Pioneer Day

Last year when we were homeschooling I REALLY wanted to take the kids to our local park's Pioneer Day to see a picture of life in the 1800's. Unfortunately, we missed it then so when I found out it was this weekend there was no way we were going to miss it again!

How cool is that? Well, most of the area apparently had the same idea so... it was quite a trek to get from where we had to park to the event, but the scenery was beautiful and a little exercise never hurt!

The kids had a good time exploring the different forms of shelter that Pioneers and Native Americans lived in, from huts to tents to cabins. It was too crowded to get pictures of all of them but here's one they liked (but wouldn't want to live in long term):

There was a battle re-enactment that was really loud exciting and they even had a cannon!

I know it's November, but we're in Texas so it was hot. Seriously, I don't know how they wore all those clothes without melting!

After the battle was won we went to see what else we could find there. B got her face painted and made a bonnet so she looked like some sort of Pioneer/Indian hybrid...

This is her right before she broke into an impromptu jig on the stage. Hopefully, I can figure out how to post the video, it was great!

They had some period musicians that were fun to hear. No more dancing though...

We missed a few things like making corn husk dolls, candle making, and the covered wagon but we had such a good time. There was tons of stuff to do!

After all the fun, the 'Hayride to the Parking Lot' sign was truly a sight for sore eyes. If you know me, you know that I am perpetually in flip flops which is probably not the best idea for traipsing through the woods but that's just how I roll, so there it is.

 

But that's not all - we're going back in December for An Old Fashioned Christmas! Here's a picture of my handsome hubby trying to control his excitement. Sorry babe, I couldn't resist!

Election Day Fun

Happy Election Day! The girls and I were discussing last night what they've learned in school about the election and to my surprise both said that their classes had not discussed it at all...WHAT?? How can this be? Soooo, considering that the school was going to be a polling place today with large crowds expected and since they hadn't learned anything about the election in school, we decided we'd stay home and do our own election lessons!



I waited until this morning to surprise them and they were so excited! We watched some videos I found on BrainPOP Jr. and played games and did quizzes there. We talked about the qualifications for president and how the electoral college works. B wrote about what she would do if she were president (hint: it involves 1,465 puppies and an equal amount of cats).

B had gone with us to early vote a few weeks ago so she decided that she wanted to hold a mock election of her own, complete with campaign posters and speeches. A didn't want to run so the candidates were B, Mom, Desiree (her bunny), and WIQ (aka Phillip).

 

Here are 3 of the posters, I didn't get a picture of mine but I can assure you it was spectacular... B's is the one on the far left, Desiree in the center, and WIQ's is on the right.

Next we gave our campaign speeches. I ran on a platform of hot meals and free hugs, B promised to give everyone the shelter dog or cat of their choice, and I can't remember the other two. I'm pretty certain it involved animals though.

No good election would be complete without an old-school ballot box so of course we had to make one! If you look closely you can see WIQ & Desiree in the background along with our "ballots". Here's a closer view:

So after all the votes were tallied the final results were:

President - B
Vice President - Mom
Best Poster - B
Best Speech - B
Class President - WIQ
Semester President - Desiree

I didn't get a picture but we also made a polling place (complete with line) and ballot box out of Legos.

We had so much fun! I love that my kids want to learn and enjoy the learning process. We're not done yet either - tonight once the exit poll numbers start coming in we're going to color the states red or blue. In fact, she's bugging me to get the maps ready so I'd better wrap this up...

So that was our election day experience, what did you do for election day?

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First Day of (Home)school!

Although we've been working on learning activities for a while now, today was our first "official" day of school! Our schedule so far is:

Brush teeth
Breakfast
Chores
Bible
Unit Studies (a 4 week study on gardens)
Lunch
Math
Science
Piano

However, I see that Bri's already switched science & unit studies on our wall chart so we'll see how it goes tomorrow...

Things didn't go completely without a hitch - our first attempt at the science experiment flopped, the second nearly caught fire:

But finally on our third attempt we created...FRANKENPUPPY!

So your first thought might be that the picture's upside down. It's not.
Ok, maybe that wasn't your first thought, but I'm sure it would have crossed your mind eventually if you looked close enough. Guess the secret to our fresh clean scent is out.. Anyway, at this point we couldn't be too picky  - it looked similar to what we were going for and wasn't on fire.

I know it's hard to tell but the blue jewel is its eye, the green push pins are the collar and the binder clips are some sort of cage to keep it from escaping...or something like that.

Also worth noting, you'd think the smell of melting soap might be pleasant but I can assure you that's not the case. At all. Burnt soap is slightly worse.

For dinner Bri made homemade pizzas and they were ON FIRE! Just kidding, they were delicious. I couldn't get her to smile for the picture though, she says that she's not smiling again until her front teeth come in.

I'll post pictures of her "gardens" tomorrow. We planted lots of great stuff and can't wait to see it grow!