Georgia

February's state study was about Georgia. This is our border art for Georgia. It's a shame we had to study Georgia in February. All the peaches I could find were from Chile. Evidently, the peach season in Georgia is actually very short.






One of the best parts of studying Georgia was discovering Faye Gibbons.  She has written several novels and picture books.  I found her doing a search of Georgia on our library database.  The book I found first was Mama and Me and the Model T - the Mountain Wedding book is about the same family and comes first.  We also read Night in the Barn. 

This book is really fun - it's full of noises and funny words. 

We also read a book called Swampland, which was about the Okefenokee Swamp.  We read a book called My Brother Martin written by Christine King Farris, who is the sister of Martin Luther King Jr. (who grew up in Georgia).   And a book called Peanuts...about peanuts!  Because Georgia is the leading producer of peanuts in the United States.

Did you know Coca Cola was invented in Georgia?   C&A drank it "in honor of Georgia" - to this day, Annalise will tell me, "I want some milk...in honor of Delaware."



For our meal we had Chicken with Georgia Sauce, Mustard Greens, and Georgia Cracker Salad.  The greens recipe and the salad were both Paula Deen recipes (and she's from Savannah.)  The Georgia sauce was a recipe and it made a nice tangy BBQ sauce.  I kind of overcooked the chicken though, so Caleb, who didn't like the greens at all, really felt like he does not like Georgia food at all!



Dessert was Georgia Cookie Candy - also a Paula Deen recipe - peanut butter and chocolate - yum! 

Up next - Hawaii!

Shady Art

This project, from the fabulous ShingLee Kindergarten Art book (2B), was called "My Best Friend".  I really liked how ours turned out.  I hope the pictures make sense.


Step 1:  Draw your friend's face on a piece of cardstock - Annalise ended up not liking the hair on this one, so you'll see this face with different hair in the finished project.



Step 2:  Cut out the face and trace it onto another piece of cardstock.

Step 3:  Cut out all the features (eyes, mouth, nose, hair...)  from the original face.

Step 4:  Glue the features on the new face - but not the hair, not yet.  Then cut out the new face - now you can glue on the hair.

Step 5:  Place the face under a piece of regular printer paper and shade over it with a crayon.

Our faces!

Annalise's friend Stephenie

Annalise's friend Malachi (with the more boyish hair)

Caleb's friend Mia - and her hair is supposed to come off her head - it's a pony tail.

Rainbow Toast

The "Paint" is milk with food coloring in it.  We were out of red food coloring, but we had some Valentine M&Ms and we put a red one in the milk and dabbed it with the paintbrush until the milk turned reddish.  Then we fished the M&M out.

Toast as usual.

Yum!

The Life is Jolly

A friend of Rob's brought this back from Vietnam:

It is actually pretty good stuff!

Wordless Wednesday

A Place for Everything...

When I was a kid I had this game called Hexed.  And although it had 2339 computer verified solutions, I never found one except the one I copied from the box.  Well two, if you count doing that one backwards.  I think my mom still has it around somewhere because I seem to remember pulling it out a year or two back.  In spite of my history of failure, I still wanted to try.

I was thinking about that game today because I am experimenting with some upcoming schedule changes.  I'm not sure what I will be able to keep in our routine once we start school again and what will have to be put aside - or if there is some "computer verified solution" that would allow us to keep all the things I really like about our current schedule and add in schoolwork as well.

Another thing I have been thinking about lately is the old saying, "A place for everything, and everything in its place."  I thought once that having my house organized that way was my goal, but I'm starting to see the futility in it.  Almost daily something new comes through our front door, something without a place.  And since I'm not the only person taking things out,  I've found that the best I can do is to just put things away where I am most likely to look for them.  Eventually that becomes its "place".  I don't think these two issues are that different from each other. 

Stuff - it comes, it goes, sometimes it gets shoved into the wrong place, sometimes it gets lost and gone forever only to pop up where you least expect it.  We have a limited amount of space, but I just keep reorganizing.  Time is more complicated, at least I think it is.  Not only is there a limited amount of time, but I can never guarantee that a particular activity will fit into the time I want it to.  I want to take the kids to the park more often, but when "Let's leave now" turns into, "I gotta go potty first" or "I'm can't fasten my bike helmet" or "Wow, I didn't know it was cold enough for jackets." suddenly it's an all morning affair. 

I'm not sure what I can do about time except to usually try to do what's most important first and to not get so hung up on my schedule that it ruins my day if it goes off track.  And if it's much like my old game, I'll start putting all the pieces together, and it will seem at first that they will all fit.  Then I'll get to the last few pieces and be confounded, so I'll dump the box out and start over again.

JUMP!

Caleb learned how to jump rope this week - at least he can do it once! I showed him how you are supposed to keep going after the first jump and - wow - jumping rope is serious exercise! Either that or I am seriously out of shape. I think I can't be too bad off since I walked that six miles the other day pretty easily. But I guess distance walking is in a different class from jumping.

C & A are not wearing shoes in these pictures.  I do usually make them wear shoes outside.   The dark marks on their feet and arms are tattoos.  Rob thanked me at bathtime tonight for letting them put so many on at one time. 

Airborne!

Preschool style.





All Day Outside Day

I hyped the idea to the kids of having an All Day Outside Day quite a while ago. I wanted the weather to be perfect, so it seemed to them we had to do a lot of waiting. They were really excited about it, although I'm not sure why! I never clarified what we'd be doing outside all day! Anyway, we did it on Monday and Caleb enjoyed it. I enjoyed it. Annalise...isn't interested in a repeat! Here are some pictures:

We had breakfast cookies for breakfast - I made them the night before.

Treasure walk - we found pill bugs!



Caleb found this piece of concrete.  He was so pleased with his find, he plans to save it to show to his children.  I don't remember it looking so perilously close to dropping on Natalie's head in real life.

 

Annalise asked me to fasten this *unidentified natural item* in her hair so she could be Rapunzel.  (Also you can see we're doing a little gardening.)



The weather really was perfect - high was 71 - and we walked to the nearest library - 3 miles each way.   I made Annalise ride the double stroller and Caleb rode his bike.  He was not even slightly winded when we got there and was ready to keep going when we got home.

Natalie napping on the library trip.  I know, she looks uncomfortable.  I think she probably was baby-comfortable.  It's not like they don't fall asleep in crazy positions all of the time.



Caleb exhibiting his boundless energy at the library - I told him we would rest there for at least an hour and he really thought that was too long.  We had a picnic lunch there.  And yes, I hauled library books all the way there and back.



Library lawn.

They made up a new game - based on Duck-Duck-Goose.  They called it Laura-Mary-Nellie b/c we've been reading On the Banks of Plum Creek and they were delighted with the chapters about Nellie Oleson.  You had to run if you were "Nellie".

Back at home - mud shaving.



What a cutie!  Isn't her dimple cute!  My mom has one exactly like it.



It was really a nice way to spend the day.  We officially called it a day at 5:15 and I made dinner inside.

Valentine Puns for Your Express Use

For the last couple of years, we've tried to come up with a clever pun Valentine to send the grands.  Last year it was:

This year I was just drawing a blank until....I discovered a fabulously extensive list of Valentine Puns online.  Follow this link if you need inspiration :)

As it turned out, I needed more than just inspiration.  Here are a few of our attempts...

You kids ARRRR not looking at the camera!

Natalie's showing OCEANS of frustration.

This picture is TREE-mendously dark.

We did not give up however and did eventually get what we were looking for, but I don't want to spoil the surprise :)

Florida

January's state was FLORIDA!  Caleb made these letters.

Standard state coloring page.

Is it ironic that he's wearing an Alaska shirt?

State Border Art - we used sand from the playground (not from the beach!).  Well it came from a beach somewhere along the way :)

Key Lime Pie

I don't think I learned too much new about Florida.  I mentioned in a previous post that we took January off from school, so we didn't pursue it too aggressively.  I did learn that my kids really like living in Florida and that it really is an interesting state.  I really like the Discoveries America DVD series - we've watched their shows on other states too - and their video about Florida was extremely well balanced.  It did talk about the beaches and theme parks, but showcased many of the other great things about Florida that we have gotten to know about just by living here.  We also thumbed through a book called The Crafts of Florida's First People.  It showed how to make all sorts of things out of Spanish moss and palm trees.  We even tried our hand a making a little rope out of the fibers from a palm tree.  And we read a book about St. Augustine, which made me really interested in visiting there.

So we move on to Georgia - peaches, pecans, and peanuts :)

Wordless Wednesday

Garage Sale Conquest

A few weeks ago, Rob made the repair pictured above - this is the main water valve to our house and he replaced it.  Go Rob!  We discovered the damaged valve that day (which was on a weekend, a Sunday I think).  Can you even begin to imagine the plumber's bill we would have gotten!  I digress.  While he was in deep discussions with the Home Depot men about what to buy, the kids and I browsed the bathroom fixtures.  We noticed a cute novelty called the kid shower.  It attached to the shower head and made a low shower for kids.  I don't remember how much it cost, but we just dismissed it as "isn't that nice."



Behold - the kid shower - in OUR house - this weekend, Caleb and I were at a garage sale and he found the exact item, new in package.  He had brought his own money and negotiated a price of $2.50.  The installation took all of 5 minutes.




I think I like this thing! 



Biscayne Trail Sights

We live very near a national park - and I'm not talking about Everglades National Park. We don't live terribly far from that park either, but the park we live nearest to is Biscayne National Park. Still we don't see it too much because 95% of it is underwater.


On weekends, the main north/south road that we live near is often crowded with bikers (think Lance Armstrong, not Harley Davidson) who ride in packs and never use the bike path. The path leads down to a marina and connects to a trail that is paved for a ways and then turns to coral rock. At the point where the coral rock starts, there is a marker showing the boundary to Biscayne National Park. The trail is made of what was dug out to make a waterway from the marina. You can follow the trail out farther until is literally is washed away. You can wade in the coral rocks and out into the sea grass. We went down there this week and here are some pictures I took along the way:

Julia Butterfly

Buckeye Butterfly - I knew these were down here, but this was the first time I'd seen them - and we saw several.

Caleb "picked" some of these small shellfish from the rocks.  I thought they were Conchs, but Rob says they are not.  He's the marine expert in our family!  Literally!

Annalise loves little creatures - even faceless ones!

Enjoying the ride :)

We were there at low tide.  There are coral rocks in shallow water for a few feet, then it drops off into sea grass.  We optimistically brought nets, but couldn't catch the little fish.

Snake skin!

We are going to count this as part of our Florida study. Since we did school work in the summer, we are on break now. Our state for January was Florida, but we were pretty laid back and did not get too aggressive about it. Still, most of our produce is from Florida this time of year anyway! And Florida grapefruits and strawberries are extra good right now too. Caleb said, "I already know everything about Florida." "Not everything," I countered, "Do you know what the capital of Florida is?" "Tallahassee," he answered quickly. I guess he knows more about Florida than I thought he did!