Field Trip to Brookgreen Gardens

We went on a field trip to Brookgreen Gardens last weekend and it was lots of fun!  The boys and I are going to spend the whole month of April studying life cycles of various plants, insects and critters—Spring is such a wonderful time to do this—and Brookgreen is a beautiful place to see Spring in action firsthand.

We saw lots of flowers, plants, butterflies and wildlife of all sorts.  We spent a lot of time in the Children’s Nature Room.  There was loads to do, make, read and learn in this area.  The kids had fun making their own frogs, salamanders, using the microscope, coloring, digging for hidden treasures, reading books, sculpting with clay and building with small logs and pieces of wood.

See that elderly lady in the background of this first picture?  Jack sat beside her while he read books and talked her ear off.  She loved it and so did he.  When we left he gave her a big hug and kissed her arm.  She about melted.  Following his lead, Joe and Jesse also gave her hugs good bye.  It was the sweetest thing and touched me for sure. Brookgreen Gardens was founded by Archer and Anna Hyatt Huntington.  Anna was a sculptor.  Her sculptures are known and displayed throughout the world.  Brookgreen Gardens features many of her sculptures in a natural outdoor setting.  Brookgreen has the largest collection of American sculptures in the country.  We enjoyed seeing all of the beautiful creations at Brookgreen created by both man and God.  It is a peaceful place and somewhere you could just stay all day long soaking in the beauty and tranquility.  It was a fun time together that I am very thankful for.

Harold and the Purple Crayon, FIAR

(3/12 – 3/21)  We had so much fun rowing Harold and the Purple Crayon!  I spread this row out over 7 days instead of 5 so we could take our time and enjoy everything I planned.  I’ve always enjoyed this book, but it definitely has an even more special place in my heart after these last two weeks. 

We learned about:

• imagination and creativity
• setting
• primary, secondary and tertiary colors
• cityscapes
• the moon and moon phases – Lesson 6 from Apologia Astronomy
• fractions 

After reading the book together the very first day we discussed that the setting in Harold is always changing.  It’s not in the same place, or even a couple places, as in most stories we’ve read, but it changes due to where Harold’s imagination takes him.

We looked at the pictures of the cityscape in the book and then Joe created a cityscape at night with a moon and stars.  I absolutely love how it turned out.  This one is going to be framed and hung on our art wall for sure! While Joe was making his cityscape, the little boys were having fun with homemade puff paint and making moons.  The homemade puff paint is always a huge hit, and I love it too because it cleans up fast and smells so good.   

We learned about the phases of the moon, waxing and waning and read Lesson 6 from Apologia Astronomy.  Joe played a matching game about moon phases using our Education cubes and printable inserts.  I made the phases of the moon using Oreo cookies and all of the boys enjoyed eating them during the game :-).

We made homemade purple moon sand. We had a picnic lunch just like Harold, but with lunch food, not pies :-).  We saved our pie for later in the week for dessert and fractions. The little boys had fun mixing tempera paints to make the colors of green, orange and purple.  Then, they had fun painting with the colors they made. Joe learned what primary, secondary and tertiary colors are.  He completed a cool color wheel activity using a dropper, tinted water, toothpicks and a paper towel.  He used the primary colors to make 12 different colors.  He loved this activity.  I did too.  It was a really neat one. I made edible purple crayons.  They were good and a big hit with all of us!  I love dipped pretzel rods. Joe played a fraction matching game, again, using our Education cubes.  And, we had key lime pie.  We just had one kind of pie instead of nine like Harold :-).  While I would slice the pie pieces and put them onto everyone’s plate, Joe would tell me what fraction of the pie was left.

This row was SO much fun!  I woke up excited to do school each day.  I have been having the best time with our homeschool the last few months.  It’s been a breath of much needed fresh air and I’m so very thankful for it.  I love my kids deeply and love homeschooling them the same.

Inspiration, ideas and printables for Harold and the Purple Crayon and other learning resources can be found at:

• Art Projects for Kids – cityscape at night
• Delightful Learning’s row of Harold and the Purple Crayon – lots of awesome ideas!
• Apologia Astronomy
• Mama Jenn’s Education Cubes and inserts
• Gourmet Mom on the Go – edible crayons and printable wrappers
• No Time for Flashcards homemade puff paint recipe (we LOVE this and use it lots!)
• Homemade moon sand recipe (via Delightful Learning, link above)
• Homeschool Creations Preschool Corner and 5K too!
• Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers Weekly Wrap-Up

Field Trip to Boone Hall Plantation

Hanna is studying US History this school year and the next.  Since South Carolina plays a pretty large part in the Civil War era of US History, it’s only fitting that we take some historical field trips when we can.  She just got to the time of slavery in her history books.  I gave her several places to choose from and she chose Boone Hall hands-down.

The house and grounds were beautiful.  One fun fact about Boone…a bit of the filming of Gone With the Wind was done there. We had a lot of fun walking around, the kids found large, old live oaks to climb, we had a nice picnic lunch—it was a fun day.  The best part of the plantation as far as education goes were the slave houses. Each house contained artifacts, videos and/or a recorded presentation about the plantation, slavery and South Carolina’s role in the civil war from pre-Civil War to modern day.  This self-guided tour through the eight slave cabins was called Black History in America.  I learned a whole lot from it!  It was a wonderful presentation.  Hanna and Joe were interested in it and the little boys hung in there too.  It was an eye opener for Joe who didn’t even know what slavery was until this day.  I plan to row a FIAR selection soon about slavery to add-on to what we learned at Boone Hall. We explored the grounds quite a bit. We had a wonderful day together and we learned a whole lot!