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

The Blessings of Homeshooling

This started out as a response on Facebook to someone, and quickly turned into so long, that I hard to turn it into a blog post!

I admit I don't get a lot of negative comments about homeschooling our girls - at least to my face. I have gotten a lot of "Wow, she's one of those weirdos" polite looks, and some of "Well it's a phase, and she'll get over it" kind of quasi-support.

I know homeschooling isn't for everyone, and honestly, some days I wonder if I can keep it up any longer. Homeschooling is not easy. It is HARD. It requires time and effort and a bigger commitment than I realized when I started. What I will say, that homeschooling the girls - something that started as a temporary measure while dealing with our crazy constant moving last year - has been one of the most amazing blessings on our family.

I am the first to admit that there are amazing, qualified, super-smart, gifted teachers out there. I am, in fact, related to a few of them! But being able to give that one-on-one attention and time to a child, teaching to their strengths and needs, is something that just can't be discounted. I believe with my whole heart that there are teachers out there who's gift and passion and calling in life is to teach children. I also believe, however, that they are often held back and strapped down by a system that is not working for the benefit of the individual child, since it is focusing on the masses. But that is about to get into a political discussion which is another argument for another day.

My dream is to never give homeschooling up, even though we do admit we take this as a year-by-year decision. We know better than to try to plan ahead too much, because God has had quite a serious chuckle or two at our expense this year!

Beyond what the girls are learning, I myself have learned things and have developed interests that I would have never found if not for homeschooling. (Case in point, new to my bucket list - learning to play guitar and Hebrew. Yup. Not that I have time right now, which is why it's on my bucket list.) I have learned more patience than I thought even possible with my personality. I have gotten so in touch with my girls' personalities, and spend time with them at this young age that I will never get back again. Especially since they refuse to obey when I order them to stop growing up so quickly on me!

And while I still hate math with a passion (sorry, Mom), I am getting into kindergarten/first grade science with a lot of enthusiasm! We got to go to a nature center this week and the girls learned about turtles from experts, and do lots of great activities, including racing different kinds of turtles! We made the dreaded volcano project (does anyone else remember that from elementary school?) and Joel is going to do a math experiment with them this weekend - to learn about measuring cups and estimating and stuff like that. Like I said, I still hate math.

And I literally get to watch my baby (yes, LILY) learn to read. She read her first little words last week. She picked up on it like a fish to water. Abby is reading everything in sight and driving me bonkers - I seriously can't keep up with her!

And we get to spend so much time out in the "real world" and learn about "real world issues." We've been very active in our church's food pantry outreach - from working in the gardens this fall and harvesting fresh food for the pantry (and subsequently creating our own garden that was very much enjoyed by the bugs and squirrels, sadly), to donating cans of food, to helping out at the Thanksgiving food give-away at the pantry. Joel ran a 5K in support of the program, and we cheered Daddy on for that as well.

The girls have met a missionary to India, and saved all their change and worked hard around the house (with a good attitude, which is MY main requirement) to earn enough to donate a pair of chickens and now a pair of rabbits to destitute families there. I sponsor a local missionary monthly in India. And now, Abby has heard about the problems in Haiti and wants to help "rebuild after the earthquake." Tell me, what kind of six-year-old thinks about things like that on her own?

Abby has displayed this amazing artistic side, and Lily who is our "Little Miss Serious" is also the funniest ham in the family. Which is saying something in our family. Being super shy, it is very hard for her to warm up to a group, but I have had the blessing to just watch her blossom in the past year or so. Seriously, being with my girls like this is everything I expected being a mommy to feel like and more.

So, as much as homeschooling has done for our children, I am amazed by what homeschooling has done for me.

What we did this Summer

I love this picture I took randomly this summer. The girls were "playing homeschool." Lily was listening to the Addition Fact songs on the iPod (what Abby is dealing with in math right now), and Abby was playing teacher and beauty parlor at the same time. Yup. This is what homeschooling really looks like!  

So, I flaked out this summer from posting. I am so sorry, I feel like I let myself down as much as you guys. But I have a very good reason.

ROACHES.

So that apartment we moved into? Yeah, apparently the entire building is infested with roaches. Of different varieties. By the millions. I couldn't help but see the irony as I was learning more about roaches than I never wanted to know. I can now tell you exactly the life cycle of roaches, what kills them (nothing) and what doesn't (just about everything), and even what their eggs and poop look like. Homeschooling at its finest. IT WAS GROSS AND NASTY.

I really hope ya'll aren't retching right now and still reading.

We did find a new place to live finally, but in the meantime, we went through weekly full extermination sessions - emptying every single cabinet and closet and leaving the house for a full day, come home and put everything back, only to have them come crawling back out of the walls a few hours later. I am not even kidding. It was really that bad. Really.

We finally got into our new (beautiful, clean, safe neighborhood, and most importantly, insect-free) townhouse almost two weeks ago, and we are feverishly unpacking and trying to get re-settled.

Last week I added it up, and as a family, if you count the month long stays with family, hotels, and temporary apartments, we have moved eight times. In the past two years. To say we are all completely sick of it would be an understatement.

What else did we do this summer? We took advantage of the plethora of summer camp programs in our area, and the girls participated in church camp (VBS) for two weeks, Spanish immersion camp for three weeks, and one week of "ballet camp." (The girls really miss ballet.) And right now Abby is finishing up two weeks of "math camp", where they are working on the dreaded addition math facts. We're hoping this will get us over the hump when we get back to homeschool full-time next week. And we also did a joint birthday party for the girls in July.

 

And I have been working on networking and drumming up more coaching business. My website designer is feverishly (I hope) working on the re-design of my website. So far all I have is my new logo to share.

But, mainly, our hobby this summer has been apartment hunting and the murdering of mutant bugs. God, I am so ever thankful we are done with all of that.

Olympics Homeschool Lesson

Joel decided he wanted to do a little homeschool unit lesson with the girls on the Olympics. So I printed some things off the Internet and they went to town. I was very impressed!


The following weekend, he found out that the National Children's Museum was having an "Olympics Event." Well, of COURSE we had to go!

Here are the girls with the torches they made. Ignore the pouting for the camera.

They also had a "track" obstacle course for the kids to do. Abby was "too cool," but Lily loved it and did it over and over. And over and over.

Here is Lily "jumping" the hurdles.

Well, we were a little to prissy to actually jump.

And then we colored some Olympics related coloring sheets.

And even more cool (well, at least to us parents), was that there was a REAL, former Olympic medalist there to sign autographs and take pictures with the kids. Her name is Tiombe Hurd, and she still holds the record for the Triple Jump. Nicest gal.

Abby wanted to know where she kept all of her medals, and she laughed and told her that her Dad had some, and then she kept the rest in a case at home. Abby looked up at me, trying to decide if she would share her future medals with me. I think the jury is still out on that!

And of course, no outing is complete (at least in that heat!) without a visit to get ice cream! Which, of course, the girls say was their favorite part of the day. Little stinkers.

Our Trip to Colonial Williamsburg

(Excuse me while I catch up on my backlog of post drafts!)

When planning our drive up to Washington, DC, a friend sent me a link to a Groupon coupon for a cheap 2 night stay in Williamsburg. Well, we knew we'd need a hotel anyway, so why not stop for an extra day and have some fun? (Plus, we could call it educational and therefore, "home school field trip" HA!)

Little did we know that the closest thing to a cold front we'd have this winter happened THAT WEEKEND. As in, I have no coat (we shipped all of our heavy winter stuff ahead) and it STARTED TO SNOW WHILE WE WERE THERE. Isn't that lovely???

But here is the GREAT, GREAT news about Williamsburg, especially if you are a homeschooler. They have "homeschool weekends!" Usually on an off-season week, and the prices were ridiculously low. As in, Joel and I paid $10 for full admission, and both girls got in FREE because they were under 6.

 

I will say, that cold nasty weather made that particular visit not so much fun. Not many "outside" events were happening, and being off-season, not as many shops/events were open as normal. Joel and I loved it, and it probably went over the girls' heads mostly, since we really hadn't started studying any sort of real history at the time.

Our three favorite stops:

1) The Jailer's house. Abby was fascinated by the jail, and the shackles on their feet. She was also particularly interested in the "throne" (ie. the potty you had to climb up to). She wanted to know that if their feet were shackled (the shackles were bolted to the floor to keep them from being stolen) how did they climb up there to the potty? Thank goodness the guide seemed to have answered that question before, as frankly I didn't have a clue what to say!

2) The dress shop. I love this, being right in line with my costumed background. And since my mom used to sew, I really could appreciate the craftsmanship. The girls weren't so interested, which was unfortunate as this was one of the few shops with heat and I would have preferred to stay a bit longer!

3). Lunch. Lunch at the tavern (sorry, can't remember which one) was AWESOME. We loved it. Super pricey, but since we cheaped out on everything else, it seemed fair to pay a "Goodness gracious!" amount for lunch! 

Yeay for heat! We love modern conveniences like that!

As the day went on, and the weather got worse and worse, and little girl attitudes got worse and worse, we jumped on the bus back to the visitor center, stopped at the gift shop (I have an addiction to gift shops and can't ever seem to pass them up), and headed back to our hotel.

Doesn't she look like she's having fun?

And here is our little ham!

Where we ended up with over three inches of snow on the ground by morning. And that was the only snow we saw all winter! I am already trying to plan our trip back to Williamsburg this fall during their next homeschool week, since we're going to be in the area, and hopefully we'll see more and the girls will "get it" more, since we're starting to read/study a little bit of American history (American Girl books, Little House on the Prairie, etc.).

Here are some resources, if you would like to build Colonial Williamsburg into your homeschool experience (or not!):

Colonial Williamsburg Education Link and Info: http://www.colonialwilliamsburg.com/discover/educate/

Colonial Williamsburg Homeschoolers Link and Info: http://www.colonialwilliamsburg.com/plan/groups/homeschoolers/ (PS. This fall's homeschool experience is from September 8-22, 2012!)

Lesson Plans, Worksheets, Teacher Resources, Kids Zone, etc.: http://www.history.org/History/teaching/groupTours/SchoolandYouth/plan.cfm

Sorry I've been MIA

So, yeah, our move here threw me for a loop.

I really apologize if you guys have sent me emails and I haven't responded. I've tried to keep up, but in my personal email box alone there are over 100 emails still sitting there, and that's after I cleaned out 40+ this morning. And that's just one email account (I ummm, have quite a few.) So yeah, I have not been a good email buddy.

This week the girls are at "church camp" so I am trying to dig in and make a huge dent in all of the "paperwork stuff" that I've let slide while I've been dealing with everything. I made a lot of progress this morning, which I'm sure was completely fueled by the coffee I had while sitting at Starbucks. Still, since my hole is so deep, it's gonna take me much too long to catch up.

So, what have we been up to? Well, we moved in that first weekend in May, and then unpacked like crazy people for three straight weeks. It took that long to even get close enough to come up for air! We had to get a storage unit in our complex to hold the stuff we can't keep (stay tuned for a bunch of Craig's List ads!) and I have become extremely creative at storage tricks. I have had to go through every single bin and box we have ever had and purge, reorganize, purge some more, and store things the most efficient way possible. By the way, you can fit A LOT of stuff under beds. And thank goodness for the good closet storage we do have. Mostly this step is done. Mostly. I've still got one bin left that needs to be organized and put away, but I keep putting it off to do other things. Like scrub bathrooms, throw food at kids, do laundry, etc. I will get to it.One day.

Joel was sent "off" again for a few weeks almost immediately, and this has not improved my attitude toward the Foreign Service at all. I will come around. . . . eventually. I wouldn't be expecting them to be on my Christmas list, though. Joel was not the happiest about it either, but hey, we live at the mercy of the US Govt and that's all that there is to be said about that. Out loud, at least. In my head, I say a lot of things. In very colorful language. (He should be back in July.)

My mom was able to come visit for several days and the girls loved having their Nana here. There was lots of reading of books and more books and more books, and a trip to the pool (kinda too chilly still, though. What is up with this weather?), and generally just hung out. We did get together with family up here which was fun, and we also went over to Colvin Run Mill. If you're local, you really should go. We got to go to a "general store" and then watched them grind corn into cornmeal in a working mill that has been around since the 1700's. The day we went they also had a blacksmith and wood carving. We got the girls sunbonnets just like "Little House on the Prairie, which the girls L-O-V-E (the bonnets and the books!).

We finally got "home school" started up again, but have been having difficulty getting our rhythm and consistency back. I hope that by the end of all these summer camp things we're doing, I'll have gotten everything more settled and will be able to stick to a routine. We are very blessed that this apartment has a "breakfast dining" and a "formal dining" area, so we turned the "breakfast dining" space into our class room. As soon as I can get it cleaned up enough, I'll take some pictures for you guys - it is starting to look really cute! Abby is currently working through "1st grade" and Lily will be joining us next fall with a more formal "preK4" program. Addition and subtraction facts have been kicking our hineys for a few months now, BUT at the Virginia home school convention a few weeks ago, I was able to get a couple cool math fact CD's and with a bit of bribery (a chart that she gets to mark off for doing her math work without complaining and then get a prize), Abby is very motivated and has decided math is fun again.

Lily is now fully potty-trained, even at night. She regressed quite a bit with the stress of the move, but after a break of a week, she was so completely insulted by the idea of wearing pull-ups again that she just made up her mind that she was done with them. I swear, that little girl is the funniest thing ever, but she is going to drive me to distraction!

Taking advantage of all the COOL summer stuff going on around here, we have both girls in "Church camp" for two weeks, then one week of a ballet camp (really just a week of ballet lessons with an Angelina Ballerina theme), and three weeks of Spanish immersion camp.We are right around the corner from the Annandale Boys and Girls Club and they are doing soccer camp this summer, and I was able to get Abby in that for one week as well, and both girls are signed up to do soccer next fall, and Abby will continue with cheerleading through the ABGC. So yeah, we're keeping as busy as we possibly can be!

Work has been picking up for me as well, which is very nice. I am looking forward to clearing out a few business projects that have been on the back burner for quite a while this summer. I'm redesigning my business website and branding, and looking into networking and volunteer opportunities.

So, that is us in a nutshell.

I will get some pictures up soon.

MFW Homeschool Highlights

I had been procrastinating on a few "science projects" and so last week we had a catch up science day.

Our first project was a taste test of goat milk and goat cheese. We compared it to regular cow milk and to almond milk and to the various (cow) cheeses we had on hand.

The verdict? We like goat cheese! Abby likes the plain verses the one with the seasonings added, which Mommy prefers. And Abby liked the goat milk as much as she liked the cow milk, but was not a fan of almond milk. I personally prefer almond milk over cow milk, and think goat milk taste awful!

And then we put together our ant farm since our ants finally arrived in the mail. This ant farm came with our curriculum kit.

This was not Mommy's favorite project and I was totally creeped out. First of all, it was too cold to leave the ant farm outside, which was my original plan. Second of all, these ants are HUGE and I can not stand anything creepy crawly. I'm not ashamed to admit I'm a huge sissy. And then having to keep them in my house??? Yeah, not my favorite homeschooling moment. But trying to be the good mommy, I hid it and kept telling how cool this was. Yes, I lied right through my teeth. Oh, I forgot number three. The paperwork mentioned these ants bite. Yeah. You read that right. (Can't you hear me saying, "Isn't that  . . . interesting, Abby?" LOL)

The verdict on this is we had stupid ants. They did NOT cooperate and build their little ant tunnels where they were supposed to. (There is this flat chamber on the back, which is supposed to let you observe them better.) Oh no, these dumb ants actually would pull the sand from that flat chamber, and drop it over the rounded front, and started building their ant hill at the bottom of the front section you see in this picture. Where we couldn't see anything but what looked like a huge mess. And when I dropped food in to feed them (and yes, that freaked me out even more - having to open the top to put food in), they pulled the piece of fruit out of the chamber as well, and pushed it down over the rounded front so it would be at the bottom as well! Sigh. Apparently the ants did not read the directions as well as I did.

They have recently "vacated the premises." I'm sure they are having lovely little lives at the town dump by now!

This week we finally got in our field trip to Brantley's Petting Farm. The girls had a blast. (It you're local, I totally recommend it!) This fit in with our units on goat (letter G), cow (letter C), and horse (letter H). Here are a few more pictures.

Be sure to check out what others are doing in MFW by heading on over to Kattie’s blog ~ 2 Ladybugs and a Lizard.