It's hard to believe that summer is pretty much over. The weather is still a little warm during the day, but we're moving to cool nights and that fresh, crisp smell of autumn around the corner! I just love fall weather!
Our summer was a bit of a long one....We lost and gained a few pets, started our first ever garden, worked with our chickens (a project still needing more work), visited with family, attended a few fieldtrips, and enjoyed numerous homeschool social activities with old & new friends alike.
Normally, we don't do fieldtrips over the summer, but this year we visited American Village in Montevallo, AL for a special day program.We "time traveled" back to 1775 where we hid from the RedCoats while the colonists were preparing to declare their independence.
We visited Captain Compost where we learned about organic, no-till gardening and the importance of composting to replace commercial fertilizers.
All of the kids enjoyed learning about this "stinky" process, and after reading his book, we have started our own compost pile....still needs a lot of work, but it's getting there!
We wrapped up July with a fieldtrip to the Mary G Hardin Center for Cultural Arts in Gadsden, AL. They had a special exhibit--Ink & Blood: Dead Sea Scrolls to Gutenberg. It was an extremely interesting insight into the history of written communications from cuneiform up to the printing press advancements. There was even a working replica of the Gutenberg press.
August brought many social opportunities with park days, bowling, swimming, and not one but two "Not Going Back to School" parties! We finished out the summer with a trip back to Montevallo, this time to see Tinglewood at Orr Park. A local man has spent several years carving intricate, beautiful works of art into the dead trees at the park. We were lucky enough to receive a guided tour by the artisan himself!
I think we're all ready to start the new school year....maybe we'll actually slow down a little bit! LOL!
This is part of the blast furnace used to produce pig iron--a major supplier of iron and munitions for the Confederacy. Birmingham, Alabama and the surrounding areas were founded on iron production because of its unique sedimentary make-up. All of the components for producing pig iron (iron ore, coal, and limestone) are found in this area, making production easier than other locations which had to have one or more of these components delivered by rail. During the Civil War, Union troops destroyed or heavily damaged most of the furnaces in order to squelch munitions production. Only the stones you see in this photograph are from the original blast furnace that stood here. When partially destroyed in March of 1865, these two furnaces were producing over 20 tons of iron for the arsenal in Selma, AL.
Unschooling in the South--the ultimate freedom for education!
This blog is to share our homeschooling adventures with others.Since we are unschoolers, "homeschooling" includes every aspect of our lives....for us, every thing we do is school because LIFE is the lesson.
