notebooks.

I’m still determined to work on Latin.   Olivia did well with it last year, but then we got too busy with all the extra things and I let it drop.  So this year we’ll be starting over with Song School Latin.

Both girls will continue in Awana this year and we’ll use that for the bulk of our Bible lessons.   Olivia will be in her 3rd year of Sparks and Lindsey will be starting her first year of Sparks

Finally, we’re going to spend time learning more about artists, and doing more art projects.  So I’m pulling out Discovering Great Artists for a guideline for us.

Now that I know what we’re using, I just have to figure out which subjects we’re doing on which days.  On to the planner!

In the mean time, head over to the Weekly Wrap Up Curriculum Edition.

Our First Horse Show

I’ve never been to a horse show, and neither have the girls.  However, I thought since Olivia is so interested in animals that a free admission horse show was a good idea.

We only had to drive about 20 minutes.  Hit a heavy rain right before we arrived at our destination.  Then the sun came out and it got hotter than ever! 

“Hershey’s Chocolate Shake” was chosen to ride the American flag out into center ring for the singing of the National Anthem.  The young lady singing had a WONDERFUL voice!

  The man on the far left was the ring master.  The cowboy on the far right is the show judge.

This next horse was stunning!  See the one on the right, with the LONG tail?   Totally gorgeous horse.  Unfortunately the rider had a horrible attitude that totally negated the beauty of the horse.  She didn’t win a single blue ribbon.

Here is our overall favorite horse of the show.  Everything about this horse was elegant and beautiful.  The owner did a wonderful job training and showing this wonderful horse.

There were a lot of young kids showing horses.  This especially caught Olivia’s attention.  This first little guy (or gal maybe) was just TOO cute.

 One thing about Olivia.  She’s not afraid to talk to strangers and ask questions.  (Ok, the questioning is good, the talking to strangers is iffy.)  After the show ended she picked out a horse of interest and went to work finding out things.  

Allow me to introduce to you “Jesse”, a 24 year old horse who is very agile for his age.  He took top honors in the obstacle course!

On our way home we swung by the local ice cream shop and used our free cone coupons.   Not a bad field trip!

Weekly Wrap Up – The One Where the Kids Go To College

Yep, you read that right, college.   Our local community college has a summer youth program called “Learning Can Be Fun”.   There are various classes, topics etc.  Each set of classes last Monday through Friday for one week, for 4 hours a day.   (Older kids have the option of all day classes.) Olivia and Lindsey both received scholarships to attend this year and they had a wonderful time.

The first day of college….Lindsey looks a little TOO ready to join a sorority don’t you think?

Olivia’s class was “Pioneers and Prairies”, based on Laura Ingalls Wilder’s life.  I was really impressed on day one to see her instructor dressed in a handmade outfit that would have been pretty standard on the prairie.  (And NO I didn’t have my camera.)  Olivia learned what pioneers families experienced as they traveled across the frontier, homesteading new territories, farming the prairie land and settling towns and cities.

During the week, the class made a log cabin from pretzel rods and peanut butter, an apple pomander with LOTS of cloves, corncob dolls, bead necklaces and paper dolls (Sunbonnet Sue and Sunbonnet Sam).   They also learned to play old fashioned games, like hide the thimble, hopscotch and storytelling.   There was a taste test of period foods as well; and we all know how Olivia is with new foods, ‘nuff said.

 

Lindsey’s class was “See It, Sing It, Sign It”.   The class description asked “do you like to let your imagination run wild?”   So I knew this was the right class for her.  Using familiar stories, the kids painted props, sang crazy related songs, learned sign language and then acted out specific parts of their story.  The goal was to develop a love for storytelling. 

The class worked on learning the sign language alphabet.  Each child made their own ABC/sign language poster using a stamp set.  They also made t-shirts with their names in sign language.

On the last day of class, the group did several songs in sign language, and performed 4 little mini-plays.  “The Three Little Pigs”, “Goldilocks and the Three Bears”, “Five Little Ducks” and “Billy Goats Gruff”.   Lindsey had acting parts in the first three plays and was the narrator of play number 4.  Unfortunately, we had to divide and conquer, so I didn’t get to see any of these.  The husband did take photos, on our old camera…but I can’t download them for your viewing pleasure.

But here is a sneak peak from earlier in the week.

Thursday night, I helped the girls to make thank you cards for their instructors.  They enjoyed themselves, and the instructors seemed quite pleased with their little treasures as well.

Early in the week we participated in the Celebrate Urban Birds study hosted by Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology.  To read more about our experience, and to get information on how you can participate, click here. 

We also went to a minor league baseball game here in town.  Olivia was greatly annoyed to learn that there were no girls on the team.  So it gave me a good lead-in to explain why I’m moving her from baseball to softball in the spring.   If I can’t get “Coach David” to move to softball, we may have a mutiny on our hands! 

Be sure to visit the Weekly Wrap Up!

Celebrate Urban Birds

This week, we received  our research packet for the Cornell Lab of Ornithology program “Celebrate Urban Birds”.   The kit included:

• a celebration poster, designed by Katie Yamasaki, featuring city birds and lots of practical information about how to attract birds to a bird friendly green space
• a packet of dwarf sunflower seeds, so we can grow our own “natural birdfeeders” in the garden
• a silhouette poster with cool facts about urban birds
• data collection form
• Zero Means a Lot sticker

The process is simple.  Pick a time and outdoor place, watch birds for 10 minutes, and complete the data collection form.  The completed form is then mailed back to Cornell Lab of Ornithology.  If you saw no birds at all, then sadly you take out the “Zero Means a Lot” sticker and slap it on your data sheet, showing that you saw no birds.

The only requirement is a 10 minute bird watching on one day.  However, you have the opportunity to do optional days 2 and 3 as well.

On day 1 (morning), we observed the following in our yard:

• house finch
• robin
• mourning dove
• cardinal
• blue jay

On day 2 (morning), we observed the following in our yard:

• mourning dove
• robin
• cardinal
• blue jay

On day 3 (evening) we observed the following in our yard:

• crow(s)
• robin
• starling

If you’d like to request your own free packet of information, go to the Celebrate Urban Birds site. 

Lily, Word Girl and Lindsey

Way back, many moons ago when we got rid of the evil little Jack Russell Terrorist, we promised the girls fish.  I went out and bought a fish tank and waited for it to get set up and filled with fish.  Yeah, so more than 18 MONTHS later, I decided to do it myself.   It was a surprise for when the girls came home Saturday.

It’s not a big tank, a Tetra 1.5 gallon.  Pretty basic really.  It has a nifty light at the top, that has interchangeable red and blue lenses, in case the fish want a change of scenery.    I added some blue rocks that I found at a yard sale for 50 cents.   We still need a plant, or a castle of something to add interest.    However, I thought I’d wait and see if the fish lived before I did all of that. 

Olivia planned to get 5 fish, and name them after the cast of “Little House on the Prairie”.   Lindsey wanted 5 fish, just because she wasn’t about to be outdone by her sister.  

We stopped at Petsmart and the gal there was very helpful.  She helped point us towards fish that don’t need a heater, are pretty hardy and don’t grow excessively.   Although, she did say that we could only have about 3 fish in the tank and I’m thinking she was wrong on that count.

So we purchased three of the little darlings, you can see them on the right side of the tank, midway up. 

Olivia wanted to name her fish “Word Girl” (lots of tv time at Mamaw’s apparently).   Lindsey named her fish, Lindsey. You’d think she’d be more creative with naming things.  The third fish they picked out was to be named  Willie, and belong to Mamaw.  Except we pointed out that they gave us a female fish that is very much needing to lay some eggs.  So she has since been named Lily.

I’m definitely liking this more than the dog….shudder.

Score!

Some people are blessed to be able to spend lavish amounts of money on curriculum, accessories, etc.  We fall more into the frugal zone.   So when you find something cool, cheap it’s an added bonus.

This year, I’m planning to do more in the area of earth science.  I’ve had a few things on my radar screen in case I spot a sale.  One of which is a simple balancing scale. 

On Saturday I went to retrieve my kids from “Mamaw” and they just HAD to show me the cool thrift store that she’d turned them on to.  Well, imagine my surprise to find a Tasco Ecology Lab Kit in the store for $2.   The box was taped shut on both ends, so I really wasn’t expecting much.   Imagine my surprise when I opened it to find it completely intact, still in the original wrapping.

Ok, now granted the thing is probably from the 80’s (I’ve googled it to no avail).   But still! For $2, according to the box the kit contains:

• Sodium bicarbonate
• Calcium hydroxide
• Diluted hydrochloric acid
• Agar powder
• Iodine in KI solution
• Copper ore
• Sodium carbonate
• SCALE
• Thermometer and graded scale
• 3 one-hole stoppers
• 1 no-hole stopper
• 1 small test tube
• 2 large test tube
• Tubing
• Tweezers
• Steel wool
• Candle holder
• Gas delivery tube
• Funnel
• PH paper
• Plastic slide
• Eye dropper
• Transparent graph paper
• Tasco magnifier
• Filter paper
• 3 small Petri dishes
• Membrane (huh?)
• Alcohol burner
• Test tube holder
• Steel rod
• Wire
• Glass file
• Balloon
• Latex tubing
• Experimental and instruction manual

Now, granted I have no clue what some of these items are, or what you do with them. That’s what the instruction manual is for!  I have no clue if any of the chemicals are still “good”.   What I DO know, is that even though I didn’t necessarily pray and say “Dear God please give me a scale.”  I know that He is our source and provider and He heard me tell the husband I wanted to get one! 

Weekly Wrap Up – The One Without Kids

I hope everyone had a great July 4th weekend!   We had a family cookout at my Mom’s on Saturday night (birthday/4th celebration).  We had a great time watching the cousins play together.   Olivia hot to hold her very first sparkler ever.   She’s been terrified of fireworks every year up until now.   Sunday our temperatures started to soar again, so we spent the majority of the day inside.  Although, we did light off fireworks around 9:30pm (with the water hose VERY close at hand).

On Monday the girls packed their suitcases and headed to Mamaw’s for the week.  To be honest, I didn’t know how well this was going to work.  They’ve never spent the night away from home, much less a week!    

As soon as they were out the door my husband and I went out on the town (such as it is).  Ok, we went to the book fair, then did some Christmas shopping, yes in July, in 100 degree heat.   Then we went to dinner.  It was amazing!   Not the food (it was good)….but I got to eat an entire meal, while it was still warm!  I didn’t have to cut anyone’s food, wipe up any spills or take anyone to the potty as soon as the food was served.  Very nice indeed.

Tuesday, I attacked the girls rooms with a vengeance.  I purged LOTS of toys.  Washed the curtains, sheets, comforters and dust ruffles.  All the walls, windows, furniture and floors got a good scrubbing as well.   Then I finished up my day setting up the fish tank that has been sitting here for almost 2 years.   So we’ll be buying fish when the kids get home.

Wednesday I planned our upcoming school year.   I plotted our course for the next 22 states that I want to cover (only made it through 6 last year).  Then I went online to the tourism department for each state and ordered travel guides to add filler to our state notebooks. My poor mailman will think we’re going on the longest vacation ever when he starts delivering this stuff!

Thursday the husband and I went out to lunch and picked up a few groceries.   After he left for work I decided to start cleaning our classroom and getting it organized.   It sounded like a good idea at the time, but my gosh it took a LONG time.  However, things are clean, organized and ready to roll.

Today the hubby and I went to lunch at a neat little Mexican place downtown.  Food was fantabulous!   New photos came in the mail today, so I’ll hopefully be scrapping later today after he goes to work.

Tomorrow (Saturday) we go get the kids.   It’s been awfully quiet around here without them.

Don’t forget to visit the Weekly Wrap Up.

Summer at the Park

We are fortunate to live within walking distance of a very nice, very large park.  There are several different playgrounds, a duck pond, a miniature train, swimming pool and of course the baseball fields.  (Which by the way, fall baseball starts up at the end of this month.)

Anyhow, we took advantage of the cooler weather last week and went to the park with some friends.   The kids had a wonderful time playing together.  Karen and I had a wonderful time chit chatting about everything from curriculum to raising chickens.   My husband wandered off to watch the ducks a lot.

All four kids were quite fond of the merry-go-round.  I would spin it as hard and fast as I could, then suddenly stop it and have them all try to walk in straight lines.  Very entertaining indeed!

As you can see, Lindsey is a climber.  Although, she hasn’t mastered the art of climbing down yet.

Somehow, Olivia ended up being the caged tiger who was escaping.   Pretty vicious, no?  Well the other three ran around screaming like wild, so it must have been more realistic in real life.

We finally worked our way over to the big playground.   We put the husband to work giving everyone a spin on this contraption.

Finally, Samuel had the right idea about how to use this piece of equipment.  Sadly he didn’t have enough weight or reach to make it to point B.  Amazingly, the kid can hang there forever before crashing to the ground.  Rescuing him was just too much like a girl thing to do you know.

Weekly Wrap Up: The One Where We Just Had Fun!

Other than doing our read aloud, and Olivia’s independent reading, we’ve done absolutely nothing school related this week.  To be honest, I’ve felt really guilty about it!  But you know what, it’s summer, they are kids and we should just enjoy life sometimes.  At least that’s what I’m trying to convince myself of!

Over the weekend, Olivia’s baseball team had their team picnic.  Her coach was awesome, and got the kids all a trophy for all their hard work.  Olivia was the only girl on the team, so he was sure to get her a girl trophy.  He and I also worked together to get the kids statistics typed up for their records and give them a certificate of achievement.   Here is Olivia with the beloved “Coach David”.  (And yeah, he’s wearing pink beaded bracelets that Olivia and Lindsey made him as gifts.)

Then to my amazement, I was presented with this lovely plaque!

Monday we headed to the library to return books, get new books and pick up our 2nd round of prizes for the summer reading program.  Both girls now have a free all day swim pass to the city pool, and a pass to ride the train at the park. 

Tuesday was too hot to do much outside.  We hit the mall and did some early Christmas shopping at Bath & Body Works.  I LOVE a 75% off sale, and then throw in an additional $10 off coupon and I can do some serious stocking stuffing!   Our mall also has a small indoor play area, so we spent some time there.  Then headed over to Wendy's to use up some coupons for free frosty’s.   Frugal fun is a good thing!

Wednesday morning both girls had their 6 month dental checkups.  No cavities!  WOOHOO!  Although, I do need to do a better job of flossing around their back teeth…but gosh it’s hard to get way back there.  Especially for Olivia, she has a hair trigger gag reflex.   Anyway, after the dentist we headed to the theatre for a free summer movie.  We watched the “Tale of Despereaux”.  We’d never seen it and it was pretty good.  Afterwards, we grabbed a $4 pizza and headed to the park for a picnic and some play time.  Thank goodness the temperatures finally dropped out of the triple digits!!

We worked on our cooking skills.  Both girls were given the same amounts of pizza dough, sauce and cheese and left to their own plans.  Lindsey made a big, thin pizza with the cheese evenly distributed.  Olivia had a thicker pizza and ran out of cheese less than halfway through, so she used parmesan to finish the other side.

Today was the perfect summer day, high 70’s, no humidity and a nice breeze blowing.  So we called another homeschooling family and headed to the park for 3 or 4 hours.  It was wonderful!   Good times, good fellowship and fresh air!

Be sure to catch up on everyone else’s week over at the Weekly Wrap Up!

Feeling Hot Hot Hot!!

I’m not sure what happened to spring.  June consisted mostly of high 90’s – 100 degree weather, very high humidity and very little rain to show for it.   Our lawn is brown and crunchy.  However, while tackling the heat we did manage to water a circular pattern  in the back yard. 

Olivia learned a valuable lesson this week. Don’t EVER look in the end of a hose or water sprinkler when Daddy says “Do you see any water yet?”   Lindsey was wise enough to get out of the way.

The girls spent the better part of a steamy afternoon dodging and darting in and out of the crazy water spray.  I’m sure the neighbors wondered what on earth all that screaming was about!   You have fun your way, we’ll have fun ours!