Sunday, March 23, 2014

Canoeing alongside alligators!

We spent an awesome afternoon with Amanda, Joel, Jaycent, Gaven, and Austin canoeing 7 miles at Juniper Springs in the Ocala National Forest.  It was absolutely beautiful!  It is a clear, narrow and winding spring fed river.  There was so much vegetation along its banks and a lot of wildlife. We even saw 4 alligators! 

 Amanda and Gaven tipped less than a mile in.  I love this picture- the canoe is completely submerged!



 Our first alligator sighting!  It was a little nerve racking seeing them so close especially since it's not that hard to tip the canoe with kids in it.

 
I wish this picture was clearer but we didn't exactly stick around to watch him.  He was about 8 feet long and definitely not happy to see us.

This is not a course for beginners!  There were quite a few quick turns with trees in the way.  We even went over rapids which is hard to believe in Florida.


 
 We stopped for a quick swim, making sure the alligators were nowhere in sight.  This place had a lot of springs.  If you stepped into one you would easily sink up to your knees.  The kids were having fun trying to find the springs and then jump in them. 

 After the canoe trip we swam in the natural springs.  The water was about 65 degrees and cold! 



Monday, March 17, 2014

6 Month Picture Update

 5 years old, Ormond Beach Florida


7 1/2 years, Ormond Beach Florida





Friday, March 07, 2014

Disney and Back in 3 days!

For almost 5 years we have been telling Avery and then Alia that we would go to Disney when Alia turned 5.  It was a constant topic of conversation in our house for years and we finally hit the 5 year mark!  It actually came at a great time because we are considered Florida residents and were able to get some pretty amazing deals for those 3 days.  It was also awesome to be able to vacation with family.  The trip was fantastic.  I loved how excited they were and I was very impressed with how brave Alia was.  She was able to ride on almost all of the rides which included some scarier rides.  She loved some of the roller coasters but Tower of Terror in Hollywood was a little too scary for her.  She had her arms and legs wrapped around the seats and me when we dropped.   I couldn't get her to ride that one a second time!  Disney over all was great.  The lines were fairly short and we really didn't have to wait all that long to ride anything.  The kids were troopers and walked everywhere all three days.  Alia never once complained of being tired even though we had early mornings, late nights and she had to walk everywhere. 

Magic Kingdom



 We ran into Sue, Mark, Jake, Joy, Riley and Kylee on the Tea Cup ride!

 No Disney vacation is complete without eating something in the shape of Mickey's head.

 Sophia the First and Alia

 Disney at night was fun when you add glow in the dark toys!


Animal Kingdom


 I've always been impressed with the Tree of Life.  Animal Kingdom is probably my favorite park.  I love the large open space and the animals.


  On our safari

 She was very excited to meet the characters.

 Dinoland!

 She bought this monkey with her birthday money from Bama.  She named her Chocolate Banana and carried her around everywhere.  Here she is posing next to the monkeys.

Hollywood Studios



 We were able to watch a stunt show and learn how they make special effects for movies.

 This was a playground of a backyard from Honey I Shrunk the Kids.  It was great to see what the world looks like from an ants perspective.  There were a few underground ant tunnels that we adults tried to follow the kids into.  At one point the tunnels were getting smaller and narrower and we were starting to panic!

 Disney with cousins is the best!


It rained most of the day at Hollywood but that didn't stop the kids from having fun.  If you are going to do a theme park in the rain, this was a great one because almost everything is indoors.

A final birthday celebration for Jaycent and Alia's birthdays in Mexico : )!  Those sombreros were really heavy.

Friday, February 07, 2014

Happy 5th Birthday Alia!!!


 Alia woke up this morning with her room filled with 140 balloons. 

 
 When Grandpa and Grandma Davis were here she picked out this bear.  It's as big as she is! 

 Alia and Banana 5 years

 She wanted to make her own lunch.  Notice all of the olives!  She is holding peanut butter on a spoon.  She calls them peanut butter pops and she loves them. 

 We spent the afternoon at Amanda's house playing with the puppies.

We decided to let her pick store cupcakes this year because the rv stove isn't like a normal oven.  The oven doesn't even fit a cupcake pan in it.  She was pretty excited to be able to pick the cupcakes out.

Alia's rules for today:
1.  Get up before her "sun" comes on.
2.  Eat as much candy as she wants.
3.  Watch a movie.
4.  Skip all chores for both she and Avery.
5.  No school today.
6.  Make her own lunch.
7.  Eat at Chick-fil-a.  We were there for 2 hours!
8.  Have a sleepover with her cousins.

 Her yearly questions:
1.  Favorite color:  purple, pink and light blue
2.  Favorite toy:  Big pink bear and wolf puppet
3.  Favorite food:  broccoli and carrots and cooked beans
4.  Favorite book:  Books about hamsters
5.  Favorite animal:  Giraffe and deer
6.  Favorite thing to do outside:  Make soup with water, grass, sticks and bark
7.  Favorite holiday:  Easter because there is real money in the eggs.
8.  When I grow up I want to be a firefighter because I want to go in the truck and spray water.  I also want to be a mom.
9.  Favorite subject: Reading      Least Favorite:  Working
10.  If you could buy anything what would you buy?  A squirt gun
11.  What do you like most about yourself?  That I am a good snuggler.
12.  Biggest accomplishment:  Getting my own lunch.
13.  What do you want to learn?  How to cook in the microwave.
14.  I like to collect:  sticks, rocks and shells
15.  Favorite thing to do:  Play baby and mama
16.  What would you change about this year?  I don't want to do work.
17.  What is your favorite family tradition?  Taking a walk every day.  (But then she followed that statement by "It's my birthday, I can make a rule that we don't have to walk today!")
18.  Favorite memory this year:  Going to the zoo.

Monday, January 13, 2014

Homeschool Days at Avalanche Elementary

A glimpse of our days at Avalanche Elementary!  I can't believe we have already been homeschooling for 2 1/2 months, it seems like we just started.
 Here is a look at our weekly schedules.  This shows what we do with each of the subjects.  Scott teaches both kids math and I do the rest of the subjects.    

Avery:

Reading
  1. Workbook pages from Sing, Spell, Read and Write
  2. Independent reading from books he chooses at the library
  3. Journal Writing
  4. Dictation- I read him a story and he has to dictate the story back to me.  This is great for focus!
  5. Listening to a story- usually some science book or a chapter book
  6. Spelling
  7. Sight words
  8. Bible Story
Math
  1. Workbook pages from Progress in Math
  2. Problem of the day
  3. Flashcards
  4. Timed math facts
Handwriting
  1.  A Reason for Handwriting workpages
  2. Memory Verse of the week
Computer- various educational games

Music- piano practice

Art- I pick a different artist or topic to learn about each week and then we recreate simple art. 

Exercise- All things outdoors, biking, hiking, taking walks, playing at the park, swimming

Library- library day is his favorite.  He loves to pick science, architecture and weird books out to read with Scott.

Enrichment- Every week we pick a different topic to study in depth on Fridays.  It is usually in science, history, and geography.  This week we are studying life cycles of animals.  We bought mealworms to watch their metamorphosis.    

Alia:

Reading
  1. Letter stories- I start the story highlighting a letter and she finishes the story and draws the picture.  The story for the letter K was Kangaroos like to kick when they.......Alia finished by saying "are mad.  They get mad when people pull their tails."  The stories come from the website called Enchanted Learning.
  2. Letter picture book- I made a book with one letter on each page.  She comes up with a word or two that can begins with the letter.  Today was "d" and she drew a dog and wrote the word dog.  
  3. Blending letter sounds- I do various activities here.
  4. Writing letters and saying their sound names.
  5. Bible story
Math
  1. Problem of the day
  2. Number picture book- She has a book with numbers and she has to write the number and add stickers or stamps on the page to match that number.
  3. Counting and recognizing numbers using flashcards
  4. Shapes
  5. Problem solving strategies- creating math problems for her to solve.
Free play- this usually involves playing her favorite game, Baby and Mama or going outside to make soup with various sticks and rocks she finds around the campground.

Library- She gets to go to the library twice a week.  She goes once a week with Scott to a program called Jumping Beans.  It's a story time and music and dance time.  I'm so happy Scott is getting to take her to this program.  He always felt left out that I got to do all those fun things with the kids.  She also goes with the family when we pick out books.  It's fun to watch her try to lug the massive book basket around, picking books.

Exercise- same as Avery 

Music and Art- She usually joins Avery and I on our various art projects and I try to work on piano with her but she seems to have her own idea of how the piano should sound.

Enrichment- She joins Avery on enrichment day.

Themed Activity- on Wednesdays she does special projects.  I have a theme for each month.  This month it is all things winter.  Last Wednesday she learned about polar bears and penguins and we had her cover one hand in lard.  She put both hands in ice water and we talked about how the lard hand felt.  This helped her to see that the blubber that polar bears have keeps them warm. 

 She made this horse on her library day. 

We learned about Thomas Edison and his inventions.  Avery made a homemade compass.

 
 Playing at the park.

 Playing tag.

 Here they were learning about the laws of motion and Newton.  They made an inertia zoom ball to demonstrate the first law of motion.

 Art activity- We read about Eric Carle's life and made our own pictures using the same techniques he used. 

 Painting with snow- a shaving cream and glue mixture.

 She wanted to play in the snow.

 We made paper-mache globes on the Friday we learned about the 7 continents. 

 This was a messy project in the rv!  We did part of it outside in the pouring rain, under the little awning. 

 Instead of baby and mama she wanted me to be her horse.  It's a good thing the rv is so small and I only had to trot a couple of feet at a time.  Those things in my eyes are sticky eyeballs that you throw at the wall.

We enjoyed a 6 mile hike this weekend at the Tamoka State Park.  The kids were amazing and no one complained that they had to walk that far!