Yesterday we visited the Purple Martins again.  We had such a wonderful experience last year that I had to bring others to learn and enjoy.  We had such a gracious hostess.  She has a real love of these birds and is very knowlegable and very informative.  She also let all the kids hold a baby bird.

This bird is a very people friendly bird.  The parents didn't come near while we were investigating the young ones but they weren't upset at all.

The darker, "purple" ones are the males and the lighter colored ones are the females and the immature males.

Once we put the house back up, the moms and dads were back to business with keeping their family fed.

Purple Martins eat and drink "on the fly."  That means that they are not ground feeders.  You will very rarely find this bird on the ground.  Among all the many insects they eat the dragon fly is their favorite.

The kids found a dragonfly that the birds must have dropped.  I've never seen one that big!  That was pretty interesting too.

For more on this field trip, check out my friend Linda's blog.  

My mother is so crafty.  She learned to crochet and knit while a child.  She sewed many clothes for us through the years, including my sister's wedding dress.  She has made many things over her lifetime so far and she is constantly trying new things and even inventing her own patterns.

She made quilts for all three grandsons.  I love Cameron's quilt.  I've *borrowed* it many, many times.  I asked Mom if she would help me make a quilt. 

She pulled out something that my dad's mother had given her a few years ago.  It was a quilt top which was put together by my great-grandmother who died when I was 13 and great-great-grandmother.  It was a sample quilt from the 1930's that they had never quilted, but kept. That was during the time of the Depression when people used and saved everything.

When mom first showed me, I thought it was very ugly.  I had visions of picking out a pattern and material and helping mom make me a quilt.  But what I got was much better.  My mother offered to quilt it for me.  She even took it to a specialty shop to research it.  They were able to tell her that the material was from the 1930's and that a quilt from this era would use cotton batting instead of the now popular polyester.  Because of all the confusing patterns she quilted it in the scallop pattern on the back, not even looking at the front until she was finished.

I now have a precious piece of family history.  I have something that was started 70-plus years ago.  I have a one of a kind original.  I have a treasure that one day I can pass on as a family heirloom.  I LOVE my quilt. 

Thank you so much Mom for your labor of love.

Cameron gave me quite a laugh today.  He was watching his morning cartoon.  This morning it happened to be Batman.  The bad guy on the show turned himself into a man/bat and was flying around with Batman hanging on, trying to defeat said bad guy...or bat. 

Suddenly, Cameron said, "Mom! That bat doesn't use echolocation. Batman just covered his eyes and he ran into a wall, so he must use his eyes."

Have we studied bats? No

Have we studied echolocation? Sort of.

We did a lapbook on whales.  Whales, like almost all bats, use echolocation. 

Apparently the mad scientist who changed himself into a giant man-bat forgot to add that important part about echolocation.  Good thing for Batman though.

Saturday, June 14, was the day we packed up and headed home. 

Dad decided to head home a different way because he wanted to make a stop near Atlanta, GA.  We stopped at Stone Moutain.

The last time we had been there, there wasn't anything there.  Just a few nature trails, and the mountain.  Now there is a bunch of little shops and basically a little town and other attractions.  We were slightly surprised.

While there we were able to see a glass blowing demonstration.  The boys were fascinated.  It was amazing to watch the transformation of the changing glass.

We also watched the smithy for a while.  It was very interesting!

We were on the road for 11 hour Saturday.  We found a motel for the night and hit the road again early in the morning.

Then the *fun* began.  We had different opinions on the correct road home, and of course Dad's was the one that counted. ::wink:: That took us a little off course, then we missed a major highway and that put us WAY off track.  According to the *trusty* map we could take XYZ road and it looked like a fairly straight shot back to where we wanted to be....WRONG.  We were TN, up on a mountain, lost. LOL  Our 10 hour drive home turned into 15!  It was a VERY long day.

I took one of Cameron's free read books for second grade and we read part of it on the way down, a chapter a night there, and finished it off on the way home.  Good thing I don't get car sick (I was reading as we were going up the switch back turns of the mountain in TN.  ROFL)

This vacation was full of firsts for Cameron.   On Friday of our vacation, we travelled out to the coast and the boys got to see the Atlantic Ocean!

The beach was not crowded at all!  There were only a handful of people there.  And the boys had a BLAST.

There was a slight mix up on the plans or we would have dressed differently for the beach, brought towels and a change of clothes.  But the boys really enjoyed seeing the ocean for the first time.  We also found a large group of sea shells to chose from.

And this was the only day on our vacation that I got a sun burn! (I burn very, very easily)  I forgot about my feet because when I was putting on sunscreen, I had my shoes on. LOL

When we got back to the house my sister headed out to meet with some friends of hers.  We ordered pizza and swam and watch videos while she was away.  It was a good last day in Florida.

A third day at Disney was not in our original plan but because of getting a raincheck, we just had to go back.   When my sister and I were planning the things we wanted to hit at Disney it is funny that Hollywood Studios was the one that had the least.  But we ended up spending the most time there.

All three boys are crazy about Star Wars and Star Wars was all over the place at HS.

Cameron, the Storm Trooper:

Racing through the forests of Endor on a speeder bike:

Enjoying the scenery at Coresant:

And getting ready to defend their Rebel ship from Darth Vadar

And speaking of Darth Vadar, Jesse, the nephew in green, was chosen to go to "Jedi Training School"

But during their training, who should show up but Vadar himself

 Then Jesse, Jedi-in-training, got to fight Darth Vadar.

 After the battle with Vardar, Jesse became an official Padawan.

We also rode Star Tours twice.

We did do other things besides Star Wars, like the new Toy Story ride (a 3D shooting gallery), playing in the "Honey I Shrunk the Kids" playground, eating at Pizza Planet, and learning about animation.

We even attended an animation class where our instructor walked us through drawing Goofy.

I was surprised at how mine turned out.

Cameron doesn't like his at all but it made me proud.  This was maybe a little too old for him but he really did his best to follow directions.  I thought he did very well for his age.  (He hates it)

He gave up towards the end, but I can see how he followed directions to the best of his ability.

After we got something to eat back at the house, we took the boys miniture golfing and then back to the house and the pool.

I only put on 11,000 steps this day.  ROFL, but somehow, my feet were still very tired.

Disney day two:

First we hit Epcot

The boys loved the "big golf ball."  There was a lot of neat stuff to do at Epcot.  We took a space ship to Mars.  We hang glided over California.  We preformed tests on products.  We visited the house of the future.

And played a pre-programed song on the electronic drum

We also took a clam ride under the sea, looking for Nemo and then got to see many of Nemo's friends.  Like the Manatee

And seahorse...just to name a few.

But the highlight of the day was the Monorail.

We took the Monorail from Epcot to Magic Kingdom.  The boys thought riding that was a ride in itself.

We were tired by the time we got to Magic Kingdom but still got a few things in.

We decided to leave the park around 7 and went and got dinner at Perkins. 

It had been a very long two days.  I was wearing my pedometer this day and we, or at least I walked over 16,000 steps!!! My feet were TIRED!

(PS. the 3rd, 4th, and 5th pictures were taken from video on my video camera.  How cool!)

Tuesday we hit Disney.  We got a two day park hopper pass.  That means that we could go to any park or any combination of parks in those two days.  Our plan was to do Animal Kingdom and Hollywood Studios on the first day.

Animal Kingdom was great.   The longest line we had to wait in was for our food.  Whoever thought up the Fast Pass idea was a pure genius, plain and simple.  If you ever go to Disney, take advantage of the Fast Pass.

The Tree of Life has around 300 animals carved into it.

There were animal viewing spots all over this park.  And there were Cast members (Disney worker) everywhere with interesting skulls, answers to questions about differnet animals, and some even had a display box with different animals.  The man with the tarantula offered to be my personal guide for the day.  (Said as he waved his hairy, :shudder:, aracnid in front of me. Oh, and don't forget the "evil" glint in his eye LOL) Thanks but, NO.

AK has an Asia section and an Africa section.  In Asia we saw giant bats

These are the biggest bats in the world.  They do NOT use echolocation.  (After our whale study, this interested Cameron very much as whales and bats are both known to use echolocation.) They have very good eye sight. 

We also walked through "ruins".

And saw tigers

There was also a great bird section.  It had a bird identification card that you could take with you through your Jungle trek.

We took the train to Rafiki's Planet Watch

While there we visited Conservation Station.  The boys identified some animals by their droppings. (replicas) Observed turtles, baby alligators, snakes, spiders, toads and frogs

In Africa, we took another walk on an exploration trail and saw many more animals.  The gorillas are my favorite.

Then we took an African Safari. 

See the baby elephant in the water? 

The last thing we did before leaving AK was It's Tough to be a Bug.  This was my second time seeing it and it was just as funny the second time.  Maybe even more so because I got to see my son experience 3D.

We drove over to Hollywood Studios to finish out the day.  Except about 10 minutes after our arrival it started storming and down pouring.  And it didn't let up.  After an hour of waiting in a line that wasn't going anywhere  because the rain was causing people to not exit the ride, we decided to head home.  We were all drenched and tired and starting to be miserable. 

On our way out, I said we should check in at guest relations to see if they were offering a rain check.  Since we had only been at the park for an hour and it rained the entire time, they did give us a rain check!  How nice was that?

We went back to the house and chilled for the rest of the evening.  It did stop raining and so, you guessed it, got in the pool. ;o)

Monday was our second full day in Florida.  Our first stop was Harry P. Leu Gardens.  They offer free admission on Mondays from 9-noon and of course we took advantage of that.  This was something I wanted to do with our recent interest in flowers and our ongoing love of nature.

Dad and the three boys viewing the flower clock.

There was one flower, well, bush really, that I was seeing all over the place and it was bothering me that I didn't know what it was. 

It is myrtle.  And I didn't notice its fruit until I was preparing this picture. 

One of the highlights of the entire trip, for the boys, was all the lizzards!

They also enjoyed the observation deck on the lake.  There was a sign that said not to feed the alligator and just the thought of getting to see one was exciting.  We couldn't find it but we did see a bunch of fish, more lizzards and this guy.

There was so much to see at the gardens.  We didn't get to everything but one things that we all wanted to see was the butterfly garden

And we were all entrigued with this one flower.  We have no idea what it is either.

We also took the tour of the house that was turned into a museum.  It was interesting and the temperature was COOL. 

After lunch, we headed to WonderWorks.

Yes, it is upsidedown. Wonder Works was a science center where there were over 100 hands-on activities.  We experienced 65 mph hurricane winds, an earthquake, played games on our eyes, "air" hockey with lights, a bed of nails, and many, many other things.

Here Dad is helping Cameron operate a robotic arm to stack bricks:

You could use a similator to try and land the NASA space shuttle, or try your hand as a fighter pilot.  Cameron got to become an astronaut.

After Wonder Works, we headed to Lego Land in Down Town Disney.

Another "free" attraction.  Although we all spent some money at the store. ;o)  Everything was made of Legos.  They had tons of hands on places for kids to create their own masterpieces and there were many things to see made from Legos.

Dinosaur (it actually moves)

Nessie?

Transformer

Sea life

Even the tourists are made of Lego. 

Millenium Falcon and General Grevious (big hits with the three young Padawans)

We even briefly visited Paris

After all this, we went back to the house and of course got in the pool again!  Loved the pool

We just got back from enjoying our Christmas present from my Dad.  He took us to Florida along with my sister and her two boys. He rented a house for the week in Orlando.

(Click on the picture to take you All Star Vacation Homes.  You can view the house we stayed at)

The house was fantastic.  It had 4 bedroom, 3 bathrooms, private pool and hot tub, fully loaded kitchen, two living rooms, all the comforts of home and then some!

We left around 5:30 pm Friday (6-6) and drove all through the night.  We were so excited to finally get there.  Of course the boys (Cameron and his two cousins, Jesse and Bryan) couldn't wait to get into our private pool.  To tell you the truth, neither could I. 

If you were to ask Cameron what was a highlight of his trip, he will say almost without reservation that it was the pool.

So of course I volunteered to watch the boys in the pool while Dad and my sister went shopping for some food.  LOL  It really wasn't any sacrifice at all.

Sunday was our first full day in Florida.  We were able to meet up with my life long friend Kelly and her family.  Kelly and I have been friends since we were in first grade!  I can't believe that was 27 years ago! 

She just had a baby in January and we were there on the Sunday that they dedicated her at church.  What a blessing that was to be there for that wonderful occasion, and to meet her newest member of the family!

There was a luncheon at her home following the dedication.  It was such a lovely party and very nicely done, but a little exhausting.

Michelle, my sister, and Savannah.

Cameron and some of the other kids inspecting the neighbor's bannana tree.

Making a List Assignment Number 5 of the Green Hour Challenge

Have you decided on a focus area yet?

Yes! Cameron chose wildflowers as his focus.  I skimmed through the Handbook of Nature Study and found the different wild flowers that we have already found or ones that I thought we might encounter.

Pick one item in your focus area to study, turn to those pages, and read to your child about that subject.

Cameron chose the Mayapple

Follow up your nautre walk with a discussion. Did you see anything new to add to your list of focus items?

Yes.  We found several wildflowers to add to our list.

Wild Blue Phlox

White violet

Virginia Blue Bells

Squawroot

Golden Ragwort

Dwarf ginsing

Common Fleabane

Buttercup

False Solomon's Seal

Jack-in-the-pulpit

Foamflower

Canada Mayflower

And a few unknowns that we couldn't find in our field guide.  (Still searching for them though)

Did you complete any of the suggested observations?

We did complete a few of the observations.  Cameron remembered parts of what I read to him about the May apples.  The information that was most interesting to him was that most May apples have 7 lobes but there have been 9-lobbed ones found.  He was determined that he was going to find one.  We didn't find a 9 but we did find an 8.

We were both amazed at how sturdy the bud of the May apple was.  The corollas (petals) were very thick and not at all delicate.

Do you need to do any further research to answer questions?

We barely scratched the surface of the great observation questions.  We are going to note where a good patch of May apples are and try to observe them in early Spring next year to see how they emerge from the ground.  We also are going to keep an eye on these flowers throughout the summer and note their cycle.

Give an opportunity for a nature journal entry.

We took a break on our nature hike in a patch of May apples.  We took that opportunity to sit and sketch.

This was first posted May 29, 2006

Memorial Day makes me think of my grandfather.  He was a Sergeant First Class (E7) who spent over 20 years in the army.  He was a POW in Korea and served 2 tours in Vietnam.  He was in the Rangers and Special Forces. He received 4 purple hearts and a bronze star for valor among other accommodations.

I was born after his 20 years in the army but even then, everyone called him Sarge unless Grammy was upset with him then it was Dalton.  Us grandkids called him Grandpa Sarge.  

Grandpa Sarge died in February 2004 from Alzheimer’s.  I was asked to speak for the grandchildren at his funeral. I had what I was going to say all planned out.  I was going to talk about his softness towards his grandchildren.  How he would let us kiss his baldhead.   He was always teasing me and pulling my ponytail saying that he was going to cut it off and use it for himself. When I was in 9th grade I cut off about 10 inches of my hair and saved it for him. I put it in a brown paper bag.  I wrapped it up with a bottle of Elmer's glue and instructions on how to care for his new "hair piece."  And years later I found out that he kept that in a special place.

I was going to talk about "kids day."  He was very generous and was always telling us that it was kids day and then would give us a dollar.  As we got older kids day got bigger and bigger.  He always knew when to time it for vacations or those special purchases.

I was ready to tell everyone about his love for his grandchildren.  On the day of the funeral I prepared myself to be able to speak in front of everyone.  When the services began, my family members were emotional and of course crying.  I had steeled myself for when they called on me to talk about Grandpa Sarge.  They never did.  I didn't cry.

That year Memorial Day hit me harder than ever.  I was sitting through the special ceremony at church to honor our vets when Grandpa's death hit me.  As the Pastor was reading all the wars/conflicts and loss of lives that we have been in, the flood gates started to open.  I was able to make it to the ladies room before they opened the entire way. I finally had my cry from his death.

So, Memorial Day always brings to mind my grandfather. Thank you to all of our service men and women, past and present!

The last lapbook we did took us several weeks.  We didn't work on it constantly or we could have finished sooner.  Whales was a subject that Cameron choose.

Cover:

Cameron like the blue paper with circles.  It came out of one his presents that he got for his birthday and said that it would go great in his Whale lapbook. LOL

Back cover:

It has

• "Books We Read About Whales" (I checked out every last book the library had about whales, or so it seemed.)
• "Words to Know" a vocabulary list of words pertaining to whales. 
• Baleen Whale "parts" that we got from Enchanted learning (Thanks Grandma!)

This is a double lapbook which means we took two file folders and glued them together for extra space.

On the inside flap:

We took a week to read through the book of Jonah and do this mini lesson.  We got the printouts from Homeschool Helper.  There were enough printouts here that we could have done an entire lapbook on just Jonah.

When you open the Jonah flap:

Along the right side are whale behavoirs.  He drew a picture of each, wrote what it was on the inside flap and we also glued a short description of each behavoir.

In the middle is "Whale sizes" a neat little booklet that we put together.  I cut out a bunch of paper blocks.  They were equivelant to 5 feet. 

Under that is our "Verses" game.  Did you know that a whale is not a fish?  Here is a game to help us understand the difference between the two and some characteristics that they share:

I got this from Enchanted Learning as well. It was a worksheet that you were supposed to take the list of characteristics and write them in proper spot.  Instead, I glued that paper to heavier card stock, cut them out, made a ittle matchbook, and voila, instant game.

To the left of Whale Sizes and Verses we find our "Extreme Whales"

We cut out little circles and folded them into triangles.  Each lip has the "question" and on the inside, Cameron write the answer.  We had things like, the biggest animal God ever made: Blue whale, the longest tooth: narwhal, deepest diver: sperm.

When you open up extreme whales, you find the whales that we studied a little more closely. 

He colored each whale and the map of where they can be found in the ocean. We got the pictures of the whales as well as the map from Enchanted Learning (thanks again Grandma!)

The coloring on the map to the right is very faint and is only areound the coast areas in the artic.

Beside our nine whales, we learned that there are two different types of whales.  Toothed whales and baleen whales.  Baleen whales do not have teeth but baleen that they use to strain their food.  All the baleen whales are BIG and eat very small food.

He wrote the different names of the whales on the "teeth" or "baleen"

Here, also, is a video of our lapbook.  

We did not get any nature study in this last week due to rain, rain, and more rain, and Cameron having a bad cough.  But the week before that, we got in two nature walks.

Green Hour Challenge #4 "It's Coming Into Focus"

I am going to suggest that you pick a focus area for your nature study. Taking into account what you have close at hand, what season it is, and your child’s interest, look through the table of contents in the Handbook of Nature Study and pick one section that you will focus on for the next six to eight weeks.

Follow up with discussion and research in your focus area if you have chosen one. If you have chosen a focus, begin a list of items that you have observed that fall within that subject.

Cameron chose wildflowers as his focus.  May is the perfect time to study wildflowers in our area.  We took a walk around my mother's property and found a few.  We found a few more on the trail close to our house.

Cameron loved to explore off trail.

We knew a few from last year when my mom took us to Wolf Creek Narrows

Yellow violet:

Mayapple

Trilliums:

Garlic mustard:  Cameron took this picture. Not bad.  We have a bunch of garlic mustard in our yard.  It does have a very garlicky, onion smell when you break off the leaf or stalk.

Then we found ones that we had forgotten or had never noticed before.

Wild geranium

Bluets (they are so pretty and delicate)

Celandine:  This was one of the flowers that we had to research more.  We were both excited when we found in the book.  It's almost like finding a treasure or figuring out a secret.  Celandine is poisonous to chickens and was brought over from Europe as a treatment for liver disease, warts and freckles.  LOL

Oxeye daisy: I knew it was a daisy but didn't know what kind. 

Wintercress

Our list of wildflowers so far:

• Dandelions
• Violets
• Wild Strawberry
• Trillium
• Wild geranium
• Bluets
• Mayapple
• Garlci mustard
• Oxeye daisy
• Yellow violet
• Winter cress
• Celandine

He chose to journal about the dogwood blossom he got from Grandma's tree instead of one of the wild flowers.

Phonics:

I would say this was our most difficult subject.  The one that caused the most tears.  I know that I started this year with the hopes that Cameron would make huge, phenomenal strides towards reading independently.  We did make progress but not I had hoped.  Although, I caught him reading Go, Dog, Go by himself when he thought I wasn't listening.  That is huge!

We were using a few different things.  We worked in A Beka's A Handbook for Reading.  We reviewed short vowel sounds that we had worked on in Kindergarten.  It did go a little more smoothly than the end of Kindergarten.  We did progress to long vowels and it went better than our attempt at it in Kindergarten.

We also used a few readers from Christian Liberty Press.

Also, towards the end of the year a friend lent us A Beka readers.

We are still plugging along.  I think he just needs practice and a LOT of confidence.  Sometimes he comes to a word and just looking at it he *knows* that he won't be able to get it and doesn't even try.

I do find it highly amusing that he reads better at devotions.  I have him read part of of or all of our selected reading from the Bible.  Our King James Version Bible.  Better than his phonics book.  Go figure.

We are continuing through the summer to work with phonics.  He is spending about 15 minutes or more, three times a week, at Star Fall. Hopefully this extra practice, that is fun, will help.

Copywork:

We began the year with a few weeks of reviewing our letters.  Then we finally moved into a regular schedule of copywork.  Each week he copied his memory verse, part of the hymn of the month, and then selections from our reading that week both poetry, school readings, and free reads.

From first term:

From term 3:

I have noticed an improvement from the beginning of the year. 

Nature Study:

• We learned much about birds this year through reading Burgess's Bird Book.
• We studied some astronomy: the sun, Mercury, Venus, Earth, and the Moon.
• We started doing the Green Hour Challenges and will continue to do those over the summer.  They have really raised our awareness of nature study and really helped us to focus on studying nature consciously

Misc:

• PE: two seasons of soccer (16 weeks)
• Handicrafts: Pinewood Derby car, numerous projects at Lowe's,
• Service: ministry to a shut-in family (twice a month grocery shopping, doctor's visits), once a month ministry at nursing home, helped put together 20,000 John and Romans for Mozambique
• Field Trips: purple martins, dairy farm, river boat trip, observatory, science center, zoo,
• Science: various science experiments

This concludes my review of  first grade. I cannot believe that we are finished with first already.  It feels like we just got started.