The Blue Ridge Parkway

We live in such a scenic area.  This week we took some time to get out and enjoy a bit of it as a family.  We loaded up the family, a few snacks and set out on “another adventure” as Olivia calls it.    This time we tackled The Blue Ridge Parkway.  

There are so many trails, overlooks and scenic areas that I can’t begin to do it justice in this blog post.   So I’ll just cover the Carter Family farm and a few scenic shots later in the post.

During the summer months the buildings are open and their are period clad persons on site.  We’ll be making a trip back next spring! 

Here is the family home.  I found it interesting that the house had no openings for windows, but maybe that was a frivolous endeavor at the time? 

Below are the chicken coop, and the entry way to the smoke house. 

 

The barn, pictured below was more to protect the animals from predators than the elements.  As you can see it’s still very much open to cold and rain/snow.

Below is a bear proof pig pen.  The logs across the top were held in place by pole across the middle, which in turn was held in place the by X sections.  Pretty creative, eh?

The springhouse was a  open, and quite cool inside.  I still prefer my refrigerator, thank you!

Below is the inside of the spring house, the dark section in the middle is the little stream of water that runs through to help keep foods cool.

This particular homestead had a lot of hickory trees.  We even tried some hickory nuts (I prefer almonds).   However, based on the “squirrel buffet” below, I don’t think the squirrels mind the taste a bit.After we left the farm, we traveled along the Parkway and enjoyed the scenery.   Even way up here, graffiti is present.

Then on the way home we found (not that it was lost, but we didn’t know it was there) this lovely lake.  We’ll be going back next summer to swim, fish and camp.

Prior to our outing we did a brief study, here is a list of the book and videos we used:

Visual Character of the Blue Ridge Parkway; U.S. Dept. of The Interior
Blue Ridge Mountain Memories; Windows of the World VHS Series

Having my husband home for an entire week has been wonderful.  We’ve been able to spend time together and do things as a family, at a leisurely pace.  No rushing to get to work or activities, and for that I am truly thankful!

Homeschool Blog Awards – Winners Announced

The Homeschool Post has announced the winners of the 2010 Homeschool Blog Awards.   If you get a chance go by and visit the winning blogs.

Thanks to those who nominated, and voted for either of my blogs!

Monticello

I’ve lived in Virginia all of my life (with the brief exception of a 6 month jaunt to Oklahoma).   During those 40+ years I’ve always lived within 1.5 hours of Monticello and had NEVER been there.  But now, I have joined the ranks of the masses who have gone, and been amazed!  Sadly, I also join the ranks to those who say “Ill take a photo of the front of the house when we finish our tour”…and then never get back around to the front of the house.  So, here is a lovely photo of the BACK of Monticello.   Photos inside the home are not allowed.  However once the tour is finished, you can roam about at will.  You are able to take photos in the areas under the terraces, which is where the kitchen, store rooms and other work areas were housed.

Below is a photo of one of the tunnels beneath the terrace.  This one led to the kitchen, which is shown in the next series of photos.

 

I LOVED the kitchen.  The photo above left shows the “stove”.  This was basically a brick frame, with individual fire pits for each “burner”. 

Touring the gardens was one of my favorite things.  The 1,000 foot vegetable garden is beautiful, and still flourishing this late in the year.

With its orchards, vineyard and garden and livestock, this “home” was it’s own small community supporting over 200 people (family, slaves and craftsmen).  

Along Mulberry Row is where the majority of the shops and slave dwellings were located.   Now all that’s left are a few markers to tell of the people who lived and died here.

A 1/4 mile walk beyond the garden is the Jefferson Family Cemetery.  The photo to the right, below is Thomas Jefferson’s grave stone.

  The girls favorite part of the trip was the Griffin Discovery Room back at the Visitors Center.  There were LOTS of hands on activities here and the girls could have stayed in this area forever!

 

This was an all day trip, and I still don’t think we covered everything.  So, I’m sure we’ll be doing it again one day when the girls are older and have forgotten how great it is!

Weekly Wrap Up – The Pre-Thanksgiving Edition

Oh.my.gosh!  I am exhausted after this week, seriously!  Monday was a “normal” day.  Tuesday was normal, other than adding the baby to it. Wednesday was a regular school day, plus piano, followed by a 2 hour ballet practice followed by 2 hours of Awana.  Thursday was school, plus Ellie, plus PEACH (Ellie wasn’t allowed in the nursery, so I had her in class with my 9 5-year olds) plus 4-H.  Friday was a short school day…yeah.  So when that was finished I had to catch up on the laundry and housework, make cookies for a bake sale for the dance company, followed by a meeting for our Sunday School directors, and them more baking snacks for a jewelry party for Saturday night.    Did I mention EXHAUSTED???

Ok, enough whining…on with the wrap up.

History:  I took the easy way out and reviewed some of our Thanksgiving work from years gone by.   We reviewed our study of Squanto, including the timeline we made of his life.

We also reviewed our previous study of the Wampanoag, including this lovely replica of the Wampanoag home.

We spent a lot of time reading about Thanksgiving.  Books we read included:

Squanto Fried of the Pilgrims; by Clyde Robert Bulla
Squanto and the Miracle of Thanksgiving; by Eric Metaxas
Sarah Morton’s Day, A Day in the Life of a Pilgrim Girl; by Kate Waters
Thanksgiving Day at Our House; by Nancy White Carlstrom

We made our own Thanksgiving fact books.  We included a map of the Mayflower journey, vocabulary, copy work, poetry, turkeys, pilgrims, poetry and Native Americans.  I’m sure it would have made a lovely lapbook, but hey there’s something to be said for printing on regular paper and slapping a cover on it!

 

As part of our Thanksgiving studies, we took note of how blessed we are, to excess at times.  We found a great local program called The Big Give, and spent time going through our GOOD things to make donations.  We’re also scheduling a day to go and help set up items as well.

Math:  I need a “bang head here” sign.  I’m seriously looking forward to a break from math next week. 

Language Arts:  We didn't do any spelling, or First Language Lessons this week. 

Science:   Um, yeah…nothing here either.

Latin:   Ahhh, now see, we DID do Latin!  Lesson 13 is a review week.  So we spent time working on vocabulary, singular/plurals and using those things in every day language.

I had several reasons for such a “relaxed” week.  Most of those reasons being that ALL of our extra curricular activities hit this week (as noted in my opening rant paragraph).  They just so happened to ALSO land on days when Eliana was here.  GAH!

Activity Day:   Dr. Seuss is such a fun theme for this age group.  Read all about the “Foot Book” activity day here.

4-H:  This was a bit disappointing.  After the 30 minute commute into the boonies we found out the guest speaker had backed out and the kids spent the evening playing “train wreck”.  Grrr…

Piano:   Moving right along.

Ballet:   This week was the beginning of intensive Nutcracker practice.   Olivia had a 2 hour practice on Wednesday night.  Saturday will be another 2 hour practice.  Oh, and the shirts for the dancers are in.  Aren’t these great!

Awana:  The girls took their Operation Christmas Child shoe boxes to Awana for collection.   Olivia memorized two new verse and Lindsey continued working on the two she learned last week but didn’t get to recite.

Life Skills:   Olivia learned how to feed and burp the baby.  The burping was funny, but I had to be a lot closer in case of accident, so I couldn’t get photos of that.

I do hope everyone else had a great week!  Be sure to check out the Weekly Wrap Up!