I can't remember the last time I took a trip alone.  I know it was over 8 years ago because I have never done it since my 2 littles were born.  But, tomorrow I am heading out and won't be back until Sunday afternoon!

Were am I going?  To a homeschool convention!!! I wasn't able to go to our local homeschool convention this year, so I got online and started looking at upcoming conventions in places I have friends.  I found a winner, made my travel plans and am ready to go!

The kids are not thrilled. (Especially my daughter.)  But, I haven't been to a homeschool convention in several years and I really NEED to go get renewed, revived and excited about the upcoming school year. 

I would appreciate prayers for travel mercies and for the kids to have a great time with dad while I am away.

I look forward to telling you all about it next week when I get back!

Happy Homeschooling,

Jamin

Monday is the best day of our week this Summer!  We have been meeting up ever Monday morning for the last few weeks with a bunch of friends from our homeschool group to play at the water fountains at a local mall.  It is SO fun!

Here are some shots of the gang having FUN!





It is great for the Mom's too!  We sit in the shade, talk and take turns making runs to Starbucks or the bakery for cool drinks.  Monday is my favorite day of the week!

Happy Homeschooling,

Jamin

The kids and I love the Food Network.  We Tivo Good Eats, Throwdown, Food Detectives, Ace of Cakes and the Food Challenge shows.   One things that never ceases to amaze me is the shows where they can give several people the same ingredients and challenge them to make the same dish and they come out completely different.  The other day while I was scrambling eggs I got to thinking about this.  My husband was making breakfast tacos for us.  He had made the tortillas and bacon and then he said "Can you scramble the eggs, the kids like your scrambled eggs better than mine."  (Which is true, they do.)  The weird thing is that my husband and I do make scrambled eggs very different from each other.  But, the weirder thing is that we both ONLY use one ingredient....EGGS.  How can that be?  We us the same pan, the same spatula, the same stove and yet mine come out as one big fluffy pile of eggs and his come out way more scrambled.  I personally like them both ways, but it's weird how different they are. The difference more than likely has to be in how much each of us stir the eggs.

This of course got me thinking about homeschooling. Homeschooling is not a one ingredient fits all kind of things.  Lucky for us nowadays there are almost as many curriculum choices as their are homeschoolers.  But, here is the thing...you can take 10 families and give them all the same curriculum and the learning will be different for each family.  This Fall there are several of us that do American Girl Club together that will all be using Sonlight 3 as our curriculum.  I am looking forward to it because even though I have known many people who used Sonlight I can't ever remember us doing the same Core the same year as anyone we hung out with.  But you know what?  Each of us will end up learning in complete different ways!  What will the difference be?  The way each mom will stir things up!  LOL 

Mom's are a HUGE factor in homeschooling!  Each of us are different and because of that each of our homeschools are different. Some are more hands on, some are crafty, some add a lot of writing assignments and others focus more on Science and Math. And this doesn't even begin to bring in the factor of perspective!  (I am quite sure that this year I will teach American History differntly now that I have been to Washington D.C., Virgina and Philly!)

There are other factors too.  Those who have children all approximately the same age may keep everyone working together, people like me with kids spread all over the age spectrum may find themselves doing 3 Sonlight Cores in one year!  (Yes, it's looking like we will be doing 3 Cores next year.  Pray for me!  LOL)  Some families have dad's that are more involved in teaching than others, some have their children work more independently, some add a lot of extra materials like lapbooks and field trips.  The differences can be endless.

I say all this to remind us all of something.  At this time of year as most of us homeschool mom's are pouring over curriculum catalogs, going to conventions, and making curriculum decisions we need to remember that who WE are is as important as the curriculum we chose.  It is important to find something we like because if it doesn't work for mom it is not going to work for the kids either. We need to remember that we may need to change curriculum over the years as our circumstances change.  (For example the year I had a newborn a 2 year old and we moved to a new State I chose not to do Sonlight that year.  Not because I didn't want to do Sonlight, but because I knew that for the situation I was in it was too parent involved and I wouldn't be able to keep up. But, trust me the next year we were ready to get back to Sonlight!)

If there is one thing I have learned over the years each homeschool mom can pull together what is perfect for their family! God has differently enabled each and every one of us and given us the kids that we are perfectly suited to teach! (Even though some days it doesn't feel that way!  LOL) That is the beauty of homeschooling.  Our homeschools can grow with us, change with us and become what we need them to be. Plus, we as mom's get to grow and change and learn just as much as our kids do!

I am telling you scrambling eggs can be very inspiring!

Happy Homeschooling,

Jamin

I am allowed a re-run on my blog?  LOL  Last night I was at a homeschool mom's coffee and everyone was talking about literature based math.  It got me thinking about a post I had written in 2006.  (Wow, I have been writing this blog for a long time now!) So here is the post the conversation brought to mind...


Wow, I just used the word fun and math in the same sentence.  Until I started homeschooling I can guarantee that never had happened!  Here are some fun Math books we love at our house.

Sir Cumference and the First Round Table
A Math Adventure
by Cindy Neuschwander

Okay, this is a fun way to learn about (Lady) Di Ameter, (her son) Radius & (The King) Sir Cumference.  One reading and your kids will have these the concepts of diameter, radius & circumference down.  Of course they will want to read it again and again!

Sir Cumference and The Dragon of Pi
A Math Adventure
by Cindy Neuschwander

In this one Sir Cumference is changed into a fire eating dragon.  Radius must go on a quest through the castle to discover the magic number that is the same for all circles (Pi) to save him.

Sir Cumference and the Sword in the Cone
A Math Adventure
by Cindy Neuschwander

How else could you explain Euler's law to kids?  If you add the number of faces on a geometric solid to the number of its edges, the answer will always be two. It works for any polyhedron.  Yeah, I had no idea about this either, until we read this book!

Sir Cumference and the Great Knight of Angleland
A Math Adventure
by Cindy Neuschwander

What could be more fun than dodging danger and dragons while learning about the degrees of an angle and using  a Protractor?

We love these books.  I would say they are aimed at about a 3rd grade level and up.  But, my 5 year old daughter loved the stories too.

For a look inside these books click here.

Happy Homeschooling,

Jamin

I have never much enjoyed cleaning closets.  It is a thankless job that is only noticed if you DON'T do it!  But, eventually it just has to be done.  Well, believe it or not blogs have their closets too!  I just finished up doing some major cleaning on the categories on my blog.  Here is what I did...

• Added all the posts for the last year that fit in my side bar categories. (Who is Jamin?, Why Homeschooling?, Homeschool Helps, Outside the Box Ideas, Crafty Things, and Fabulous Field Trips)
  
• Set up one post with all my American Girl Post
• Set up one post with all my Preschool  Post
• Set up a post with all my posts about our recent trip to Washington D.C.
• Added my any new lapbook posts I have written to my How to Begin Lapbooking post
• Added links to all the Lapbooks we have done to my How to Begin Lapbooking post.
  

Whew!  I hope that this makes things easier to find. It sure feels good to be able to close all those closet doors again!  I just wish my irl (in real life) closets were as clean as my url closets!

:^)

Happy Homeschooling,

Jamin

Whew, I think I am finally done posting about our recent trip!  It "only" took me 30 posts to say all the things I needed to about our 2 week vacation!  LOL  At least no one can say I didn't make the most of it!

Here is our trip from beginning to end...

Travel Notebook - Getting ready to leave

“The world is a book and those who do not travel read only one page.” St. Augustine - Heading out!

The Screaming Has Begun!! - Arriving in D.C.

D.C. First Full Day

The BEST Thing to See In Virginia!

More On Virginia!  - Sully Plantation and Claude Moore Farm

I Had The Time of My Life! - Our Day at the National Museum of American History

Happily Exhausted and Overwhelmed - Friday: National Archives, Natural History Museum and Ford Theater, Saturday:  Philly!, Sunday:  Mount Vernon and the Monuments on the Mall in D.C.  (Washington, Lincoln, WWII, Vietnam, Korea)

Friday 5-8-09 - National Archives, Nat. History Museum, Ford Theater

Saturday 5-09-09 - Philly!

Sunday 5-10-09 - Mother's Day at Mount Vernon!

Sunday 5-10-09 - The Monuments on the Mall

A Whirlwind of Wonderful! - Native American Museum, Air and Space Museum and the White House

Bye-Bye D.C.

We're Home!

Yorktown, VA Thursday 5-14-09

As promised yesterday I am getting back to posting about the National Air and Space Museum. 

Here are my excited kids right as we entered the museum

The first thing we did was head over to the How Things Fly exhibit.
This is where we spent most of our time.  The kids were the tour guides for this day and they all loved how hands on this area was.

There were knobs to twist...

Buttons to push...

We made things float...

We learned about lift...

And drag...

This was an experiement on how to steer.
The kids sat on a stool that would turn in circles holding a wheel.  Then the helper spun the wheel and let them steer themselves.

He liked it!

She liked it!

They all liked it!
I didn't try this one.

But I liked this one!
I was supposed to be learning about pitch, roll and yaw, but mostly I was enjoying the great breeze from the fan blowing in my face!  LOL

My oldest gave it a try too.

I am not sure what they are looking at here...
But...it made me laugh when I saw this picture!  It must have been something interesting!  LOL (Notice my stroller in the front of the picture filled to the brim with stuff!)

The kids loved the section on space.
Just one of the many pics I took in this area.

Then we went to my favorite part of the museum...

The kids with the Wright Brothers! :^)

One of the only Wright Bicycles still to exist.

The first plane to ever fly! 
My daughter really enjoyed this area because she knew this was the same time period as the Samantha stories took place.  In the books the Aunt Cornelia talks about how she would love to fly and they Grandmother is shocked!  She can't believe anyone would do something so foolish!  We really enjoyed a little jute box they had with all the songs that came out about flying in the early 1900's. 

Then saw Amelia Earharts plane!


And her jacket, goggles and radio.

The Spirit of Saint Louis was cool too!

Okay, this blew me away!  This was in a section about how computers had changed the world of flight. Look at the little microchip that is in the center of the circle in the window below...
The sign said that one microchip replaces 1 million transistors...

Which are what is filling the tower!
This so impressed me I had to drag my husband over to show him. (Okay, now I get why computer have gotten so much smaller and faster!) He is a electronics major and he just looked at me and laughed!  Well, it may not have impressed him, but it sure did impress me!  LOL

So that was our last day of visiting the Smithsonian Museums.  I can't wait until we can go again and see more!  There are 19 Smithsonian Museums in the D.C. area we "only" made it to 4 of them.  So we have plenty to look forward to next time!

Happy Homeschooling,

Jamin

I promised to post more about the National Museum of the American Indian when I had time.  So here it goes!

First off I just have to mention the Metro Rail that we took into D.C. each day.  The kids LOVED it!  My 5 year old still talks about it and wishes we could get rid of the car and just take the Metro Rail.  LOL

Here is my little man on the train.

And here are my 2 older kids.
Notice the lady behind them giving me the evil eye for taking (none flash) pictures on the train.  hehehe The train was nice, but it was much quieter than I expected.  When we road the train in Philly it was more what I expected.  But, that was on a weekend and it was loaded with happy people going to a ball game.  I guess taking the train to work in the morning to work is less fun?  People mostly got on and stared at their feet or they stared at me for having the nerve to bring 3 kids on the Metro.  I found D.C. to be very friendly, but I got the feeling they wished tourist would keep off the Metro! 

Now back to the Indian Museum...This was a lovely museum that I knew nothing about before we visited, which made for some fun exploring!

You have probably figured out by now that I like to take pictures of signs. :^)

Here is one of the many shots I took of the unique architecture.  I thought the building was lovely and I loved seeing my 2 oldest holding hands in this picture.  So sweet!

These are statues out front of the museum.

The kids out in front of the museum.

Since we had made our own moccasins when we studied Kaya we enjoyed seeing these.
Wow!  These would be a LOT of work to make!

This just amazed me.  A whole boat woven like a basket.
I couldn't even weave tight enough to make a basket that would hold water.  I can't imagine what it would take to weave a boat!

A pretty woman's head dress.

A woven vase

Pottery

Why Bibles?
I thought this was interesting.

Here are the Bibles.  The display went around in a huge circle.

This was a dress just like Kaya would have worn.

This is a parafleche like Kaya's sister made as part of her dowry.
It is basically a piece of hide that is painted and made into a suitcase.  it was beautiful!

This was a saddle like Kaya received in one of the stories.

Lots of pottery figures.

Now we are in the section on the modern day things made by Indians.

This was a made by a modern day Salish Indian.  In the Kaya stories the boy Kaya escapes with after she is kidnapped is Salish.  We watched a video about how this was made.  My daughter was very excited to see an interview with a real Salish Indian!

I LOVED this!
They had all kinds of cool stuff beaded.  I just loved these little baby shoes.

This was showing how Indians of today use the skills of the past with new materials.
The basket in the picture on the wall is from natural materials the way the originally would have been done.

The modern day basket was made the same way except using old VCR film.
The kids and I loved this!

Here is a modern day pair of beaded shoes! (With the traditonal ones on the wall around it.)

A modern day mask made of kitchen utensils.

This was the only hands on area we found.  It had different furs and skins the kids could touch.

This was a lovely blanket they had on exhibit.  I thought there would be more blankets, we only say a few.

There were so many pretty things to look at.  I am amazed by the talent of the Native Americans.  They took the most simple materials and made the most beautiful things.  This was such a treat after having studied Kaya this year!

We enjoyed our time at this museum.  We only spent a half day at this one and then we headed over to the National Air and Space Museum.  Stay tuned for those pictures tomorrow.

Happy Homeschooling,

Jamin

My daughter has been wanting a veggie garden for years.  We always had a nice one when we lived in Northern California. But, once we moved to the desert we gave it up.  So now that we are in a little easier part of the USA to grow things we decided to give it a try again. I knew we wanted to do raised beds. We don't have the time, energy or equipment to till the soil in our backyard.  So I started looking around the internet for easy ways to plant a raised bed.  That is where I got the idea to use a baby pool!

Here is my daughter with her newly planted garden.  As you can see we still have more things to plant.  Which will have to go in another pool or some pots since this pool is out of space.
As you can see we also have it up on a old table. (I wish I would have painted it first with that can of black spray paint I bought last year!  LOL)  Obviously we are not going to be getting a call from Better Homes and Garden asking us to put our yard on the cover of their next issue.  But, we are more interested in happy kids than magazine covers anyway.  :^) I thought having it up higher would make it nice for my daughter so everything would be right at her level and also it won't leave a dead spot in the grass where the pool would be sitting.

So far it seems to be going well.    As you can see the plants are getting BIG.  We got a late start with planting since most of this really should have been planted while were on vacation.  But, I am hopeful we will get some goodies to harvest anyway.  We are looking forward to having our own yummy food growing right in our own backyard!

Happy Homeschooling,

Jamin

Okay, here is the rest of our day at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History. After lunch we returned to the museum and headed over to the Abe Lincoln exhibit.  My oldest son is completely fascinated with Lincoln.  So we spent a lot of time here.

This is the life mask of Lincoln made early in his Presidency.

Outfits of both Abraham and Mary Lincoln.
Wow, she had a tiny waist! And look how short she was compared to him.

My daughter went crazy over this little purse. 
It was so cute.  That is a ring Mrs. Lincoln could wear on her finger and the purse would dangle below her hand.  My daughter wants one!  LOL

This was a quote they had on the wall from the day he was killed.  I just thought was so heart wrenching..

“During the drive he was so gay,” Mary said, “that I said to him, laughingly, ‘Dear Husband, you almost startle me by your great cheerfulness,’ he replied, ‘and well I may feel so, Mary, I consider this day, the war, has come to a close.”

Here is the hat he was wearing the night he was killed.

And another sign I found interesting.

Here is another life mask made near the end of his life.

The sign near this said:

The strain of the presidency was written on Abraham Lincoln’s face. His secretary, John Hay, remarked on the dramatic difference in Lincoln’s two life masks. He noted that the first (displayed earlier in the exhibition) “is a man of fifty-one, and young for his years. . . . It is a face full of life, of energy, of vivid aspiration. . . . .The other is so sad and peaceful in its infinite repose . . . . a look as of one on whom sorrow and care had done their worst without victory is on all the features.”

We loved the Lincoln exhibit, but there was still a lot more to see!

This I think was the weirdest thing I saw in the museum.This was in a section about things people collected to commemorate the presidents.  This was a sample of hair from each of the first 14 presidents!  I am not sure how someone got hair from the presidents.  But, it certainly reminded me that a lot has changed since then!

Just because he is cute!

This was a section of the museum that was about the wars starting with the Revolutionary war and continuing forward.  I wish I could have taken more pictures but by this time of the day my 5 year old was beyond tired and it took all my energy and focus to just get him through the exhibit.  I would love to go back and spend a whole day just in this section.

This was a chair that belonged to George Washington.

This is the only uniform of George Washington's still to be in existence.  The boots and ruffled shirt are reproductions.

Furniture from Appomattox Court House, Virginia, 1865
These are the chairs used by Generals Robert E. Lee and Ulysses S. Grant and the table on which Grant signed the terms of surrender to end the Civil War.

Rosie the Riveter outfit.

The kids try their hand at riveting.  (It is harder than it looks!)

Last but not least we visited the pop culture section.

My daughter still can't get over seeing the ruby slippers!

Puffy shirt from Sienfeld and Oscar the Grouch.

And of course we all loved seeing Kermit the Frog?

So this museum took us from Martha Washington to Kermit the Frog! If that is not a trip through American History I don't know what is!  LOL

Happy Homeschooling,

Jamin

Click HERE to view American History Museum Re-Visited Part I

Well, I am finally getting back to post about our day at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History.  Of all the awesome things we did on our trip to Washington D.C. this museum was my favorite.  Don't get me wrong I loved it all, but this museum is just so diverse that I can't get over seeing all this on one day.  So without further ado, here is what I remember about the day...

Even the outside of the building impressed me!

I know already posted this picture the day after we were at the museum.  But, I just LOVED the exhibit on the dresses of the First Ladies!  I just can't post about these dresses without showing Martha Washington's dress again! 
WOW!

They only keep 14 dresses on display at a time in order to preserve the fabric from the light.
The one between the 2 pictures in the middle was Mrs. Lincolns.

This one impressed me because I remember seeing Mrs. Carter wear it in the 70's on T.V!

And this one was worn by Laura Bush.
So pretty!  I could have spent the whole day in this one little room.  But NOT with 6 kids in tow!  LOL

So next we headed over to a more hands on area.
This was a fun exhibit on inventions.  The kids loved it.  Here they were learning to make a track with trial and error.

This is was called the Sparks Lab.  The kids got to participate in a series of lab experiments on Carbon Dioxide.

The scientist that was leading the experiements was very fun!

I can't remember now what this was called.  But it was fun to see blue liquid...

Turn yellow!

They even got to use their breath for one of the experiments!
This was dark blue when she started and turned bright yellow. The littles loved this!  While I was keeping them busy in the lab my older son had some time to look around in the Science section on his own.  He was very excited to see a real Nobel Prize!

I took this picture as we breezed through the Science section of the museum so my oldest could show me the things he really wanted me to see.
I just thought it was PROOF that they have EVERYTHING at the Smithsonian!  LOL  I mean if you have the history of "The Pill" what could you have missed?
<>

Here is Julia Childs Kitchen
This meant nothing to the kids.  But, I remember seeing it when I was little on TV. 

Next we headed over to see the flag that inspired the Star Spangle Banner to be written.  It just so happened that they were having a demonstration on how the flag was made and my 5 year old was chosen to help out.
The lady is costume is playing Mary Pickersgill who made the famous flag.

Each of the children have the job of placing a star in the right position.

Here is my little man placing his.

Perfect!

After the stars were in place it was time to roll out the stripes!
Our friends little girl was chosen to help with the stripes.  It was really impressive to see how HUGE the flag was up close.  I couldn't take pictures of the real thing.  It is about the only thing in the museum you can't take pictures of.  It is SO frail that they keep it in a very dark room behind glass.  The reason you can't tell about the size so well is because before the Smithsonian got a hold of it the people that had it would cut off swatches and give to people for souvenirs!  HERE is a picture of what is left of it from the website.  You can see that it is about to crumble into pieces. :^(

Next we went to an exhibit called Within These Walls. In this exhibit they have moved an actual house into the museum built in the 1770's.  The exhibit tells the story of 5 of the families who lived in the house in over a 200 year period. The kids favorite part of this exhibit was learning about how to do laundry by hand.

Here is an overview shot of the exhibit.

Info on the women who ran a laundry service from the home.

Here are the steps it took to do laundry...

1 Soak overnight

2 - Scrub in hot lye suds

3 Boil white linens and cottens

4- Rinse
5 - Rinse again in bluing powder.

6 - dip in starch and hang to dry

7 - Next day: Iron

This was a bucket the kids could lift to see how heavy it was when filled with water. 
The sign told them how many buckets of water would be required for each load of laundry.

This was a machine that simulated what it would be like to wring out wet laundry by hand.

Only the Smithsonian could make learning about laundry so interesting and FUN!  LOL

The main hallway is lined with all kinds of interesting items.  That is where we saw C3P-0 and all kinds of other things mostly from recent history.The kids were SO excited to see Math-U-See blocks in the museum!  LOL
Okay, they are not really MUS blocks, but they are very similar.  Although my kids were quick to point out that these were wrong because everyone knows the 8 bar is brown NOT orange!  (Choc-o-eight! LOL)

Okay, this post is getting looooong and I still have 15 pictures I still want to post.  So tune in tomorrow for American History Museum Re-Visited Part II.

Happy Homeschooling,

Jamin

You have probably all figured out by now that I love to combine learning with travel.  There is nothing like visiting the actual place an event took place to feel connected to it.  However, there are some places we are not going to get to any time soon.  China for example.  My kids are fascinated with China, especially my daughter.  Since we are not going to be able to travel there the next best thing is getting a packet of goodies from China sent to us! 

Recently Jimmie at One Child Policy Homeschool has been helping a friend start the neatest business.  For $13.00 (US) you can get a great packet of items sent to you from China!  We received ours recently and here is what we found inside.

• Chinese papercut
• Chinese knot
• Red packet with currency
• Chinese flag
• Postcards
• Bookmark
• Red scarf worn by young Communist students
• Honeycomb lantern
• Stickers
• Informational brochure about the things in the packet

My kids had a blast opening up the envelope and finding all the treasures inside.
"Did all this really come from China? Could we spend this money for real if we went there? How long is a meter? So this is the exact same scarf a Chinese student would wear? I remember when we talked about Communism."  The littles were full of questions and thoughts as we opened the packet. There were so many learning opportunities as we went through the items and read the information.  We are planning on doing a fun China study this Summer.  We will be reading books, visiting a local Chinese Market and doing a China Lapbook and possibly a Panda Lapbook.  What a fun way to get the kids excited about our Summer study!

If you are planning a China study be sure to stop by the sqidoo site and order your packet.  Right now there are only 100 available, so don't wait too long.

Happy Homeschooling,

Jamin

My 14 year old had fun posting live updates on our recent trip to D.C. on his Facebook page.  Since I was with him, I didn't read them as he posted them.  I asked him to send them to me so I could have a record of his moment by moment thoughts of our trip.  The bold ones are the ones that made me laugh, smile or remember something I had forgotten!

Enjoy...

Minutes from the state line of Virginia. The mud is very red here.
May 3 at 12:51pm


Eating at Hardees/Carls Jr.
May 3 at 2:36pm


Just outside D.C. now!
May 3 at 7:38pm


D.C. is a beautiful city.
May 3 at 8:31pm


Yay, it's the hotel! ...Now to go out to eat..
May 3 at 9:21pm


Eating at a diner, the only thing open.
May 3 at 10:11pm


Bedtime.
May 3 at 11:42pm


On a laptop which is slow, the keyboard doesn't work well, and smells like it's burning.
May 4 at 11:12am


Went swimming.
May 4 at 5:05pm


Going to eat at a restaurant with a name that sounds like it should be a bad word, but isn't.
May 4 at 5:43pm


Fuddruckers had a guitar hero arcade game.
May 4 at 6:55pm


Going to downtown Annapolis.
May 4 at 8:20pm


We're going to see friends who live in Virginia today, staying there overnight.
May 5 at 6:46am


Going to a plantation.
May 6 at 9:29am


The grass is in fact greener here.
May 6 at 10:38am


Going to Cici's for lunch.
May 6 at 12:14pm


Mmmmm... Cici's.
May 6 at 1:16pm


Heading back to the hotel now.
May 6 at 3:38pm


Back at last. (Can't wait to see our friends from Las Vegas tomorrow!)
May 6 at 6:56pm


Yawn....
May 6 at 10:10pm


Taking the subway to the Smithsonian.
May 7 at 8:18am


Hey look! The Smithsonian American History Museum.
May 7 at 9:11am


At the Smithsonian drinks are expensive.
May 7 at 10:06am


Saw a genuine Nobel Prize.
May 7 at 11:51am


Our friends are here!
May 7 at 12:08pm


Had so much fun today. (I saw Abraham Lincoln's top hat he wore to the theatre the night he was assassinated.)
May 7 at 7:08pm


Time to crash at the hotel again.
May 7 at 8:57pm


Taking the Metro Rail to meet our friends at the National Mall.
May 8 at 8:40am


Going to see the Declaration of Independence.
May 8 at 9:57am


Saw the Magna Carta, the Declaration of Independence, and some other really cool old documents.
May 8 at 11:48am


Rawr. Time to see some dinosaurs.
May 8 at 12:13pm


We just payed $40 for a sandwich, two cups of soup, and 4 drinks. Smithsonian food is EXPENSIVE!
May 8 at 1:28pm


Going to Ford Theatre.
May 8 at 2:04pm
Comment...FW at 2:09pm May 8
Oddly, that was the last status update on Lincoln's facebook page.


Saw Ford Theatre. Going across the street to see the house where Lincoln died.
May 8 at 3:20pm


Going to stay at friends in Philly for the night/tomorrow.
May 8 at 7:37pm


Took about 150 pictures yesterday.
May 9 at 8:07am


Correction: I took 247 pictures.
May 9 at 9:28am


Taking the train into Philly. Going to see the Liberty Bell.
May 9 at 10:14am


I am next to Independence Hall.
May 9 at 12:43pm


I am looking at the Liberty Bell!
May 9 at 12:50pm


Waiting on the Independence Hall Tour.
May 9 at 2:17pm


A nice security guard let us in on a tour before ours.
May 9 at 2:25pm


Saw Betsy Ross's house/grave.
May 9 at 4:04pm


Eating at a place near Betsy Ross house.
May 9 at 4:27pm


Just had cheesesteak, going to Ben Franklin's grave.
May 9 at 5:14pm


Saw Benjamin Franklins grave!
May 9 at 5:27pm


Waiting for the bus to get here.
May 9 at 5:41pm


The bus didn't come. 10 block walk back to the train station.
May 9 at 6:10pm


Ugh... Finally back to the train station.
May 9 at 6:43pm


30 more minutes until our train comes.
May 9 at 7:00pm


Yaaay... Back to our friends.
May 9 at 7:33pm


Hotel. Crash time.
May 10 at 12:16am

Just got to Mt. Vernon. Going up to the mansion.
May 10 at 1:56pm


It's beautiful here.
May 10 at 3:57pm


Just left Washington's tomb.
May 10 at 4:28pm


Getting ice cream then going to see the monuments.
May 10 at 5:41pm


The Washington Monument is huge! It's the equivalent of 55 stories tall.
May 10 at 7:06pm


The WWII Memorial is gorgeous.
May 10 at 7:38pm


The Vietnam War Memorial is powerful.
May 10 at 7:47pm


Lincoln is the one I've been waiting for!
May 10 at 7:56pm


The Lincoln Memorial is one of the most amazing things I've ever seen.
May 10 at 8:20pm


The Korean War Memorial is incredible.
May 10 at 8:29pm


(Monument) is (adjective)!
May 10 at 8:41pm
Comment...BH at 10:23pm May 10
(exclamation)!
at 7:35am May 11
(retort)!


Getting pizza, then going back to the hotel.
May 10 at 10:03pm


Yesterday was my best day EVER!
May 11 at 7:35am


Getting Arby's and then going to see the Jefferson Memorial, and White House.
May 11 at 6:03pm


We passed on those tonight. Doing them tomorrow.
May 11 at 7:11pm


Taking the subway into D.C.
May 12 at 11:23am


At the Native American Smithsonian.
May 12 at 12:26pm


I made my mom laugh hard coke came out her nose. In the middle of the Native American Smithsonian restaurant. I can't take her anywhere.
May 12 at 1:59pm
Comment...THD likes this.
Comment...FW at 3:36pm May 12
Your mom snorts coke.


At the Air and Space Smithsonian.
May 12 at 3:11pm


Going to see the White House/Jefferson Memorial.
May 12 at 6:39pm


Phone is dying. I just hope
May 12 at 7:55pm


Lost was epic.
May 14 at 7:54am


Is inside Trader Joe's. It's too good to be true.
May 14 at 9:48am


We are about ready to go home. x_X
May 14 at 10:22am


Heading for Williamsburg.
May 14 at 11:02am


I am at the sight of the battle of Yorktown. AKA, um, Yorktown.
May 14 at 6:08pm


Going to Colonial Williamsburg as one last thing before we go!
May 15 at 8:03am


Williamsburg is cool. But it's hot here.
May 15 at 9:48am


Trying to find something to eat.
May 15 at 11:33am


Is in a building that is 294 years old.
May 15 at 12:54pm


The actual reenactment stuff is starting.
May 15 at 1:42pm


I saw someone riding on ye olde Segway.
May 15 at 3:02pm


Woo, it's pouring rain all of the sudden. At least it's not so hot anymore.
May 15 at 3:22pm


Pizza Hut messed up, and instead of making 2 pizza's, one ham, one peperoni, they made one pizza with ham and pepperoni. They gave us that one free, and are making us our actual pizza's. Free pizza is always good.
May 15 at 6:39pm


Then he had several posts about our drive home before the final post bout our trip....


Home is a wonderful place to be.
May 17 at 9:24am.

:^)

BTW, before anyone asks...No, I do not have Facebook.  I am getting a lot of pressure from my oldest son AND my friends to get it.  But, I feel my blog is enough of a time hog hobby for me.  My oldest son informs me that "blogging" is old technology now and I should be doing Facebook, twittering and podcasting.  YIKES!  I might as well just face it right now that I cannot keep up with technology or my 14 year old!  LOL

Happy Homeschooling,

Jamin

Yesterday I posted the last of the Colonial Williamsburg pictures, almost.  LOL  I just wanted to finish up with the walk back to the car.  Remember the cool signs that took us back in time when we arrived?  Well they have more of those as you leave that take you back to the future.

Here we are heading back to the bridge out of Colonial Williamsburg.

In this one I was teasing my son about his pink umbrella.  So he was pretending to walk a tight rope with it right on the edge of the mud!  I was having a fit because I did not need a pair of muddy shoes in the car for our 20 plus hour drive home.  BOYS!  They may get taller than their moms, but they truly never grow up!  LOL

Here are the signs taking us back to our time...

You are leaving the American Colonies...Becoming Americans

1786 Thomas Jefferson - Made religion a matter of personal choice.

1805 Sacagewea - Led Lewis and Clark to the American West

1837 Horace Mann - Inspired a universal thrist for public education.  :^(

1863 Abraham Lincoln - Proclaimed freedom for 3 million enslaved Americans

1879 Thomas Edison - Turned night into day

1908 Henry Ford - Gave Americans the car keys to everywhere.

1928 Louis Armstrong - Set America's free spirit to music

1955 Rosa Parks - Moved civil rights to the front of the bus

1961 John F. Kennedy - "Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country."

NOW - Your Name Here - What difference will you make?

You have returned to the 21st Century...Democracy a work in progress.
This was a very neat timeline that our whole family enjoyed.  (Even in the rain!  LOL) 

Okay, I think I may really be done posting about Colonial Williamsburg now.

:^)

Happy Homeschooling,

Jamin

Here are my other posts on Colonial Williamsburg:

Colonial Williamsburg - Arrival, Traveling Back and Impressions

Colonial Williamsburg - The Governers Palace Through Felicity's Eyes

Colonial Williamsburg - The Governers Palace- What Felicity Didn't See

Colonial Williamsburg - Magazine

American Girl Club - Felicity Week #6 / More Colonial Williamsburg Pics

Last night was the 6th and final night of our Felicity Study for American Girl Club.  This was our last meeting before our Summer break. 

For craft we made sachets.  These are super easy, no-sew sachets.  We cut a large circle out of fabric, put a little potpourri in the middle and then gathered the edges up and tie it closed with ribbon.  Sachets would have been used during Felicity's time to keep in with their clothing to help keep odors at bay.  Since they didn't have the ability to wash their clothes as often as we do today sachets would have helped to deodorize their clothing while they were folded away at night.

Here is my daughter working on hers.

I forgot to take a picture of the finished ones.  You can see one laying in front of my daughter on the table.
Since this was such a simple craft it left a lot of time for us to talk this week.  One of the things we talked about this week was slavery.    I had really not been looking forward to having this talk with the girls.  But, I also felt that it would be wrong to close our Felicity study without discussing it.  I started out by telling them about the George Santayana quote that says "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."  Then I read to them the 2 pages in the book In Felicity's World about slavery.  One page was about how and why slavery began and the other is about the slaves lives.  The girls seemed to have quite a bit of their own thoughts to add too, so we had a good discussion.  I told them we would be talking more about this when we study Addy.

Next we did our weekly questions about the book we read and then I had printed out a bunch of pictures to share with them from our Colonial Williamsburg visit.  It just happened that there were A LOT of things discussed in this book that I had pictures of.  Here are the pictures I showed them:

The shoemaker:
I showed them this picture because this was the only shop we saw a picture of the king of England in.  I totally took the bait and asked him if he was a loyalist.  He was probably the person we encountered at Colonial Williamsburg that stayed the most in character.  He proceeded to get very aggravated with me!  He asked me if I thought it was patriotic to go against the government of your own country?  He started in on how the king was at least an honorable man and the leaders of the rebellion were not!  I got a good taste of what it would have been like to but heads with a loyalist of the time!  LOL

In this weeks story we read about Felicity going to church.  So I showed them pictures of the church she would have attended.  This was really cool because it is an original building.  As a matter of fact, it is still an active church and has continuously been a church since it was built in the 1700's.

A shot of the outside of the church.

As you can see in this picture there is a graveyard at the entrance of the church.  The grave literally come up to the door of the church.  If you look at the picture of my kids on the bench below you will see that the bench is actually built around a tombstone!
The kids jumped up as soon as I told them! LOL

Here is a shot of the church down the aisle from the back.

This is the balcony which is where the slaves sat.

This is my daughter sitting in George Washington's pew box!
All of the pews were marked as to who sat there.  The kids enjoyed seeing all the famous names.  We were told that the pews were in private boxes because there was no heat and people would bring little heater boxes to warm themselves.

In this weeks story we read that Jiggy Nye had spent time in both the pillory and stockades.  My kids could relate!

Pillory

Stockades...
LOL

Next I showed them pictures of the millnery store...

These are capes exactly like the ones Felicity wore.
I wish I could have bought her one!

Of course I had to try on a hat!

So many hats....

Then there was the dress shop... I LOVED this shop and we happened to spend about 45 minutes in this one because we were waiting out a humongous rain storm.  So I took A LOT of pictures and asked A LOT of questions.

This was the store owner showing us hats.  I loved the big hoop hanging from the ceiling.

These were the pockets they also wore under their dresses.

These are the dolls that were sent from overseas to show off the latest fashions.

Pretty dresses!

Breeches

This is called a Pudding Cap.  It was a padded hat for a baby to keep it's head safe when it was learning to walk.  :^)

Here is a house that probably looked much like the one Felicity lived in.

And here are pictures of the General Store which would be much like the one Felicity's father owned and ran.


The office in the back.

More of the office.

So many pretty things for sale...

Sewing corner.
So that is all the pictures I showed them.  I still have a zillion more I could post, but I think this post pretty much finishes up the majority of the Williamsburg pictures I wanted to share.  It was a fabulous place to visit!

I am going to miss Felicity!  I loved every minute of learning about her and her time period and I will NEVER get over that we got to go to Williamsburg right in the middle of our Felicity study!  That was an amazing gift from God!  I will also miss MY American Girls over the Summer.  (Although I am sure we will all be getting together all Summer for fun.)  But, I am ready for my break and plan to get organized over the Summer to have things ready for next school year when we will start our club back up with Josephina!

Happy Homeschooling,

Jamin

Click HERE to view American Girl Club - Felicity Week #1
Click HERE to view American Girl Club - Felicity Week #2
Click HERE to view American Girl Club - Felicity Week #3
Click HERE to view American Girl Club - Felicity Week #4
Click HERE  to view American Girl Clun - Felicity Week #5

Yesterday my daughter signed on to the American Girl website to play for awhile.  I was in the family room and she came running in to me.  "Mom, mom I just signed on to americangirl.com and out of nowhere there is a new historical girl!"  I grabbed my laptop and sure enough there is a brand new girl... Rebecca Rubin!  YAY!!!  Welcome Rebecca! 

It looks like this new doll is from 1914 (10 years after Samantha.) and comes from a Russian-Jewish family.  How exciting that we will get to learn a little about the Jewish faith through this new American Girl!  The best thing about this is not that there is a new doll.  As soon as we started looking at the doll and book online my daughter looked at me and said "Do you know what this means?  We have one more girl to study for American Girl Club!'  LOL  My head is already swimming with ideas of things to do for club!  hehehe  I think I have hit on the right way to get my daughter excited about American History!

If you want to learn more about Rebecca you can visit her play pages here.  You can read an excerpt from her books here. 

Happy Homeschooling,

Jamin

Yesterday one of the sweet mama's from American Girl Club hosted an end of school year pool party!  Because of the crazy year we have had we won't be done with school for another month, but we enjoyed a fun day at the pool anyway!

A few of the girls!

My little man...

After the pool party we headed over to our church to pick up the kids Awana Awards.  The awards ceremony was while we were in Washington D.C. so we missed it.

Here is my daughter SO happy to finally have her hands on the Sparky Awards she worked SO hard to get!
She also got her book 1 and book 2 ribbons.  The stuffed Sparkie I bought for my oldest son back when he started Sparks.  It gets passed to whoever is in Sparks.  So my daughter is ready to hand it off to her little brother now!

Here is my little man with his Cubbies award.
As you can see he is still enjoying wearing his swim goggles!  LOL  He borrowed some from one of the other kids at the pool and loved them.  He wanted to stop at the store on the way home and buy his own with his allowance. 

My oldest son and I also got our service pins.  My son got his pin for serving 3 years as a leader.  (I am SO proud of him! He has worked with Sparkies 2 years, and Cubbies 1 year.  Next year he is going to be the assistant game guy for Sparks and TnT.) I got my 8 year pin!  I have actually helped with Awana for 11 years, but 3 years I worked in the nursery when my babies where little.  (Wow, 11 years!  It has flown by!)

So that is our year end celebration!  We will have to have a family celebration later in the Summer when we get all our book work done.  :^)

Happy Homeschooling,

Jamin