Five Counties, One Day

I'll spare myself a bit of the ridicule as to why we were in Winston-Salem two days in a row, but we opted to take the opportunity to check out Pilot Mountain State Park just up the road since we were so close.

An outcropping of rock viewable from a scenic outlook
 off the upper parking area.

The gal in the office was very helpful and lovely to chat with.  We knew we wouldn't be able to hit any of the trails due to complete lack of preparation, but we figured we could get information so an actual outing to Pilot Mountain could be planned properly.  We left with flyers about the geology, the various trails, and even a Junior Ranger booklet (that applies to all of the State Parks). 

She also stated that Hanging Rock was only another 30min up the road....so away we went.  The roads got pretty wendy-windy and Eldest was getting queasy, but we made it just fine.  Hanging Rock State Park has a little museum in its Visitors Center, and some cute little family cabins across the way.  FWIW, there's no cell coverage up there.  *grin*

A collage of images from the Civilian Conservation Corps' (CCC)
 work at Hanging Rock State Park.  This is found in the museum
 in the Visitor Center where you can learn more about the CCC,
 Hanging Rock, and the biodiversity of the area.

Both hold great promise as camping locations, hiking locations, and photography locations for our family.

Checking Off a Box

We took care of our annual standardized testing today.  Scoring was in line with where I expected it to be.  They're tucked away in the master file and will not be looked at again until next year when we merely eyeball how the two years compare.  I don't put a whole lot of stock into it--it doesn't test for things like character or habits, and it doesn't test for the various units being studied.  But I do enjoy eavesdropping on the testing process (we choose to utilize the Woodcock-Johnson III) as it's an intriguing window into my kiddos' brains and it helps me clue in on some areas that we might need to approach differently or cover to a greater extent (like further reviewing colons, or that "pollution" is another way of saying "littering").

I do, however, get great humor out of our annual tradition.  I find it vastly humorous that homeschoolers in North Carolina are required by law to complete a nationally standardized test annually, yet there is no means to compare the homeschooling population to the public school population because there is not nationally standardized testing of the public students unless they opt to sit for the SAT.

Valentine's Day

We don't tend to "celebrate" the candy events, but since we were going to a local nursing home to make Valentine's cards with some of the residents as a group I figured it was as good a time as any to do a quick study on the holiday.  Especially since I got a great deal on it with my SuperMembership and a $4 off special commemorating Hands of a Child's 400th lapbook.  There were a few items that we chose not to do, or utilize, and I should have sorted out my own placement rather than going off theirs--ah well.

That modified envelope again.

WWII: V is for Victory

Due to weather interference (we don't do lessons when DH is home, we utilize the time to be with him) and sickies we're a a bit behind on our original schedule for our World War II unit studies.  We did finish the segment that revolved around Sylvia Whitman's V is for Victory, but the pamphlet (book report) wasn't completed before the book had to be returned so it's in a state of limbo.  We'll have to interlibrary loan the next time we're at the library.  No credit given for that bit yet.

To go along with the V is for Victory we did a lapbook for the State of Hawaii, since Pearl Harbor was the event that finally involved the United States in the war.



We 3-hole punch all of our lapbooks so we can store them in a binder.
One binder per 'school' year.



We also use a couple of supplemental lapbook/notebooking pages
found here and here.

 

We modify the large envelopes to hold the 'reading material' from the
lapbook pdf.



Preparing for a Weather-Induced Power Outage

Flat-head shovel and car clearing tool brought inside.

All of the laundry is clean.

The dishes are all clean.

A fairly useless tub cleaned so it can hold water for

dishwashing, toilet-flushing, handwashing, etc.

Electric Coleman lantern charging

(and all other flashlight batteries refreshed).

Fetching of cast iron cookery for use in fireplace.

Spare blankets and sleeping bags in proper storage area.

Containers collected for holding extra drinking water.

Mediocre Ingenuity: tap water in gallon-sized ziploc bags,

separated by cardboard in an effort to keep them for

freezing into a wrinkled-together mess.  These went into the

freezer and will be used for cooking water as I can't stand

the plastic-flavor for drinking water.  If all else fails they

can be used for ice packs, etc at a later date.

Split wood stacked inside for when a fire needs to be started.

A well-stocked freezer.

A well-stocked pantry--stocked with food we actually eat.

Draft pillows in place for areas of the house that are

closed off during outages (to concentrate fire heat).

The generator has fuel and did a trial run this afternoon

(charging the camper batteries) to make sure all was

hunky-dory prior to need.

We're all set for the ice.

Holiday Cookies

Our homeschooling group got together for a somewhat impromptu holiday cookie decorating.  We used up the leftover dough from the gingerbread house adventure.

Our Annual Historic Gingerbread

We were introduced to the gingerbread house contest at the Carolina Inn last year thanks to some friends of ours and decided to make it our holiday tradition to enter a historic gingerbread house each year.  This year the kids wanted to do something with trains, and after some research we found out about the Historic Burgaw Depot.

The Burgaw Depot is the oldest train station in North Carolina and one of two surviving antebellum depots.  At the time it was built it was on the longest railway in the world, and was involved in the Civil War as part of the supply line between Wilmington and Richmond.  The Depot was expanded in 1898, 1916-17, and 1941.  We had found some awesome sites and info online at the time that we were doing our research, but I cannot relocate most of them now that I'm finally doing the blogpost--one of them was a pdf of the Civil War Trail sign outside the Depot.  In looking for those pages and sites, however, I found out that they had their Grand Opening after recent renovations shortly before we had stopped in to do physical research for the gingerbread house!

Because of our size constraints for the competition (18"x18"x18") we decided to not do the platform; as it was we had to scale it to approximately 1-inch per 9-feet and put it at an angle to fit.

The perimeter on parchment, with the base board.

Eldest working on preparing gingerbread for cutting.

Wee-one doing his part.

The base of the warehouse section with its surrounding platform/walkway,

ready to bake in the oven.

Stacking the layers.

With the base of the roof.

Gingerbread railroad ties.

Royal iced sides, dried green onion for grass,

food-colored dried minced onion for railroad gravel.

Layers of yellow cake for the roof.

Roof over waiting rooms and baggage room.

Progress continues....

All gussied up and ready to go!

The circle of fondant was for writing the entry number on with

an edible marker.  Last year they had an issue with the entry

number placards being migrated about by visiting school

 children so the pictures of the winners did not match

the info for the winners.

We added another bit of fondant that indicated the Depot

was being shown circa 1916/1917.

We really enjoy doing historicals because it provides us with a finite opportunity to learn a little something extra, but unfortunately it's difficult to compete with the whimsical imaginations of the other entries.  They always have a fabulous turn-out!

This year's winner in the adult category was Amalia Bolivar.