Keepers at Home: Puzzles

We took advantage of a cold day by working on puzzles. The girls need to complete three puzzles of various piece count to earn the "puzzle pin" for Keepers. The younger girls need to do a 25, 50, and a 100 piece puzzle in order to earn the pin. This pin is in the Little Keepers book but PF still wanted to be able to earn it as well. I increased the number of pieces that PF has to put together in order to earn her pin.

Card Making

The girls have been enjoying making cards for friends and family for birthday, thank you or just because. This has been a great way to use all the scraps I had in a box from scrapbooking. I love to see their creativity!

Tryon Palace

We have lived near this palace for quite a while now and had yet to tour it. We had several opportunities with home school days but there had always been a conflicted. Over the summer, I was planning out some field trips for the upcoming school year, when I discovered that the palace was having a family fun day. I went ahead and added it to our calendar determined that we were finally going to go for the tour. I was excited when nothing else conflicted with the day and we actually got to go. The benefit of waiting so long is that there is a new museum that has opened up which is part of the entire ticket price so there was more to experience.

While we waited for the tour, the girls got to play games from the time period. I love learning about history and how much our country has changed in such a short amount of time.

The gardens surrounding the house were beautiful. We were all excited by the large numbers of butterflies around us.

Another house that was part of the tour belonged to the carriage maker. The workers at this house pretend that they are actually the family that once lived there. The girls played in the backyard with the oldest daughter. They also learned about quilting and how the carriages were designed and made.

North Carolina History Museum

This is the museum that is part of the Tryon Palace and a new museum to our area.

Part of the family fun day was special activities for the kids that helped to teach them about entertainment for kids that first lived in New Bern.

The girls first made corn husk dolls.

Then they made clay marbles and sewed together a pouch to carry them in.

After finished the craft activities, we went into the Pepsi center's exhibit. This exhibit was a completely interactive experience for the girls. They learned about making turpentine, merchants on a ship, running a general store, being part of a quilting bee and being a cook.

The girls created quilting squares on these computer screens. After everyone finished their square a finished quilt was displayed on the big screen with every ones square included.

While working in a turpentine factory, workers were kept motivated by a singer. Butterfly was pretending to be the singer. There were songs on the screen in front of her to read and clips of the songs to listen to.

PF was in charge of killing rats aboard the ship.

This was a great experience and we all learned so much about the history of the area we are living in.

A Trip Around the World: USA

This year, we will be traveling around the world through our My Father's World curriculum. The first stop is learning about our own country. We only went over a brief history, learned about the flag and attempted to learn each state. There were two recipes in the book that we decided to try out. They were Grits Casserole and Pumpkin Cake. This sparked a fun discussion of what is truly American food. Unfortunately we came up with mostly junk food and fast food (a sad reality of our country).

 Ladybug stayed with me in the kitchen until the very end. The others lost interest after we put the cake in the oven.

The results of their hard work which made for a delicious lunch.

Basketball Tryouts

This year, PF requested to play basketball for the "Upward" sport's league, which is sponsored by a local church. Upward's goal is to make all of the teams even in skill level and allow everyone equal playing time. To do this, they evaluate each player before moving the players around to form the teams. On the night of try-outs, PF had to demonstrate her agility, speed, and ability to dribble and shoot. PF is very excited to start playing, and has enjoyed practicing with the basketball that she got for her birthday.

Gym at the Park

It was an absolutely beautiful day so the girls and I packed up and headed to a nearby park. This particular park has a quarter mile loop for walking, running or in our case scooters. We enjoyed going around a few times and playing at the playground before heading back home.

Castle Park

On Tuesdays, we take a break from the classroom for awhile. Our first stop: piano lessons. The three older girls each have 30 minute sessions. While waiting for their turn, the girls work on reading, and some other worksheets that we have brought along. Everyone's favorite time comes after the lessons are complete and we head over to Castle Park for lunch and playtime. I have really enjoyed what this park has to offer. I run the girls around an obstacle course of balance beams, monkey bars, and stairs. They also love the tire swing and zip line. Castle Park is the perfect place to play hide and seek and sometimes even mommy has trouble finding the hidden little ones.

Family Fun Day

Hubby's work had a family fun day function. Usually these events include a cookout and a bouncy house so it was quite a surprise to find out that the fun day would be at a camp with numberous activities. Hubby came home early and we headed over to the other side of the river to enjoy the rest of the day together. We decided on the canoes first. While out on the water we saw several turtles and got to watch other Marines going on the zipline. The zipline ended in the water and we decided against getting wet.

Our next stop was archery. All of the girls got a shot at it. Ladybug hit the target several times. Hubby and I competed to see who had better aim. Not that I am surprised but hubby did a lot better than I did.



Dragonfly waiting patiently for her turn. She had to stay behind the white line.

After archry, we headed to the snack shop for a quick snack before heading on a boat ride down the river. Our last activity before dinner was shooting BB guns. The camp had plastic dinosaurs and cans set up to aim at. PF hit a can on her first shot and continued to hit another can and a dinosaur. I was excited that I made contact a few times too. The guns jammed easily and were quite difficult to shoot so the other girls were a bit frustrated with them.

Dinner was a delicious Italian buffet and then smores by the fire. By far this was the best family fun day we have experienced!

Seafood festival and a Picnic on the Beach

The first weekend of October is reserved for the Seafood Festival in Morehead city. No, we are not seafood consumers but we do love festivals and there is so much more than just seafood.

One of the girls favorite areas is Sassea's kids zone. Each year there is a diferent theme, this year it was a celebration of Sassea's birthday. Sassea is a cool yellow fish which is the theme character of the festival. PF decorated her cookie to look just like Sassea.

Sassea puppet.

Party hat

Toy walk. Each of the girls won a sand castle building kit.

So we headed over to the beach to build sand castles and have a picnic lunch. Due to the hurricane, there were so many shells washed up on the beach. The girls found some really awesome ones.