How does your garden grow?

As many of you know, we have decided to homeschool Bella, and later, Abby.  I used this past school year as a "practice year" for kindergarten, as homeschooling is a completely new journey both for me as a teacher and for Bella as a student.  She has done extremely well.  She is now a beginning reader, and just as importantly, she loves to be read to.  She frequently asks me to read to her while she is eating lunch and I am happy to oblige!  We finished a kindergarten math book (Saxon Math K) and she really enjoyed it, especially the manipulatives.  We have also almost completed Book 1 of Explode the Code.

I decided that a unit study would be a good, fun way to end our year.  Since planting season is upon us, I picked a Garden unit study.  I purchased and downloaded a unit study by Amanda Bennett to use as a guide, and off we went!

We have had such a good time with this! I have been able to incorporate reading, writing, art, science, and Bible all into this unit.  We learned about Claude Monet and looked at several examples of his artwork.  In the picture below, we are attempting to paint like Monet...we had fun, but I'm not sure it turned out quite as good as the original!

 We also learned some new vocabulary words, such as: row, dig, stem, etc.  I had Bella copy these into her Garden Journal, then I wrote the definition she gave me for each one!  We also made a garden collage out of magazine clippings, talked about the differences between fruit and vegetables, and made a flower out of pattern blocks.  For a Bible lesson, we read the parable about "A sower went forth to sow" out of the book of Matthew, and we talked about having "good ground" for the seed of God to grow!

                And of course, at the end of all this, we planted some seeds!  Bella chose tomoatoes, squash, broccoli, beans , and carrots.

                                     Abby helped plant the seeds!

 
                              Just a few short days later, we were excited to see our seeds sprout!

                             My sweet Daddy plowed us a real garden!

                   But other fell into good ground, and brought forth fruit, some an hundredfold, some sixtyfold, some thirtyfold. Who has ears to hear, let him hear."  Matthew 13:8-9

Yeah, but its a dry heat....

After returning from the Disney trip, I have to admit I was ready to stay home for the rest of the year.  Which, if you know my husband, was a total pipe dream!  He loves to be on the go, especially with "the girls".   Because of horrible flight delays on our Disney trip we had a voucher with the airline, and we also had a "buddy pass" ticket through our AmEx credit card.  Between that and knowing how upset I was about losing my camera with all our Disney pictures on it, he decided we should go back. To Disney. This year. 

And while I greatly appreciated his effort to replace our pictures, the thought of going back to Disney so soon did not sit well with me.  We were at a standoff!  He was determined not to waste free airline tickets, I was very determined not to go back to Disney so soon!  So one day as we were discussing the issue again, I said (quite exasperatedly!), "If you want to fly somewhere, why don't we go to Arizona and visit Stephen and Jamie!"

He took the idea and ran with it, and we discovered that in order to not conflict with his work schedule, our fall beach trip, and the hot summer weather in AZ, we were going to have to go in just a few short weeks, at the end of March.  We booked our airline tickets, and before we knew it were were Arizona bound!

The girls did wonderful on the flights, which were - Thank you Lord!- all on time.  We arrived in Arizona late on a Saturday night, and by the time we got a rental car and got to our hotel, it was 1:30 a.m...4:30 a.m. Tennessee time!  I'd like to report that we slept very late the next morning, but my girls get up early regardless.  A few short hours later we were up and on our way to Stephen and Jamie's house, and what a reunion we had!  Here are a few pictures from our trip:

Kenneth, me, and the girls at the Grand Canyon.  It was so beautiful!  

 Me and Abby with my awesome sis-in-law, Jamie.  Despite the

distance that separates us, she is one of my dearest friends!

Sweet cousins!  Lexi, Bella, Lucas, and Abby.  These kids played from

sun up till sun down!

One of my very favorite pictures from our trip.  My brother-in-law

and Lucas on the flight line at Luke AFB.  We are so proud of

Stephen's service to our country, and the sacrifices that he and his

family make.  As he showed us around the base, his pride in

his job was evident.

We spent several days in Arizona, and Stephen and Jamie graciously welcomed us into their home.  I admit, I was leery of staying in their house.  After all, the saying "you don't know someone till you live with them" applies to extended family!  At the conclusion of the trip, I told Jamie if they ever move to TN we need to build a duplex with a communal kitchen!  The kids had a blast playing and we felt so welcome. 

Besides the excursion to the Grand Canyon, and our trip to the AFB, we also spent a morning at a Wildlife Zoo, which the kids really enjoyed.  And we got to spend a lot of time just hanging out together, talking and cooking and boy did we eat good! Stephen can make some mean smoked barbeque, and oh, those tacos!

It ended up being one of my favorite vacations ever. 

Wooly Day!

On April 14, a local historic site called Rocky Mount hosted their annual

"Wooly Day".  I saw an article in the paper about it and thought it might

look like something my girls would enjoy.  (And count as a good "field trip"!)

I called their Nana, who is usually game for these adventures, and we headed out. 

It turned out to be a very enjoyable day for all involved...except maybe the sheep.



Wooly Day gets its name from the fact that this is the day when the sheep are sheared.

They do not seem to particularly enjoy this, especially since it means being separated from

their new lambs for a while.  The girls loved petting the baby lambs, and Abbigail was brave

enough to pet one of the adults- with Nana close by!



 The sheep leave an oily residue on your hands if you pet them, because their skin secretes lanolin.  The wool must be washed several times to remove this.

One of the exhibits showed the making of lye soap.  Bella and Abby try it out!

One of the most popular exhibits was candle making!  For $2 the kids could make their own
candle...but there ended up being a lot of adults in line, because it takes many dips into the wax
to make even a small candle, and little ones lose patience so quickly!  Nana finished the girls' candles
while they had a snack in the shade!

We also saw demonstrations on spinning, weaving, archery, and fireplace cooking.  It was a great way to spend the afternoon.  I decided that the good Lord sure put me in the right time in history, because I'm afraid I would have made a very poor pioneer....you would have found me in the springhouse, the only cool spot on the farm!