Spring Fever!!

Yep! Spring fever is going on full force in our household! We are counting the days until school is out. Believe it or not, we only have about 2 more weeks of school work left, then we are all done. YAY!

I have been busy getting all of our curriculum in order for next year. It's always exciting. I love reading through the new books. I always learn something new. Next year we will be beginning our history cycle over again; meaning, we are going back to the time of Creation and ending at the time of Christ. The "history cycle" just means that we cover a period of history chronologically. So, for instance, this year we studied from the Civil War to modern times; next year is Ancient History; the year after next we will be in the Middle ages; the next year Early American History again, and so on - a big cycle. Last time we studied Ancient History, the boys were only in 4th and 2nd grade. This next year we will be able to get into so much more - I'm excited!!

Last week we took an impromptu trip to the National Marine Corps Museum in Quantico. Daddy had to go down for a retirement ceremony so we thought, why not make it a field trip!! This was a great opportunity since we were right in the middle of reading about a lot of the wars featured at the museum: The World Wars, Korea, Vietnam.

This museum is highly interactive so even the little ones had a great time!! 

Here's Ryan and Elizabeth in the "boot camp experience"

Elizabeth's face!!Haha! She was trying to lift up the pack.

Sean didnt want his pictures taken, but I snuck this one in while he was practicing his pull ups. ;o)

This was a really neat exhibit. The boys and Elizabeth really enjoyed it. You were inside a tent (I think this was in the Spanish American War area) and the light shadows made it appear like there was a real patrol and someone tending the fire. Pretty neat!!

Elizabeth was so excited about going over to the "Pirates" area. haha! Here they had a stop to dress up like a revolutionary era Marine.  They got to go fishing, tie knots and read about interesting facts. This was one of the new play areas the museum has added since we visited last (about 5 years ago).

They had plenty of stops to dress up and pose for pictures.

The Korean war exhibit was a favorite though. We even went back a second time after we finished the museum. I love this picture of Sean - absorbing it all in.

We pretty much had the museum to ourselves. There was another school group there but we managed to stay away from them most of the time, so the boys got a few times to really enjoy and "interact" in the features.

Daddy caught up with us about half way through. 

The final area was tribute to 9/11. It's not a good picture, but if you look right next to Ryan, the big rusted metal beam is a section from the Twin Towers. There was also a section of the Pentagon there too (not pictured). 

Flip Flop Crazy!

Life has gone all 'flip flop crazy' for our family since the start of the school year. We have gone on vacation, joined a new church, crazy weather, and the biggest of all started the first time home buying process. Boy! Has that been a trip! I would really like to get back into a routine of updatng our home school progress again. Sometimes if you want to get into a routine (or back into one) you just have to force the matter, so here it goes!

This year for history/science we are using My Father's World 1850-Modern Times. We just finished our study on the Civil War. I love that time period so we kind of 'paused' the curriculum to study it more indepth.

Right now, we are on the period of American History that covers some of the great inventions and times of growth on the US. It just so happens that the History Channel is showing a new series called the "Men Who Built America", it ties in perfectly. It shows the hard work and ruthlessness behind some of the ideas that helped our country become what it is today. I'm really enjoying the series, I think the boys are too.

We also took a week during the elections to look at the process of electing a new president. The day after, the boys were required to color the map to match the election results.






In Science, we are learning about Physics and Chemistry this year. Right now, we are studying energy. There are experiments galore this year! Though I keep forgetting to take pictures *palm to forehead*. This week we have studied the Laws of Motion.








Art Class: We've been studying Impressionist and the boys are to use the characteristics of the period and create their own 'impressionist' painting.

Ryan's "Watching the Fireworks"

Sean's "A Speech" (clearly the elections had an influence) lol

Our little "school house"

 Here's a little peek into our little "school house",

if you ever wondered where our learning takes place.

This here is learning central. Our dining room table / school room.

Most of our day takes place at or around this table. As you can see there is a nice big floor space here in the center for any activities. Sometimes Ryan likes to take his books and sprawl out on the floor instead of sitting at the table. Other time we will use the space to sit all together during group activities and experiments.

Here's a closer look at our maps and charts. The charts to the right are our English grammar helps: what is a verb; preposition list; diagramming; etc.

Here is Elizabeth's little nook. She sits here and colors, plays with playdoh, crafts, whatever will keep her occupied for a minute or two before she darts off somewhere else.

This was supposed to be our actual school room. As you can see, space does not allow for it. So now it is more of a reading/computer lab/relaxing space. The boys lounge in here to do their reading or go on the computer for their typing or math exercises. They also have a little tv to play video games on the weekends... only if they are earned!

I hope you enjoyed the tour of our little schooling areas!

Final days of school

We are winding down the school year here... yay!!

 I have been a bit busy lately getting ready for our final school review with the State, among many other family activities. So, I snapped a few pictures of some of the things we had been working on the last few weeks to give you a quick update before we take a break for the summer. Don't worry, I will still be updating through the summer (or so I plan to) we have a lot of fun activities planned between now and October so stay tuned! ;)

Here are the books we used for History and Science. We had a great year learning how the United States came to be plus all of the other world events going on at the same time:

This is our wall map filled for the year. All of the states filled in are the members of the Union up to1850. (The time period we have stopped at for the year. We will pick up from there next year)

The boys (Elizabeth too) have loved filling in this map and learning about these states.

Here's a quick timeline snapshot of what we have studied about this year:

 

 

Both boys kept up notebooks for History and Science. 

Each day, after a lesson they had to write or draw a picture of the events.

(maybe we have to take a drawing class next year and try to get past the stick figure stage LOL)

In Science we learned all about Botany for the 2nd semester.

Each boy did a lapbook like below as we worked through each lesson and experiments

Some samples of Sean's art work

And Ryan's art work

Next year we are learning from 1850 until modern times.

Here are some of the books we'll be using 

(minus the Narnia series to the right, Sean is reading through those now and finishing them over the summer)

This is our new wall map for next year. 

It's huge, I just finished laminating each little section.

Happy Summer everyone!!

American Inventions

This week in history, we learned all about some famous American inventors for this time period and how they advanced growth for our country.

We also added Virginia, North Carolina, Rhode Island and Vermont to our state studies.

For science, we continued our study on Botany. This week we learned all about the roots, leaves and how important they are to the plant. Did you know, when the leaves change color in the fall, that is the real color of the leaves? The green color is just the overabundance of chlorophyll. When the plant stops making food in the fall, its true colors can be see.

We started making a lapbook for the rest of the year in science, since our Revolutionary War lapbook was such a big hit.

For Art we did some spring/Easter themed projects.

Ryan made a chalk painting. He wet the paper and used chalk to color it to give it a neat color and texture.

Sean made a pyramid that tells the story of the Resurrection.

Elizabeth made an angel. She wasn't thrilled with coloring the whole thing so I gave her a bunch of stickers to decorate it with.

We also did some inside PE this week. I planned on taking them out for basketball at the park but it has been a bit windy and brisk for Abigail to be out in that weather.

It cracks me up that Smokey has decided to make an appearance in each of these pictures - he's such a ham!

Elizabeth doing some leg lifts.

Ryan working those arms with pushups.
I think Smokey is checking his form.

Sean being tortured with leg lifts!

I had to add this picture too! hahah! He's not so happy doing these arm circles... I made him work for that lunch behind him! ;)

Abby Mae working out her little face with smiles.

" this post is linked to Homeschool Highlights in MFW
at Discover Their Gifts or 2 ladybugs and a lizard "