We homeschool year-round, but since Daddy is home from school during the summer, we tend to take extended breaks and focus only on our core subjects (Math, Reading, Bible). Sadly, this was our last week before Daddy starts back at school again, so we eased into our more "regular" schooling schedule and I decided to call it Week "One" of our 2010-11 school year. Tuesday was our real trial run, as Daddy spent the morning at school preparing his classroom. While we were able to complete all our scheduled subjects for the day (before lunch!), I learned the hard way that having a younger sibling learning at the table distracts the older sibling from efficiently and attentively completing her own work... especially when she decides to "help" the younger sibling with her work. I will have to adjust our school schedule to compensate for individual table times, especially for Math work, but otherwise we utilized Lydia's naptime very effectively!
This week's Bible stories were about Moses. I love having the girls draw about the story afterward! It's really fun to have something colorful to hang up on our magnetic wall to show Daddy when he gets home!
This one is complete with Moses and his staff, two walls of water, lots of Hebrew children, and a pillar of sand!
Mt. Sinai is apparently very colorful and has trees around it, even if it is in the desert!
We also discussed the miracles God performed and how powerful God is. Here, the girls try to "part" the waters like God parted the Red Sea. This exercise was especially effective at illustrating how we cannot do what God can!
I assessed Ella's "start of the year" knowledge since it was Week "One". She is able to identify all of her capital letters and numbers 1-10, arrange the numbers 1-10, and count out the appropriate number of beans per number 1-10! Sometimes it is surprising how much they pick up in the short, targeted, but consistent lessons! She was especially thrilled to use "sister's" beans and numbers for her Math time!
We took our first field trip of the school year, too! We visited Pemaquid Point Lighthouse first.
The girls and I explored the Fisherman's Museum there while Daddy and Lydia prepared lunch.
The girls really loved seeing a lobster trap up close! We prepared for this trip by reading several books about lobsters.
After lunch we headed over to Fort William Henry.
This was a must-see stop as we have been learning about archaeology in our Story of the World studies, and the fort has hosted archaeological dig sites for the last two years! We were able to peek into the archaeology lab and see some of the work they were doing!
When we mentioned we had made the trip specifically to see the archaeology lab as part of our homeschool learning, we were gifted an activity book about the fort! The girls also each received a State of Maine State Parks Passport. This was possibly the best part of the day for them! They immediate wanted to read through the passport, so we did!
Each page highlighted a different state park and had a place for a stamp. After we climbed all the way to the lookout deck on the third floor of the "castle", we headed out to find the stamp!
We discovered several old, ruined stone foundations and a "NEW OLD" building project!
We finally found the stamp in the museum! The combination to the lock was the date the park was founded!
There were lots of great artifacts and relics that had been recovered during the digs. The girls also liked the interactive displays, like this one where they sorted the items into "Present" locations and "Past" locations.
We found a great "Little Beach" before heading home and cooled off in the very cold ocean water. It felt great! On the way home I asked the girls if they would like to visit another park the next day and get another stamp in their passport. "No, I'd like to stay home... I'm tired," Grace replied, the only child awake! Our first field trip was a great way to end our summer with Daddy home!
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