The Schoolhouse Expo – October 4-8, 2010

 

The Schoolhouse Expo will keep your ears busy with an incredible array of more than seventeen speakers for a fantastic, online, five-day audio feast! Covering a vast amount of information, you’ll hear about ways to improve your homeschool, ask your questions directly to the experts, and meet and chat with homeschooling parents from all over the world--all from the comfort of your home.

We bring the speakers right to you! It doesn't matter if you live in the states or internationally, you will benefit from the Schoolhouse Expo as you enjoy five days of interactive Internet experience with dynamic speakers, a virtual vendor hall, fabulous physical door prizes, and a virtual goodie bag filled with over 20 downloads for every attendee!
Are you flexible? We are! The Schoolhouse Expo lets you attend the sessions you choose and continue with your day-to-day schedule, while also offering the audio downloads of each session after the conference, so you can listen to every session at your convenience—repeatedly. The MP3 downloads are included in your ticket price.

Never miss an important point. Remind yourself a year from now by reviewing the experience, and still receive the benefit of years of experience shared by amazing presenters throughout the Expo—both homeschool heroes and popular vendors!

Attendees will learn from fantastic speakers like:

Jon Taylor Gatto (keynote)
Dr. Jay Wile Todd Wilson
Diana Waring Carol Barnier
Andrew Pudewa Hal and Melanie Young
Zan Tyler Molly Green
Mary Jo Tate Karen “Spunky” Braun
Lee Binz Dianne Craft
Kim Kautzer Deborah Wuehler
Jeannie Fulbright Heidi St. John
Amanda Bennett Tricia Goyer

You will also receive over $240 in E-book gifts. Attendees also have a chance to win over 60 door prizes!

Mark your calendars:
Monday, October 4 - Friday, October 8

To purchase your tickets, click on the button in my sidebar or in this post.

Weekly Wrap Up – Back to Normal

Ok, vacation (hahahaaa) is over and we’re back to the normal routine here!  We did find time to have two field trips this week. 

On Tuesday our homeschool  group went on a field trip to a local grocery store.  The tour was based on the Food Pyramid.  We stopped in the bakery, deli, dairy case and the produce sections along the way.  In each area the kids learned about different types of foods in the particular category, number of servings needed per day, and what those foods do for our bodies.   The store also provided samples in each department as well (bagels, cheese, soy milk, ham, watermelon, apples and snap peas).  Each child was given a goodie bag as we left as well.  This started us on a mini nutrition unit study that we’ll be finishing up next week.

As part of our Virginia study, on Friday we visited the Woodrow Wilson Library.   We all had a great time, learned a lot and will add this to our “to do over list”!  To read more, and see more photos, click here.

Also in our Virginia studies this week we worked on our state map, state coin, state flag and learned about the state bird the cardinal.  We reviewed our Pocahontas lapbook (from before I started blogging) and also reviewed Jamestown.

Books we used:

The Virginia Colony; by Elswyth Thane
Virginia 1607-1776; by Sandy Pobst
Virginia Facts and Symbols; by Bill McAuliffe
Pocahontas; by Andy Holmes

In our First Language Lessons we learned a new poem “Hearts Are Like Doors”.   Both girls are doing a great job with this program and I’m so glad we made the change in this area.

Spelling is going smoothly.  I’ve slowed us down to 1 lesson per week with lots of review now.  We’ve finished Level 1 and are half way through Level 2 so I’m trying to make it last the remainder of the year.  I’ve also added spelling quizzes on Friday’s just to see if we need to review more diligently in any area.

Latin continues to be fun for us all.  The jingly little songs do tend to get stuck in one’s ear after a bit though!   But, it’s good to hear the girls singing the songs to themselves throughout the day.

In science we spent the week studying about the earth’s atmosphere as well as the various layers inside the earth!  Quite honestly I don’t expect either child to remember those big words that went along with the atmosphere, but they do remember the names of the earth’s layers so that’s a plus!

Olivia hit another math wall this week with the fraction 1/4. She totally understands halves, but fourths are a hang up.  She understands dividing shapes into fourths, but it’s when we start working with numbers that her eyes glaze over and she stares blankly. So we’ll be camping out on this until the issue resolves.   I’m still looking or fun ways to help her with the addition and subtraction facts as well.

Lindsey is plugging along nicely in her phonics, writing and math.  Nothing major to report good or bad.

Awana is in full swing and the girls are having fun.  Olivia memorized and recited 6 verses for this week.  Lindsey should be getting her book this week (not sure why it’s taken 2 weeks for her to get it) and then we’ll be progressing with her as well.  They both invited friends for this week and both were super excited to see that they showed up for club.

Ballet and tap are bopping right along.  Tomorrow is Olivia’s costume fitting for the "Nutcracker”.   I’m excited to see what role she has, most likely she’ll be a “ginger snap” since this is her first year in the production.

Be sure to check out the Weekly Wrap Up!

Woodrow Wilson Museum

As we continue our study of Virginia, I’m finding so many to see and do!  It’s amazing how many  historical places are literally in your own backyard and you just never took time to notice!

Such was the case today as we ventured out to visit the Woodrow Wilson Presidential Library.  The name makes it sound as though you’re going to be looking at piles of books, but that is totally not the case!   We went on a lovely tour of the Manse where President Wilson was born.   The tour director was wonderful!  Incredibly personable and a wealth of information about the museum and the area as well.

On a side note, we were the only non-retirees in our tour group.  I could almost hear them groan when they realized “oh God they have kids with them”.    About midway through the tour, after Olivia had answered several questions posed by the tour guide, one older gentleman asked me “How on earth did you get them so interested in history?”   Seriously, until then, I really didn’t realize that yes, they both really DO like history!  Now, back to our main story….

Photography was not allowed inside the Manse.  So you’ll have to visit in person to see the interior.  Woodrow Wilson was born in this home, and lived here for approximately 11 months before his family relocated to Georgia.  

Below are photos of the front of the Manse and the garden area.

The museum has an incredible amount of information, artifacts and some wonderful historians!   Olivia and Lindsey were each given a scavenger hunt list of items to locate and identify throughout the museum, and upon completion they were each given prizes.

The Pierce Arrow Limousine was probably one of my husband’s favorite parts of the museum.

Here is an close up photo of the presidential seal that is on the door of the limousine.

 One of the newest exhibits is from World War I.  They have bunkers, a field hospital and weaponry.  If you look to the top of the photo on the left below, you’ll see light…there is simulated bomb explosions flaring from the opposite side of the bunker.  Very life like, loud, and scary.   Olivia said “Mom, war is scary sounding.” I explained that it was a lot more scary than it sounded.  She asked why we have to learn about wars, and explained, that the only way to keep from making the same mistakes over is to remember what got us into wars to begin with.

Surprisingly, even though most things were non-touchable, both girls are already looking forward to visiting again!  Two presidents down, 6 to go!

Homeschool Showcase #56 Is Up

If you would like to get some serious inspiration for hands on activities and learning, check out this weeks Homeschool Showcase #56 . Kris at Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers does an AWESOME job of putting this blog carnival together every couple of weeks.  Be sure to check it out, and think about participating in the next Homeschool Showcase.   Submission deadlines for the next issue is October 3 at 4pm.

The Solar System

Our science curriculum had a short lesson on the solar system.  It was long enough however to create interest in the girls and so we ended up turning it into a unit study.  We even built our own solar system, pictured below.   Directions for building your own can be found here.

Books we used:

Earth and the Solar System; by Crabtree Publishing
Experiments With the Sun and the Moon; by Salvatore Tocci
Pluto, From Planet to Dwarf; by Elaine Landau
Earth and Mars; by Rosalind Mist
Mercury and Venus; by Rosalind Mist
Jupiter and Saturn; by Rosalind Mist
Uranus, Neptune and the Dwarf Planets; by Rosalind Mist

We created our own solar system notebook using free printables from ABC Teach, Coloring Castle and  Classroom Jr.   Homeschool Views offers an entire free unit study with free printables.  Teacher Planet offers a ton of activities, lessons and even clipart.  We also used Enchanted Learning to access this lovely solar system book below.  This one was for member only, so I can’t share the direct link (but membership is REALLY worth the cost).

We also got to look at some real photos, courtesy of NASA and also here.   Then for a little added fun, we signed up for the NASA Kid’s Club.

To finish of our study, we took a field trip to the John C. Wells Planetarium.  The kids and I both really enjoyed this field trip!    We opted for the show with Molecularium and it was really cute.  The professor in charge was super personable and spent a lot of time talking with Olivia and Lindsey.    He showed us how to located Jupiter tonight; and he was surprised (and truthfully, so was I) with the amount of facts Olivia knew about Jupiter.  For me it was one of those “OMG!  They really ARE learning!” moments.

Weekly Wrap Up – This is Vacation?

I’m quite certain the term vacation is used VERY loosely in our house.

Saturday Olivia auditioned for a role in the Nutcracker.  She received her confirmation letter that she has a role!! However we won’t know what part she’s playing until costume fittings on September 25.

Sunday morning we left for the beach.  After three plus hours on the road we arrived to rain (typically it rains the ENTIRE time we go to the beach, so this was nothing new).  We headed directly to the  Virginia Aquarium and Marine Science Center and spent almost 5 hours touring the one building.  We never got to the marsh facility!   If you’d like to see all the photos from the aquarium, click here.  If you’d like to see photos from out jaunt on the beach and the in the pool click here.   It was a short trip and we were back home by late Tuesday evening.

Wednesday Olivia had piano lessons.   We worked on getting everything unpacked, put away and laundry.   Once that task was complete the girls were super excited for the first night of Awana!  Lindsey is in her first year of Sparks, and Olivia is completing her last year of Sparks. 

Thursday afternoon was the beginning of our new year for Activity Day!   I’m teaching the kindergarten class and decided to go with a Dr. Seuss theme this year. We started off with the beloved “Green Eggs and Ham”.  To read about all of our activities and crafts and to see photos, click here.

Thursday evening was the first meeting of 4-H.  This is our first year of 4-H, and both girls are in the Cloverbuds group (ages 5-8).  Since Olivia has such a great interest in animals I thought this would be an awesome opportunity for her to learn and grow.  An added bonus was the fact that one of her close friends from baseball is in the group!

Friday morning we headed off to Montpelier for Constitution Day.  This was a wonderful field trip and a great kick off to our study of Virginia!  You can see lots of photos and read about our adventures here.  I can not guarantee that we’ll hold to our 2 week per state schedule on this one, there are just too many things to see and do close by!

Here is a snippet of our visit….”Thomas Jefferson” and “James Madison” were very personable…for dead guys.

Friday evening we were back at the ballet studio for everyone’s ballet lessons, and then home to collapse in a crumpled heap.

So if you still have friends or family who think we homeschoolers stay locked in our homes all day, send them a link to this post!   In the meantime stop by the Weekly Wrap Up to see how everyone else spent their week!   If you need me, I’ll be on the sofa!

Montpelier – Constitution Day

Today we had the wonderful opportunity to travel to Montpelier, the home of James and Dolley Madison.    We were fortunate enough to get to be a part of Constitution Day.  The weather was perfect, not overly crowded and those in attendance appeared to be having a wonderful time, and learning a lot!

Below are photos of the front and rear of the house, as well as Madison’s Temple.

Olivia and Lindsey both love hands on activities, and really what kid doesn’t?  Once we entered the land of touch and feel the fun was kicked up a notch!

Working in the Archaeology Lab was a big thrill.  Digging in dirt, finding real things and then getting to identify those items were a big hit!

The wooden toys were a big treat as well.   Lindsey likes little items to play with, so she was in LOVE with this all wooden Noah’s Ark!  And of course, there were animals, so Olivia liked it too.

Olivia has a much shorter attention span, or maybe she’s just more inquisitive?  Either way, she enjoyed trying out lots of things.  The older gentleman in the photo to the right was the maker of most of the toys and once Olivia realized he’d answer questions about things, she was set.  He even taught her how to play Mancala. 

 Still playing with Noah’s Ark…

 

This activity was neat.  The young lady in the fru-fru hat showed Olivia how to use the contraption in her lap to reflect an image onto her drawing board for tracing.

Yeeeep….gotta love Noah’s Ark.

Playing the dulcimer was fun!  The young lady in the green was an exceptionally talented musician!

How many kids do you know who can say they’ve been photographed with Thomas Jefferson and James Madison?

Shortly after this photo, there was a lovely presentation by the drum and fife corps.   “Thomas Jefferson” and “James Madison” then held a brief meeting with us, talking about the importance of the Constitution.   After their scripted speeches were over, they answered questions and I’ll tell you what, those guys are incredibly quick thinking, witty and overflowing with history facts and information!

Signing the “Constitution”.

We spent about 6 hours on this trip, and still didn’t get to see it all.  It’s a definite must do field trip!   To finish up, I’ll throw in a few photos of the gardens and scenery for you to enjoy.