North Carolina History!

When my oldest was 10, I wanted a group that would engage him with other boys his age - and that was fun.  He had a love of history and this seemed a great fit.  We started a North Carolina history group.  For four years, we explored the state in classes and field trips and had a great time doing it!  

The last 5 years have been filled with a lot of challenges and the timing for doing this again just wasn't right - until now.  I'm thrilled that we are once again going to be learning North  Carolina history and traveling our state.  Two things that are so much fun - field trip and living history!  I'm excited to share it here too.  I have often wished that I blogged then, but I'll have to try to do a better job of keeping up with things here.  This post is going to cover both our class and field trip for the month of January.  I'll probably split them up in future posts.  

Our co-op will be meeting twice a month.  In the first meeting we will have a class and the second meeting will be a field trip related to the class room topic.  We have four families in our co-op and a pair of moms will be teaching each class.  

Did I mention that I'm excited about this?!

For our first meeting, we started with an overview of North Carolina history.  We looked over the timeline of events that have occurred and found interesting facts and stories to share with the kids.  I have a lot of books from when we studied our state before which has been helpful in starting to pull things together.  We spent about 50 minutes to an hour covering our state history from Native Americans to explorers, settlers to pirates, wars, development and more!

One of the things that I love about teaching classes is that I always learn new things too!  History is fun because it is stories.  Lots of interesting stories.  One that I found particularly intriguing while doing research for this class is one that happened in our state's more recent past.  I'll share it with you.

1961 – Battleship USS North Carolina is berthed at Wilmington & opens as a museum.

            B-52 bomber crashes near Goldsboro while carrying two nuclear warheads.  DOD reports released in 1980 indicate that one of the weapons snagged in a tree and was only a final safety catch away from detonation.  The bomb was 1800 times as powerful as the one dropped on Hiroshima.  

We did some mapping of our state as well - learning about the major areas of our state, the major rivers, our capitol and more.

While the older students were learning, the little girls amused themselves!  Couple of cuties!

We also talked about state symbols.  Before the class met, we asked each student to pick a symbol that he/she would like to share with the group.  They each took turns talking about the various things that have been chosen to represent our state.  I apparently didn't take any pictures of them sharing though.  Oops!

For our field trip we visited the NC Museum of History in Raleigh.

They have a new exhibit on the history of our state that is FABULOUS!!!  I highly recommend a trip to see this!  Its interactive and hands-on.

You start at the beginning of the state's history and walk through the various time periods and events that have shaped our state.

 They have wonderful scavenger hunt type books with questions and things to look for that are a great way to engage your students (or yourself) in the exhibit.  This was one of the first areas - a Native American hut.  We sat in it and watched a movie.

 Looking in a treasure chest in the pirate exhibit.

 My little cutie exploring and learning.

 A map showing the key events in the Revolutionary War.

 An area displaying life on a farm that the children really enjoyed.  They were able to milk a cow.

 And see how many eggs the chicken had laid.  

 How heavy is a bucket of water?  You would know if you had to carry one (or more) each day.  It was pretty heavy!

 

 There were docents at various places in the exhibit to demonstrate or talk with the visitors about even more items.  This was in the farm area and were examples of other things grown in our state - and presented in fun ways too.  A magnification of a seed or things that could be touched as you talked about them.

 This map really captivated several of them.  It was a map describing things in around the state.  When you pushed a button near the description, the display began to move.  A train moving on tracks, people dancing and more.  It really was interesting.

 There were so many things that I couldn't get pictures of all of them.  A "mill" that when you walked in you could hear the noises and feel the vibrations of the floor.  Artifacts from various wars beginning with the Revolutionary and ending with more current wars.

 I liked this one with the sign from our hometown!

 A fun spot for a photo of some of our group.

 Eliana was quite intrigued with these guys and walked around looking at them for awhile.  I think she was waiting for them to move - or do something!

 We went through the entire exhibit, but we could go back and still learn so much more!  It was wonderful!  If you are at all interested in NC history, this is a great resource!

I love where I live and this is such a fun way for my children to learn more about where they were born and raised.  Its fun exploring it with friends!

Blessings
Leslie

Mother-daughter Book Club

Our internet has been out a lot of the last week.  Out on Sat.  Fixed on Monday afternoon.  Out again on Wed and then fixed again on Thur afternoon.  We've missed having it - and then a part of me thinks it is a nice break.  

Wanted to share about a couple of our book clubs.  We read Mara, Daughter of the Nile by Eloise McGraw in November.  This has been my daughter's favorite book club book.  (Thanks Joe for the recommendation!)  I too found it to be a very interesting piece of historical fiction set in (no surprise) ancient Egypt.  

After discussing the book, we always enjoy yummy treats.  Just had to share a picture of these delicious cookies with caramel inside that warmed and became gooey when placed over a hot drink.  Yum!

When we hosted in December, we selected Raising Dragons by Bryan Davis.  Its a series of books written about Christian teens - some of whom are dragons.  It was an engaging story and is part of a series of (I think) eight books.  Rebecca has read all of them and is helping a friend to make a movie about the story.

We had fun coming up with the snack for this one!  Dragon claws aka rice krispy treats.

Dragons eggs - female (chocolate!)

Dragon scales (chips) and fresh leaf dip (spinach dip).

Toothpicks for the fruit served double duty as "sword practice".  And did you note the other dragon eggs?  The male ones?  They are meatballs.  LOL

Our January book title was The Red Umbrella by Christina Gonzalez.  This is a story about "Operation Pedro Pan" which happened during Castro's takeover of Cuba.  This historical fiction takes place through the eyes of a young girl who watches the changes in her country.  She and her brother are then sent to the US and she wonders if things will ever be the same again.

We had delicious Cuban food!  Flan with a decorative red umbrella was such a fun touch!

Our February title was King Alfred's English:  A History of the Language We Speak and Why We Should be Glad We Do by Laurie White.  A fascinating book on the history of England and the way history affected the language we speak!  So many interesting things to learn such as why we spell "knife" with a K and why "A" is an "uppercase" letter and much, much more!  A really fun look at history!

 We enjoyed delicious homemade scones, tea and quiches.  A fun ending to our night!

This is really an enjoyable time.  We meet just once a month.  I have mentioned doing this to one of my boys and he is also very interested in starting up a club for boys.  Or maybe boys and girls since it would be a younger group?  I would love to hear from any of you that have done this.

Happy Reading!

Leslie

Krispy Kreme Run - and an overall fun week-end!

We had a wonderful week-end though I didn't get pictures of all of it.   Saturday morning was a busy one.  Roger and Christopher were running in the Krispy Kreme race.  Friends met at our house and we headed for the race.  (Rebecca didn't go in case you wonder why she isn't in the pictures as she had guitar lessons.)

This is Christopher's 3rd time running it and Roger's 2nd.  My boys have been very excited to go to this race ... since last year!  The weather was SO much better this year.  No rain (that came later in the day) and not too cold either.  For those new to this race, here is what happens.

Run 2.5 miles.
Eat 1 dozen Krispy Kreme doughnuts
Run 2.5 miles

We arrived in the mass of people and walked to the spot we met last year and thankfully found them.

 Christopher's friend Jameson, roommate Joe, Roger's co-worker Ray, Roger and Christopher.

 They worked through their boxes of doughnuts all going at varying speeds.

 We hung around, talked and watched the others at the race.  It is really a great place to people watch.

 Just had to say that Joe was amazing!  He downed those dozen doughnuts with a smile on his face.  We were stunned at how quickly he went through them and didn't seem fazed at all by eating them!  As my boys said ... "Joe is a beast".  (Had to share this with you Janey!)

 My boys loved talking to people while they were eating.  I had to call one back as I could see the runner (who won't be named) was getting ready to be sick.  My son later told me that he knew that, but wanted to see him throw up.  ???  What?

 Roger with friends Lindsay and Heath from our Bible study.

 My favorite part of the race is the costumes.  I wish I could have gotten more or better pictures of them, but here are a few for you to enjoy.

Gotta love the tricks for eating the doughnuts.  Smashing a stack of them together so that you have a giant flat group of 4 for example.  Not really sure how drenching them with water helped, but then again I'm not eating a dozen either!

 And then wringing them out.

 As you can imagine, this creates a giant mess!  Can you see the stack of empty boxes?  The runners that are "challengers" must take their empty box to present to show that they have eaten them all.  You can be a casual runner in the race and not eat all of them.

 As you might imagine, there were a few doughnuts left over at the end of the race.

This was the moment my boys had been waiting for.  Dreaming about.  Planning since last year!  LOL

 As I went to get the van and bring it closer, I heard rumors that even more were collected.  We came home with a LOT of doughnuts.

Thankfully the boys were persuaded to give a lot of them away!

There are the pictures of our week-end.  But I'll share just a bit more that went on.  Christopher and his girlfriend Taylor came over for lunch and ended up staying through dinner.  It was wonderful to meet her and we all enjoyed hanging out with her and playing games.  We hope to see her again soon!  :-)

On Sunday, Christopher, Joe and Jameson came over to watch the Super Bowl along with our friends the Troedssons.  It was a fun evening of food - lots of it, laughter and games (both football by the guys and Catchphrase for the girls).

I'm thankful for time to spend with friends and family.  This week-end was just a sweet time.  I'm blessed and grateful for the many blessings in my life.  Thank you God!

Blessings
Leslie