Playing Alone

Wonder Girl's Tent/House

One of my favorite things to see in our house is when all my kids are playing quietly by themselves.  There is no screaming, yelling, crying and someone saying,"MOM!! ______ touched or hit me!!!".  It is during those times that i get a chance to make dinner, post on this blog, even work on making a few thing for school for the following week, or clean my house.

Wonder Girl Playing in her tent/house

Today I caught Wonder Girl doing something that she loves to do and something that I'm always having to clean up.  She had made up her own tent/house with all the blankets she had on her bed.  Inside she was working on her own computer.  She is dressed in her ballet dress and I was informed later that she going to go dance later for me.

Hondo Playing House

I even manged to catch Hondo playing nicely with Wonder Girl's doll house.  He was intent on rearranging all the furniture in the house and making sure all the dolls had taken a bath.



Dare-Devil Boy was working hard on his school.  Recently he's been doing school independently.  He'll still come to me for an help, but mostly he's doing it without me.  

What do your kids do by themselves?  

Trail of Tears, Erie Canal & Steamboats (all small unit)

These units were very small stops in our journey in learning American history.  Despite all of that we managed to learn about a few things and even made a short field trip to one of the stops on the Tear of Tears.  The trail runs through were we live.  

Here are the books that we used and the videos we watched.

Here are a few of the extra videos I found on the the Trail of Tears that we really helpful in our learning.

Trail of Tears-

I'm putting just 1 of the 8 video clips thatt his has.  But if you have Netflix you can get it on there too.  Its American Experience: We Shall Remain (Trail of Tears Episode)



Steamboats and the Erie Canal-

Something About My Husband...

I don't get to talk to much about my wonderful husband.  But he's really an important part of all of our lives.  

Because of his hard work I can stay home to homeschool our kids.  He's the one that teaches our boy's what it means to be a Godly Man and shows our daughter what one looks like.  He's the one that keeps the cars running and fixes all the things in the house.  He kills all the spiders (or takes them outside) that make there way into the house. He's the reason that my kids love spiders, bugs, and anything outdoors.  And he'll be the one when they are all old enough will teach them survival skills.

My husband is an outdoors kind of guy.  He loves nothing more then to be in the woods camping or climbing a cliff like Spider-man.  Or even simply being outside on a nice summer's night catching fireflies with the kids.  That's my husband and I love him.

Spring and Play Camping

Spring is here and is the rain.  But during the days that weren't raining we managed to get a few good days of sunshine and get outside to play.  I even manged to hang my clothes out on the line to dry.  (Something I'll admit that I've only recently come to love now as an adult.  Why?  It could be with the fact that sometimes its the only time alone I get.)

While the kids played outside on the swings, slides and my husband worked on my van it was no surprise that I found Wonder Girl making her own campsite under the shade of my husband's jeep.  And all I could think was, "She's her Daddy's little girl alright."


For those that don't know, my husband is a huge outdoors man.  Camping (not an RV, but in tents without showers for a week kind of camping.), hiking, rock climbing and survival things are what makes him happy.  So much so that he actually enjoys camping in the middle of winter with snow and freezing weather.  I think he's crazy.  I don't like it when it dips below 70, but that's what I love about him.  

Anyway getting back to Wonder Girl.  She had a great time just playing by herself with out the rough and tumble that comes with there brothers.  She made she self a pretend fire, pile of extra wood, and even a bed to lay on that was off the ground to keep warm.  Then later she took her snack outside to eat at her campsite.  

Here Is Wonder Girl eating her snack at her campsite.

Lewis and Clark Unit- Corps of Discovery

This unit was 3 weeks long but it was short compared to our unit on the American Revolutionary War.  I didn't supplement with a lot of other books.  But I managed to find a few movies and clips to watch.  

We also managed to do a few other crafts and activities.  I should note that the book that we used for our unit; is: The Lewis and Clark Expedition by Carol A. Johmann.  You can see it in the widget.  This is also the book that the notebook pages that I made goes with.


Notebook Pages:
The notebook pages i created for his unit was so big I had to make two files. Lewis and Clark Journey Notebook Pages 1-CLICK HERE to download. 
Lewis and Clark Journey Notebook Pages 2-CLICK HERE to download.
I made the notebook pages to go along with the book The Lewis and Clark Expedition.  



Project/Crafts:
We tried to do a few crafts with this unit.  You can see more pictures of the crafts and projects we did for this is unit on this blog post.  I just wanted to give a small idea of what we did.  If you want to see more pictures go to my post Being a Member of the Corps.

One we did was make a Keel boat out of cardboard box and Playmobil people.

Also like I stated above we made a few meals that the Corps might have eaten. Here is a picture of one of the meals.  This one is roasted duck with three golden squash and corn and sweet potatoes.

Books and Videos:

I wanted to point out the book The Food Journal of Lewis & Clark: Recipes for an Expedition.  I found this book because I though it would be nice to try and make a meal or two that they might have eaten.  My husband loved the meals I made for our Colonial/Revolutionary unit.  He like this one just as much.  It was a great book because it starts from the White House to the end of the trip. 



Here are also some of the Youtube videos that I could find and added to the our unit.  

Being a Member of the Corps of Discovery

For the last few weeks we have spent out time learning about Lewis and Clark and their journey into the west.  It was a fairly short unit, but felt like we spent so long on it.  


All of use learned so much more about the Lewis and Clark then neither of knew.  It was a unit that Dare-Devil Boy(DD Boy) really enjoyed.  He has been looking forward to it all year.

  

To go along with this unit I made notebook pages to go along with the books we used in this unit.  You can find it under my Homeschool Printable Page.

Here is DD Boy with is keel boat that we made.  

Another close up picture of the keel boat and the Playmobil guys we used as the crew.  Yes, those are Roman soldiers as Lewis and Clark.  There are vikings and Celts too if you look closely.  I think there is even a monkey standing in as "Pomp" Sacajawea's baby, but I think he's hiding.  Sacajawea is somewhere on the boat too if you can find her.

We even made moccasins. A kit someone gave to us a while back.

Here is DD Boy and I reading the instructions.

Here is DD Boy giving it a try.

 Here is the final product.  Not to bad.  I even made one for WG (Wonder Girl). They like them so much that they use them as house slippers.

Here is a look at the Lewis and Clark meals I made for the unit.  I even made hardtack.  Hardtack gotta love the stuff it last forever.  I'm the only one that liked that. Oh well!! More for me. I got the recipes for these in a book called The Food Journal of Lewis & Clark.  But here is link to some of the recipes that are in the book. 

 This is Salmon with Sweet & New (I used red) Potatoes.

My husband's favorite: Duck with Three Golden Squash Corn and Sweet Potatoes.

One last story, someone was listening to me while we learned about the Corps of Discovery because the other day while we we outside playing WG and Hondo were playing Lewis & Clark.  I was pulling them in the wagon and WG keep yelling to her brother, "Row! Row, Clark, Row!"  I stopped pulling them to ask her what she was doing with her stick. Without missing a beat she told me that they were playing Lewis & Clark rowing up the river.  She was Lewis and Hondo was Clark.  When I inquired who I was she said, "Your the members pulling the boat up the river."