When we left you last week, we had just returned to Pensacola after a fun-filled trip to Atlanta, Georgia. Rick travelled back to Pensacola with us to spend our last couple of days of vacation, and we had a lot planned!
We continued to accumulate school hours with some fantastic field trips!
On Sunday we drove in the other direction to Mobile, Alabama, to tour the USS Alabama.
We have driven by this WWII battleship many times over the past few years, but it is either in the wee hours of the morning or late at night. As we are focusing our history lessons on WWII this year, this was the perfect opportunity for us to tour it. And what a fantastic tour!
(In fact, we had plans for a second field trip that day but spent so much time at the Alabama that we didn't have time for it. Plus we were dying to fit in lunch at Felix's Fish Camp Grill, which did not disappoint!)
Before we left the memorial site, we also climbed aboard the USS Drum submarine. Pretty cool.
We only had one day left to show off all of our favorite spots in Pensacola to Rick. So on Monday we went to our beloved National Naval Aviation Museum. We visit this museum every time we go to Florida. The kids love it. It's amazing how we always find something new to see because each time we are viewing it from a different perspective. This time we approached it from a WWII perspective, so we really focused on all of the comparisons of the American, German, and Japanese aircrafts. We also paid particular attention to the War on the Homefront exhibit.
After the museum we drove by the lighthouse and then planned to go to the beach on Pensacola Island, but Rick and the kids decided that they would rather spend their time on the rope swing down on the bay which is one block from my parents' house. They had a lot of fun and it was a really nice way to finish our trip.
We drove home all day on Tuesday, dropping Rick off in Tulsa. All total we were in the car for 18 hours. But it was a really nice trip home, with a change in our route to take us through Louisiana past the cotton fields and even through Transylvania.
Wednesday we had to take a life skills day, aka go to the grocery store and unpack. We slept in late that morning since we had been awake for almost 20 hours the day/night before. Basically, I just gave the kids the day off.
On Thursday we got all caught up on CNN Student News for the week (it's so much more fun to watch it now that we have been there!!!). Brynne did last week's lessons for her Minecraft class on the Volcan de Paricutin and Eli worked on designing more roller coasters on Roller Coaster Tycoon 3 based on his lessons about centripetal force from the previous week before our vacation. They finished their school time reading out of their personal books. They got in about 4 hours of independent work.
Today was more of the same. Brynne completed her Minecraft lessons from this week learning about the Ice Towers of Mount Erebus. Eli did lessons on centripetal force relating to swings for his Amusement Park/RCT3 lessons. We watched the last episode of CNN Student News (I swear, I don't think we will ever miss an episode of it ever again!). And the kids did some more reading.
We just couldn't get back into regular school this week, but next week we will be back into a more regular routine hitting our basic subjects as well as our unit study topics. We have a field trip scheduled for Sunday (the Renaissance Faire!) and then two fantastic field trips scheduled for next Thursday (Dr. Ben Carson) and Friday (a play). We are having lots of fun this school year!
I was also made aware of FREE online classes through Universal Class available through the Tulsa City-County library system, of which we are members. Eli and Brynne have developed some scientific interests in opposite directions, which has both caused me concern and excitement in our teaching. This is the first time I have seen a necessity for them to not study the same subject matter. They have always learned the same things at the same time.
Eli has really been interested in astronomy and space exploration (he gets that from his daddy!) and Brynne has an uber love for all things animals, especially dogs. Although the Universal Class courses will be difficult for them as they are intended for persons over the age of 13 and even into adulthood, I have enrolled them each in an online, self-paced class. Eli will be taking Astronomy 101 and Brynne will be taking Dog Psychology 101. I have ordered them the recommended books from Amazon, so they won't start the courses until those books are received. And I have even opted for the graded courses, with actual assignments and exams. With a score over 70% they will receive a course completion certificate. Pretty cool for a transcript, huh? And FREE! I am very excited about this opportunity for them. Heck, I just might take a free class myself!
2015-2016 Hours Logged - 188 1/4 hours out of 1,000 required hours (45 hours outside home)
Plus 167 Summer 2015 Hours
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Your vacation looks like so much fun!
ReplyDeleteBlessings, Dawn
What a fun field trip/vacation! We love finding those places where it's usually not too busy either...nice pictures!
ReplyDeleteWhat a great week. You were in OUR state. Although at the opposite end of where we lived. I wish Keilee and I could travel more. You can learn SO much.
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