Tea Party Tuesday

On the last Tuesday of each month, Carly and all the beautiful little home-schooled girls put on their best dresses and join each other for an afternoon of tea, snacks, crafts and a lesson in etiquette. This has been a very positive experience for Carly as she learns about table manners, prayer before a meal, waiting until everyone is seated to begin eating  and being charitable in our society. They are usually visited by a princess and even once by Alice in Wonderland. This week the girls will be donating items to a local homeless shelter and giving a short presentation on what it means to be charitable. Since this is a "girls only" class, I usually drop her off for about an hour and half while Taylor and I run errands or visit the Children's store at the Book Center. I am so thankful for Jenna who runs this co op and for all her preparation, hard work and dedication that she provides each month. Some scenes from the last two tea- parties.

Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaawn...

Wow am I exhausted. We have been non stop kids, pool and sun for 3 days now. After our river adventure we headed over to the water park pool Saturday with Carlys friend Keegan. Great place-North County Aquatic Center is fun fun fun..Two water slides, water playground, fountains, diving boards even a snack bar. Kids had a blast...definitely making that a regular stop this summer!!!

Taylor

Carly a second too fast

Carly and Keegan- so loud but having tons of fun...

Carly

Carly

Saturday Night Carly had Keegan sleep over (as if they were not exhausted enough from the day) they played, sang, talked and whatever else 8 year old girls do, deep into the night. They were at it again by 6:30 AM!! The rest of Sunday continued with more friends at the Clubhouse Pool, followed by video games and a McDonalds Pary at Heathers house.  Busy Busy weekend but lots and lots of fun!!!!!

And she sings too.......

A day at the Lagoon

Here in Vero Beach we are lucky to live about 5 miles from the ocean and even closer to the beautiful Indian River. About 20 miles North of here is the Sebastian Inlet State Park. There is a small cove/lagoon where the water is calm clear and about 3 feet at its deepest and full of all kinds of amazing sea life. So we went on an adventure this morning... The boys were up and ready to go early, as Carly and I considered calling it off and hitting Wal Mart instead, but we knew the outdoors would be a better plan so we dragged ourselves up and out, located our swim suits, water shoes, sun block and a couple of snapples and off we went-in the car by 8:30 AM. Once there I was so glad we did it. The weather was just beautiful with an ocean breeze on one side and the river on the other, boats were going in and out of the inlet and the planes were flying low. While we were there we tried to dig for clams and/or catch crabs for dinner but had no such luck. We actually did catch 2 crabs and while Taylor said "lets cook em up" Carly and I decided to throw them back in, they were reeeeeeally small...After we gave up our dinner plans we decided to grab the goggles and check out the lagoon. We were actually swimming about 6 feet away from a Manatee. We also saw some cat fish, a baby sting ray and  tons and tons of jelly fish. We watched the pelicans dive for fish and saw the egrets and cranes flying through as well. A great hands on compliment to the last couple of weeks of Ocean and Sea Creatures lessons- Some pics for your visual enjoyment...

More and More Ocean and Underwater Creatures

Sharks

So against my better judgement, Carly begged and begged me to watch Jaws- you know that cheesy yet extremely life changing 70's movie where from now on every time she goes into the ocean she will think...du dunt du dunt duduntduduntdudunt... I let her and she has yet to freak out too badly. And since we now hove to turn a negative into a positive, what is any good homeschooling mom to do- turn the flipping horror movie into a lesson (hee hee) . Enter shark week.. we learned about Great Whites and several other man eating beasts.

While at the library Taylor suggested we also learn about Jellyfish and Manatees. We did a jellyfish lesson and next week we will do Manatees. We did Sea Turtles last year so we will probably revisit that as well esp since Sea Turtle hatching season is upon us- good time to check the beach for the eggs and maybe even go at night to see if we can spot any hatchlings.

Another Usborne Plug- They have a great Sticker Atlas that my kids love- locating by colorful stickers, which oceans specific sea-creatures live in. We covered North and South Atlantic Oceans so far. LOVE THIS BOOK!!!

Also recommended are these books about Manatees and Jelly Fish..

Is it May Already? (or almost June)

Well this is not what I had in mind but we did have a busy, stressful, emotional and confusing year. We will be schooling through the summer and do a few unit studies as well as complete our math and reading requirements. Here are a few scenes from the past few months, not as much as I wanted but we will get there. 

Math- Taylor has been adding double digits while Carly is just about getting to multiplication.  Carly will complete Horizon Grade 2/2 and go into Grade 3/1 before September and Taylor will be ready for Horizon Grade 1/1. XO


Feb 3, 2011




For the second year in a row, Carly chose to go bowling on her birthday. We were joined by Grandma Dee and Aunt Maria. After bowling we went to Olive Garden for dinner.

Science
I always forget how much my kids love Science and will definitely regularly include it next year as part of our curriculum. Usborne has this great book kit about Magnets. Included is a compass, metal paper clips, and a few other metal accessories.

 First they had to find as many metal objects around the house to test their magnets with. They came up with a dime, slinky dog, scissors, keychain and a soup can....

 then they checked off which metal "stuck" to their magnets, they also used the paper clips and other materials provided by the kit....

 ....here is what happens when the magnet provided attaches to a soup can "It sticks!! it sticks!!!!! "

They had fun with this and we will continue some simple science projects in the future..