Yeah crustaceans!  Another great week of dissections. The kids did an especially great job of identifying and sketching the external anatomy as we started.

I was also impressed with how well they coordinated using their forceps and scissors to remove the legs with gills still attached.

The earthworms were as popular as a dead annelid can possibly be.

The kids did a phenomenal job on the dissections, as well as the more theoretical followups on Linnaean nomenclature and clasifications.

I was impressed with how much they remembered from week 1 as well!

 

This week we began a homeschool biology dissection lab. The Grantia (natural sea sponge) was a bit anticlimactic - even under the microscope - but the kids enjoyed breaking out the bag of dead critters and seeing what was yet to come.

We also had a chance to overview classification of living organisms and what exactly was the purpose of each instrument in our dissection kits.

 

It's not often nice enough weatherwise for a 2 hour hike through Civil War battlefields in January, so we took advantage it and headed off to Antietam.

The visitors center presentations and film were interesting, but the real hit was a walk around the Corn Fields in which the soldiers fought.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So, what do you do with those extra parts the butcher sends back when you buy your lamb organic and "on the hoof"?

Obviously, homeschool dissection class!

 

 

 

 

Kayla, Nathan, Seth, Sabrina and I spent the day in Lancaster, juggling between museums. We started at the National Watch and Clock Museum, had lunch there, then wandered over to the North Museum of Natural History on F&M campus.

We’d never been to the North Museum before. The kids especially liked the discovery boxes. Sabrina and I found most of them OK but the one filled with taxidermied feet form difference species was pretty creepy. 

The visiting art exhibit was also creepy, although very beautiful at the same time. It was a display of photographs from Dr. Stephen Rannels called Beyond Bugs.  The photos were all mosaic style of designs formed from various insect parts, especially butterfly wings. 

 

 Today we headed out to Annapolis. My camera is still MIA (and I forgot the old one which works “sometimes”) so this will be a sadly “unillustrated” entry. Still, it was a great day.

We began at St. Anne’s Church, one of the older buildings in Annapolis, checking out the awesome stained glass and extensive collection of needlepoint kneelers. It was a lovely collection of “folk art”.

From there, we went to the Maryland State House (nice, but not nearly as awesome in the art department as the Pennsylvania Capital Building). We also checked out the memorials to Thurgood Marshall and Alex Haley.  I hadn’t realized that Roots was the port at which Kunte Kinte arrived in the novel. Or in real life either, since the novel was based on Haley’s actual family history. 

We also made it to the Naval Academy – incredibly clean campus! – where Nathan and Seth were insanely enthralled with all the bone carved ships that had been made by POWs during the American Revolution.  Kayla and I were more interested in Enigma, as they had one of the captured machines upstairs. Also, we visited the tomb of John Paul Jones, the Revolutionary War naval hero who was NOT (as we explained to Nathan) related to Davy Jones as in dead pirate underlord.

I am very sad to report that our digital camera disappeared sometime on Thursday at Colonial Williamsburg during homeschool week. Since it's been over a week and no one has turned it in, I have quite frankly given up hope.

Since photos are a major part of our blogging, this blog will be on hold indefinitely.

 

We’re now well into our 18-month attempt to see America up close and personal. This is what we’ve seen so far:

1.                    Alabama

2.                    Arizona

3.                    California

4.                    Connecticut

5.                    Idaho

6.                    Louisiana

7.                    Maryland

8.                    Massachusetts

9.                    Minnesota

10.                 Mississippi

11.                 Montana

12.                 New Mexico

13.                 North Dakota

14.                 Ohio

15.                 Oregon

16.                 Pennsylvania

17.                 Tennessee

18.                 Texas

19.                 Virginia

20.                 Washington

21.                 West Virginia

22.                 Wisconsin

 

It’ll be cool soon, so now we’re beginning to plan shorter visits to closer states to fill in some of the blanks. We’re also keeping the trips shorter since DH needs to earn a living so he’ll not be accompanying our shorter fall trips. That leaves me the only driver since the others are away at college, so I’d prefer to stick closer to home.

If you’ve got great ideas on some of the states closer to PA that don’t appear on this list, we’d love to hear from you!

 

YES!!!!! I am finally caught up with blogging our summer holidays! We're continuing to travel at least one major (multi-day) trip a month and one or two big (generally out-out-state) day trips per week, so catching up was a major accomplishment.

I just stopped at CVS and picked up the 750 photos we took on our July trips. It'll probably be months before I get those in albums and have August printed, but at least the blog is finally up to date.

Obviously, I picked only a tiny, tiny portion of the great photos we took and described again, only a small part of what we did, learned, and felt. Still, it's nice to have at least some of it "on paper" so to speak.

If you'd like to see the rest of the photos (and don't want to wait a few years for me to get them all into albums), they're online at:

http://www.kodakgallery.com/siviy

 

 

 

For a 4 state day, this was a really short trip. We started at home in Pennsylvania then skipped through Maryland, popped into Virginia for just a few miles, and stopped at Harpers Ferry just across the next border into West Virginia – and all in under an hour and a half each way!  The kids have taken to cheering when we enter a new state so they were cheering away most of the trip.

 

Harpers Ferry was an excellent National Park and offered a lot more than we’d expected.  (I *really* wish the Park Service would put more information on their webpages and make it all easier to find! It’s really hard to tell what you’ll find on almost any National Park because their websites are near impossible to navigate…)

 

In any case, the park was great.  We were expecting the details on John Brown and his ill-fated attempt to incite a slave revolt after capturing the armory…..

 

But we weren’t aware of the role the armory played in the introduction of Interchangeable Parts by Capt. Hall in the rifle factory, pretty much making the industrial revolution possible.  (Assembly lines only work with interchangeable parts.)

We also weren’t aware of how lively this area was during the Civil War. It actually changed hands 8 times.  Not surprising given the location. This is a photo I took on the battlefield at Harpers Ferry.  The hills you see from left to right are in Maryland, Virginia, and West Virginia. It makes you realize just how close to the border the town was.

 

Overall it was a great day. We’ll probably return at some point because even after a full day, we hadn’t seen everything. 

It was time to return Tabitha to Drexel so we took the opportunity to schedule another field trip. Tabi’s apartment is actually off of the Valley Forge exit and we’d been meaning to stop there for a while now.  (She’s a junior at Drexel, so that gives you an idea!)

 

While there weren’t many programs given it being after Labor Day, the Park was nice and the weather was lovely. If anything, it was a little too hot. There was a great bike trail running through the park, but we hadn’t brought bikes and it was a little too hot for such a long walk so we opted for the auto tour.

 

We saw recreations of the little cabins the soldiers built and learned that George Washington had offered $12 to the first group to complete a well built cabin.

 

We saw the National Memorial Arch and heard lots of references to Hungry and Naked soldiers. (The Naked meant they were inadequately clothed, not unclothed. Which is good given how much it snows in this area!)

 

And we saw General Washington’s Headerquarters.

And a LOT of white tail deer.

 

To complete our field trip day, we stopped for Philly Cheesesteak when we returned Tabi to her apt. Some days social studies really is delicious J

 

This was a very exciting and emotional day – our second in line went off to college and moved into her dorm.  A recent homeschool graduate, Nina is now off at the University of Pittsburgh studying languages.

Given the large number of students moving in and about Oakland, Steve and I were a bit apprehensive about the actual move in. Amazingly, it took less than ½ an hour! 

Part of this is that Nina redefines minimalism when it comes to wardrobe, but Pitt was also very efficient. They had these little wheelie carts all ready for us and with two of them and 5 of us (Steve, me, Nina, Kayla, and cousin Cassie came) we managed to get it all up to her room in a single trip.  That was probably just as well for Steve. Since we’d been up at a ridiculous time of morning, he’d had a few cups of coffee at Nana and Grampap’s before heading out. While that seemed a good idea at the time, it seemed less so after learning that Nina’s on the 7^th floor of an all women’s dorm and the nearest men’s bathroom was 3 buildings away!

 

After move in, Nina went off to an orientation session and we took Kayla and Cassie to the Carnegie Museum of Art and Natural History (less than a 2 block walk from Nina’s dorm). Then we all met up for lunch.

 

Probably the funniest part was at the end of lunch when Nina dismissed us. I think her exact words were, “I think I’m ready to be a college student. You can go now.” 

Go get 'em NINA!!!!!

 

Since this is the 400^th anniversary of the Jamestown Settlement, we made it a point to visit Jamestown while we were in Virginia. They’d added quite a few things since our last visit around 6 years ago.

 

The archaeology exhibits were nicely done. I especially like the way you could see the old foundation under glass as you walked into the new visitor’s center.

 

We wandered through the visitor’s center and archeology museum, stopped by the statues of John Smith and Pocahontas, had a listen to the archaeologist volunteer at the dig site, and even put our feet into the river to step out again as did the very first settlers. 

 

It’s really hard to decide what to write about this particular trip. We stayed at a timeshare near Williamsburg for a week, 8/12 – 8/19. While we were there, we did pretty much EVERYTHING.

 

We just LOVED Williamsburg. We did the Revolutionary City program, following the re-enactors as the British government fell in the colony one day, then following the progress of the American revolution the next. We went to nearly all the homes.

We even took in the art galleries and music programs. We saw the history of Banjo in its development from African import to American folk mainstay. We listened to early compositions for and on the pianoforte.  We did a workship where the kids bought provisions using Colonial currency at the going rates in 1774.  We even did the evening ghost tours, witch trials, and attended a colonial version of America’s most wanted. 

 

It was just wonderful.  We had such a great time that I’m taking the kids back for the Homeschool week in September and we hope to return for at least one of the holiday programs. 

Needless to say,  we're back from our cross-country trip but I'm COMPLETELY behind in updating the blog, uploading photos, etc. I'm trying too add a few "days' from our trip each day until I catch up. Hopefully that will be before we leave for a week in Williamsburg and Jamestown.....

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TABI !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We luv ya big time !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

===

 

In the meantime, the full set of cross country photos is on our Kodak website at

http://www.kodakgallery.com/siviy

 

Feel free to browse!

 

 

So, what does one do in Wisconsin?  Hmmm…..

 

Oh yeah, we stopped and bought cheese J

 

Actually, we bought quite a lot of cheese. There were dozens of types available with samples, etc. Our favorites were the cranberry cheddar and the basic farmer’s cheese.

 

 

WOW! What can you say about a mall that has its own roller coaster, aquarium and full amusement park?!

 

Add the Lego Store for Nathan and this was just about perfect!

 

In sharp contract to Montana, Red River was a stunning zoo. The exhibits were creative, unusual, and filled with visible critters.

 

I loved the mouse display. I’ve been wondering if our pet rats might like something similar – something to think about the next time I bake badly…

 

On the other hand, this one creeped me out. I have NO intentions of recreating this scene for Kayla’s pet Madagascar hissing cockroaches.

 

In addition to great displays, there were opportunities to interact with the critters as well. I’d always wondered what it would be like to pet a baby porcupine.  (FYI –Not nearly as irritating as petting that cactus in Saguaro National Park in Arizona….)

And, as a bonus, they had a great colony of prairie dogs -- one of our most favorite animals to watch!

 

 

If the Museum of the Rockies was the best science center on our trip, Zoo Montana was, well, not the best zoo. It could have been the weather, or just bad luck, but I swear there were virtually no animals in the zoo. The exhibits were lovely, and widely spaced out and the wildflowers were stunning – but we just didn’t see many critters along the way.

 

Steve said it reminded him of that line in Jurassic Park where Ian Malcolm asks if there are going to be any dinosaurs on the dinosaur tour?!