Catching Up – What We’ve Been Up to This Fall!

I wanted to share with you some pictures of what we've been doing this fall!

This year, we're focusing on American History.

One of our first activities was to create boats and "float" them across "the ocean." I didn't really have time for that, so instead, the girls and I made paper boats. And then the girls decided that we MUST have Christopher Columbus on the boat. They refused to believe me that Queen Isabella didn't join him on the boat (seriously, Abby and Lily are going to come up with a princess- theme in everything). 

Queen Isabella and Christopher Columbus

When studying colonial America, we made our own Tri-Corner Hats . . .

Our Tri-Corner Tri-Color Hats!

Then we used our own Qwill Pens to practice signing our names for the Declaration of Independence!

  

We also made Hasty Pudding, and decided it's absolutely revolting.

When we have time, we add in music lessons with Mommy. We don't get to do this as much as I and the girls would like. But here are the girls playing a concert for Daddy on their new recorders. By the way - recorders are not as easy to play as I thought! How many instruments I've played, and I think I might have to give myself a few lessons before we attack those again.

A Recorder Concert for Daddy Before Bedtime

We also joined American Heritage Girls! We are having a blast with that - the girls are really getting into it.

We've also done quite a few field trips this fall, in addition to our Colonial Williamsburg/Jamestown trip. More on those very soon.

And that's it so far!

Jamestown Trip

While we were visiting Williamsburg, we set aside a day to enjoy Jamestown, which is just down the road. It ended up being one of the highlights of our trip - we absolutely loved it.

 

During the Homeschool Days, our tickets got us a full family tour of both the settlement, boats, and Powhatan village that was filled with reenactors. 

   

For part of the tour, we were able to go down into replicas of the ships, and had a "sailor" tell us about the voyage.

I have to say our favorite part was the Powhatan village and learning about the Native American tribe. Because Abby and Lily are into all things "princess," I jumped on the Pocahontas story. Yes, they watched the Disney movie - but we also watched "The Making Of" part, which talked about the fact that much of story wasn't accurate. I also found a biography of Pocahontas in the thrift store, of all places, and we read the "real" story as well.

  

We took classes about the Powhatan tribe - how they lived, what they ate, etc. Here is Abby dressing up like Pocahontas. You'll be so pleased to know that they wore very little clothes - in fact the ONLY thing they wore was this "apron." (This is an adult size apron on a seven year old.) The girls spent weeks afterwards trying to be exhibitionists - after all, if Pocahontas didn't have to wear clothes, why did they? Sigh. Not exactly the lesson I was hoping for them to take home from this! 

Making rope

 

Scraping a deer hide

Scraping out a tree log to make a canoe. Lily really got into this!

  
 The entire family had a fabulous time, and no one wanted to leave! In fact, after dropping me off at the hotel so I could work that afternoon, Joel took the girls back to enjoy more time there, and check out their museum. We really could have spent more time there. If you get a chance to go, be sure to take advantage of the tours and classes offered. The volunteers there are wonderful!

Historic Jamestowne
Jamestown Settlement and Yorktown Victory Center Homeschool Days

Our Trip to Colonial Williamsburg

I wanted to share with you some pictures from our trip to Colonial Williamsburg! We loved Colonial Williamsburg. We went during September during their "Homeschool Days, which I totally recommend by the way."The prices are SOOO much better, and there are lots of events,activities, and "classes" to participate in. I would say the weather is better in September  - except we arrived during a heat wave - it was 90+ degrees the week we were there. So much for that.



 




 

Forget the doghouse, we'll just put hubby here!

the auctioneer

I apparently was the only one enjoying the auction.

We loved this because we had just finished reading "Farmer Boy", about Almanzo Wilder and his oxen.

We ended up having to buy little hats as souvenirs to help protect our fair skin from the sun. 

The Wigmaker

One of the "extra" activities we did (for just $5 more) was a "Be a Soldier" session. They learned to march, throw a hatchet, and pitch a tent. Joel had even more fun than our girls did. (Lily was being stubborn and refused to participate. They were going to make her take off her pretty hat.)

Abby as a "Soldier"

March, 2, 3, 4

To keep it very affordable, we packed lunches, snacks, and water bottles every day in a backpack. We joked how how you could pick out all the homeschoolers, because they brought their own food. The trick that week was to find a shady place to eat it. This was in the gardens of the Governor's home and it was one of my favorite spots.

The Williamsburg Bathroom. Chamber pot anyone?

What ended up being some of our favorite activities were the free classes at the Museum! First of all, it was AIR CONDITIONED. I loved it for that alone. But they also offered two free classes each day, and we did quite a few of them. And the ladies who led the classes were so sweet and patient with all the kids.I would HIGHLY recommend taking anything offered at the Museum.

 

Creating Our Own Self- Portraits

I found a fabulous deal at a resort we had stayed at once before. It was a condo-type with a kitchen, which meant we could prep our dinners there. This was important to me since I'm gluten-free - which is sometimes to hard to deal with when traveling. So, we brought several prepped and frozen meals with us, along with breakfast food. When we arrived, we stopped at a grocery store and picked up eggs, milk, and bread. Every morning we stopped for coffee on our way.

We didn't do much "official" homeschool work that week. I brought some activity pages and colors to occupy the girls at the hotel/condo, but it wasn't really needed. Beforehand, we had read some of the American Girl Felicity books, which I highly recommend.

So, there ya go. Our trip to Colonial Williamsburg! We spent a week in the area and had a BLAST.

Colonial Williamsburg Educational Site
Colonial Williamsburg Homeschool Days
Colonial Williamsburg Teacher Community

Easter and Passover

My hand-painted eggs from Austria. Older than Abby and still survived all our moves!

The girls' eggs

In their Easter dresses, that they picked out themselves

And Easter morning:

The girls got a movie, book, fancy toothbrush, new pencils and pens, a chocolate bunny and peeps.

Joel teasing the girls that he was going to eat all their eggs

And then that night, we celebrated the last night of Passover with the local Messianic congregation.

Love,

Julie, Joel, Abby and Lily

Snow Pictures

Here are a few of our snow pictures this winter!

The time Joel actually got a "Snow Day" from work, and then it only snowed about two inches. (We also bought little sleds for the girls, but no one would cooperate and let me take a picture of them doing it.)

And our very last snow day! (Or at least, it better be.)

I have convinced the girls how cool it is to shovel snow.

 

And, since we had been studying 3-D shapes in Lily's math lessons, we made snow "spheres" instead of snow balls!

Goodbye winter! Don't let the door hit you on the way out!