Underground Railroad Field Trip!

We took a field trip to Belmont Mansion with our homeschool co-op this week to learn more about the Underground Railroad.  This house first belonged to the Peters family, who purchased the property from William Penn in 1742.  The original owner was a loyalist and so headed back to Britain prior to the war.  His son, a patriot, lived here and eventually became a judge and served as George Washington's Secretary of War.  His son became the president of the Pennsylvania Society for the Abolition of Slavery and was actively involved int eh underground railroad.  Runaway slaves would leave boxcars from a train near the house, hide in the attic and then be taken further along by Quakers. 

 

 There was a wonderful display of pictures and narrations from former slaves, often in their 90's, telling about daily slave life. 

 

 It says: "Pennsylvania became the firs stop for enslaved people on the way north to freedom after the Act for the Gradual Abolition of Slavery passed in 1780.  Their helpers, called conductors, made a network of escape routes, called the Underground Railroad, along which runaways hid in houses, barns, caves and churches, called stations.  Most runaways did not stay in Pennsylvania because they risked recapture under the Fugitive Slave Act of 1793."

Wonderful moulding from the main drawing room of the house: 

 Monkey wrench, wagon wheel, crossroads and bear claw quilt patterns, part of Harriet Tubman's 13 quilt code. 

 African dolls from that time period.

 It would be a wonderful view of the city if the fog was not there.  As it is, Katy commented that it actually gave us a much more realistic view of what the Peters family would have seen from their lawn. 

 Side views of the house.

I also found some nifty websites to complement our trip, so the day after we looked through these sites and did some creative writing.  

National Geographic Education

Scholastic

Explorers!

We finished our regular history book a few weeks ago, so I decided to find a "fun" unit to end the school year.  Since our history ended up with the Age of Exploration, I thought we would enjoy learning more about explorers, and I found the perfect study here!  The kids have been enjoying making maps and newspaper, among other parts of our study. 
Earlier this week, we learned about different navigational tools and then made a quadrant, which was used to find latitude (angles from the equator).  The kids had fun trying it out. 

More Herons!

 An update on our herons:
Apparently, Great Horned Owls are predators of herons (and hawks, too!).  There have been two nighttime owl attacks so far, and both times the dad has fought it off valiantly.  I would be afraid of a heron after hearing how it sounds when fighting!  So far, four of the five eggs have hatched.  They are cute fuzzy things, much longer and skinnier than the hawks, and they have such funny tufts of down on their heads!  Looks like a really bad hair day.  :) 

Today dad fed them while we were eating lunch and watching.  It was fascinating to watch the dad cough up entire fish for them!  And they seem to like fish quite well! 

When the dad id getting ready to sit back down and cover them up (really, he is squatting), he shuffles around, shifting his weight from one foot to another until he is ready to go down.  The funny thing is, he keeps stepping on the babies or knocking them over as he does so, and they look quite comical wiggling around on their backs trying to right themselves. 

 Lunch time!

Just thought this was s cool profile of dad - nifty bent knees and long feathers waving around. 

Herons

Here's the first shot we got of the baby herons this morning.  They have the same wispy-looking feathers as the adults - very fun!  We are waiting to see them more zoomed in (not sure if this camera can do that?) and to hopefully watch them eat so we can compare them to the hawks. 

Eagles, Too!

We have been hearing about a bald eagle nest, too, so today we googled it and found it.  These eagle babies are a month old now and quite large compared to our hawk eyas!  Fun to watch! 
Click here to watch the bald eagles!

 How fun that we have actually been studying zoology (specifically birds) in science right now, too!  

More Bird News!!

To update on the red-tailed hawks, we have three beautiful fuzzy eyas now.  It's amazing that they can eat meat right after birth! 

And the herons are developing, too!  This morning we got a picture of two eggs with pips in them, and then this evening we could se their beaks moving around in much larger holes.  Tonight I saw on their facebook page that the first two babies are completely hatched!  Very fun!  We are curious as to what baby herons look like, compared to baby hawks.  And apparently they don't eat meat right away but are fed regurgitated food from their parents for a while, so we'll see! 

This morning...

 This evening...

"Our" Hawks

I am sure everyone has been waiting with baited breath for a hawk update.....so, here it is.  :) 

We have been enjoying watching the red-tailed hawk nest at Cornell, as well as the Great Blue Herons, and trying to guess when they will hatch.  On Sunday the 22nd, the first pips were confirmed, and by Monday morning, amidst a lot of snow (!!!), the first baby hatched!!  The male and female fed it off and on throughout the day, so we were able to get some glimpses of it!

Waiting....

Why, hello baby!!

Here are mom and dad hanging out in the nest....

And eyas number 1 is hungry....

 But look, there's a second eyas hanging out in there (as of Tuesday afternoon)! 

 And number three is working away in here!
 (Apparently it takes about 50 hours from the first pip for an eyas to emerge, so we 're thinking maybe Thursday afternoon?)

See the red-tailed hawk family for yourself here!

Birds of Prey

We have been greatly enjoying watching the nests of a great blue heron and a red-tailed hawk, courtesy of Cornell University's Ornithology Department. Right now the hawk has three eggs and the heron has just laid her first! Since we are studying birds right now in our zoology course, we decided to learn a bit more about these beautiful birds.

Here are the birdcam links:
Great Blue Heron
Red-Tailed Hawk

Here are some informational pages with great photos:
Great Blue Heron
Red-Tailed Hawk

Here is how the kids measure up to the height and wingspan of a red-tailed hawk:








Here is how the kids measure up to the height and wingspan of a great blue heron:

2011-2012 School Year

Now that we have 33 days left of our school year (not a little cheering going on here!), I thought I would make note of what we have been using this year and how we have liked it, so, here goes:

Language Arts:
Spelling/Phonics: All About Spelling
We switched to this program this year from Spell to Write and Read (which I plan on using again when we finish up this program). My 3rd grader has gone through levels 1-4,and my 2nd grader levels 1-3. Both are doing well with this program. I especially like the systematic approach to spelling rules and the built-in review system. I have noticed both of them pausing when writing to think through the correct spelling of a word, which is not something I really noticed them doing before.
On Thursdays we have our homeschool co-op, so we have "light" school at home. We have a spelling bee every week, where I call out the words and they have to spell them correctly. The motivator is the skittle or chocolate chip that I toss at them each time they get a word correct. (I totally borrowed this idea from Pioneer Woman!). My 4 year old has learned all of his letters and phonogram sounds this way, too!
At the beginning of each month, I give the kids a diagnostic spelling test from my Spell to Write and Read book just to gauge their progress.
Grammar: First Language Lessons
I am not always greatly consistent with this one, but I like the oral nature of the program, and, with the spoken repetition, the kids have learned a lot of grammar. I think we'll continue with it next year.
Writing: Steps to Writing Success, level 2
This program was recommended to me by a 2nd/3rd grade teacher friend who uses this with her class. It has been very helpful to me in teaching me how to model the writing process for my kids. I would say that writing is our weakest area, not because my kids aren't creative in composing stories, but because it is like pulling teeth to get the to take the time to write them out and finish them. This is going to be my big push next year!

Math:
We are using Singapore Math again this year. We won't really be finished with math in 33 days, however. I think we'll probably continue all summer, which won't actually be all that bad, since it'll keep everything fresh in their minds. The 2nd grade book is the longest we have had yet, and my 2nd grader is still in the first book! We only do this math 4 days a week, though, since we take off on co-op days, so that is a big factor in how long it is taking us to complete it.
This year, we added Singapore's Extra Practice and Challenging Word Problems books for some additional practice. I assign 1-2 pages in each per day for the kids to work on independently, and then we go over and correct it together.
On Thursdays, the kids use Singapore's Math Sprints books to "race" against themselves in timed quizzes. They actually look forward to Thursdays and beg to do Sprints on other days, so I think this one was a winner!

History:
We are finishing up book 2 of The Story of the World and still enjoying it. We read a section or two each day and use the discussion questions in the Activity Guide. I usually have the kids narrate back to me what we read, and lately I have been writing it down for them so they can include more details (now we just need to work on summarizing instead!). At the end of each chapter, we do map work together from the Activity Guide (I really like this feature!), and sometimes we also read additional books or do additional activities related to the material.
On Thursdays, in stead of reading, we put everything we have read about in the past week into our Books of Time, which are basically timeline books. I try to include anything we have read about, whether in history or science, art or music, Bible or biography, so our books are filling up in places. It has been extremely helpful for me to visualize how different events interacted in history, and it has been neat to see the kids get excited when we go to put something in and they see that something else happened around the same time.

Science:
We finished up Apologia's Botany course at Christmas and began their Zoology I in February. We also began Noeo's Chemistry I at the same time. I try to alternate between the two, and the kids seem to be enjoying both. Both use lots of narration, in addition to hands-on activities and experiments.
We also do lots of nature walks, especially in the spring, when we have a "tree walk" of several trees in the neighborhood that we follow each spring from bud to blossom.

Reading:
The kids are both pretty good independent readers now, but I am trying to be better about having them read aloud so I can gauge their progress. We have done a lot of reading from the Christian Liberty Nature Readers. I like them because they use an easy almost conversational tone and have a glossary in the back where the kids can learn to look up terms. The kids enjoy learning about insects and spiders and other creatures while they read to me.
We have also been reading through Proverbs together, with each of us taking a verse until we finish a chapter. I'm thinking of moving on to some "sword drills" now to get them more familiar with their Bibles.
To facilitate with memorization, we have been reading and then memorizing several Psalms in the past two months. We have worked on Psalm 100 and 23 and are now beginning Psalm 139. My 4-year-old likes to come in for these, too.

PE:
The kids played soccer in the fall and have just began again for spring. We took a break in the winter, but they are requesting basketball next year. I have also begun them on the Couch to 5K running program to get them running more and to possibly prep them for a race in the summer or fall. We run while I push my 2-year-old in the stroller and my 4-year-old rides his bike.

Music:
The kids began piano lessons last summer and are enjoying them. We also enjoy listening to the Classical Kids CDs to learn some biographical information for different composers.

Art:
We do art here and there, though summers have turned out to be the best time for us to do it more consistently.

We have enjoyed lots of various other things as they arise, like field trips, kids' interests, missionary biographies, etc...so I am sure I am leaving a lot out. :)

Leap Day 2012

Alrighty, so here's what actually went down yesterday:

We made a time capsule "video" made up of shorter videos of the kids singing, playing piano, being interviewed, etc...and added in pictures of them in different situations (with their favorite toys, standing by the growth chart, in their rooms,....). The kids also wrote letters to themselves in 4 years and filled out a short questionnaire (how tall are you, what is your favorite color and food,...). We're going to put this into a special envelope and (hopefully remember to) open it on Feb. 29, 2016 (I even added it to my google calendar to remind me!).

We watched videos of jumping and leaping animals.

We read about leap years. Did you know that on years divisible by 100, you only add that extra day if the year is also divisible by 400?

We jumped and hopped, lots - long jumps, high jumps, silly jumps, hopping in place, hopping around, ....

We went to piano lessons (same thing we do every week, but it provided a reason to get out of the house for a few hours).

And today we finished it off with alliterative sentences to go with "jump" and "leap." (And, oh the giggles coming from the dining room table as they composed and shared their sentences!)

So, happy Leap Day! We'll see what we come up with in four years (and I really hope we remember to watch the video and can even find it!).

Leap Day Ideas!

Here it is February 28th, so of course, excellent planner that I am, I am finally thinking about doing something different for tomorrow, since Leap Day comes only once every 4 years.

So, here is my list of ideas so far (the evening is still early):

• Game Day: Get out all of our board games and go to town!
• Field trip: I’m thinking Passport to History or Longwood Gardens!
• Jumping and Hopping Contests: Awards for craziest, farthest jump, loudest, silliest,...; modified long jump activity
• Discover why we have leap years
• Leap Year Time Capsule: Leap year time capsule and letter to themselves to be opened on next Leap Day.
  
• Study Animals that Leap
• Bake cupcakes or something we don't normally have.
• We have piano lessons tomorrow and then eat lunch at work with Daddy, so maybe we'll have a special lunch, too.
  

I know this isn't a big holiday or anything deep, but it only comes once every 4 years, which means my kids will only observe it about 4 times while they live with me, so let's make memories together in the time we have!

So, what are your Leap Day ideas?