Fire Station Field Trip

A couple weeks ago Little Miss Sunshine and I went to the local fire station with some other homeschoolers for a tour.

First up- trying on a real fire helmet.

The fireman showed the equipment that's on the trucks (this cabinet held the jaws of life).

The kiddos got to climb in the cab of the truck and try on the headphones.

Then they headed outside where they got a chance to use the hose- they all thought that was the coolest thing ever!

 

Just before they drained the hose, all the kids balanced on it- it was hard as a rock. Then they turned off the water pressure and the water drained out and the house flattened, which the kids thought was hilarious.

It was a fun trip, and a good reminder that we still need to decide on an emergency evacuation plan and make sure we all know what to do if there's a fire.

Wright Brothers National Memorial

Little Miss Sunshine showing off her 5 Junior Ranger badges

One of the things we did while in the Outer Banks was go to one of the three National Parks in the area. Ok, they're not technically 'Parks', but you get the idea. There's Cape Hatteras National Seashore, the Wright Brothers National Memorial, and Fort Raleigh National Historic Site.

Each site has a different junior ranger program for the kids.

At Cape Hatteras they can be a seashore ranger,

at the Wright Brothers Memorial they can be a flight ranger,

and at Fort Raleigh they can be a Roanoke ranger.

Personally, I think they differentiate between them to keep interest up in the junior ranger programs. Not that I'm complaining or anything. I really do think they add a lot to the experience for kids, and I know we (Mr M and I) have learned a lot of stuff we wouldn't have if LMS wasn't doing the program.

Because of the road still being washed out by the hurricane we weren't able to do anything in the southern part of the Outer Banks, so we didn't go to Cape Hatteras or Fort Raleigh. Since we plan on going back again, we'll hit them up on future visits.

We did go to the Wright Brothers Memorial, which was pretty cool. I spent my junior and senior high school years not far from Dayton, Ohio, and it always confused me how Ohio could be "The Birthplace of Aviation", when everyone knew the first flights were in Kitty Hawk, NC, not Ohio, and why were they going to North Carolina, anyway? Maybe this was covered in Ohio history in elementary school? I missed that and had California history instead. After going to the memorial, I now understand. The Wright brothers experimented and built their designs in Ohio, then loaded everything on a train to North Carolina. They had made some inquiries and determined that Kitty Hawk had the ideal conditions (wind, lack of vegetation, etc) for their flight attempts.

It's visits like this that are a fun part of homeschooling. 

Isn't LMS cute?

So how's our homeschool schedule going?

We started the day after Labor Day, so we're about a month into the school year.

(LMS listening to scripture tapes before we buckle done for reading, 'riting, and 'rithmetic)

After some trial and error, we've established an order for doing each subject, which has resulted in less time wasted and less pushing to get each lesson finished.

The first two weeks I didn't do any workouts, and that had to change (see this post), so I figured out a workout/training schedule (see this post), which is going pretty good so far, and only changes our school schedule a little.

Right now the subjects are time-intensive for me as I help LMS understand each new concept, especially in reading and math, but they won't always be. Three afternoons a week we're driving around town for classes, so I multitask by doing the grocery shopping and errands while we're out and about. Two evenings a week (thankfully it's going to once a week this week) and Saturday mornings we have soccer. Spare time for projects and all the household stuff is only available at certain times of the week.

Some of her work I need to sit next to her and help her, other parts she can do on her own, so I have a few minutes here and there to get stuff done around the house: bills, meals prepared, house cleaned, though it's a work in progress to see how everything fits in (and the housework has definitely suffered lately).

I've felt a bit stressed about our busy schedule, but a lot of the stress is because I haven't felt as good as I should lately- our food's been off- there's something else we need to cut out- almonds, I think. So I've felt crummy, stressed, and frustrated because I'm not getting everything done. Fun combo. I'm feeling better physically now, so I'm feeling less stressed, which makes everything better :)

This is our current curriculum (if we find something isn't working, I'll switch it for something else, though right now it all seems to be going well):

Scripture study- she listens to the tapes for the Illustrated Stories from the Bible, Book of Mormon, and Church History
Reading- Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy lessons
Writing- Zaner-Bloser Handwriting
Math- Math-U-See Primer
Music- violin and ukulele
Art- no set curriculum- just whatever strikes our fancy
Science- no set curriculum- classes at the co-op are giving her an introduction though (biology now, physics next session)
PE- soccer