| Mount Vernon Homeschoolers |
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January 1, 2004 Newsletter #40 Editor: Suzanne |
Brrr.We're warm and cozy in the house. This month we like to combine a bit of kitchen chemistry, grow mold and look at seed catalogs. Some discussion about growing artichokes here. We continue writing that we started in November and are developing characters and settings. This is a good month to make cocoa and a big fire in the fireplace and drink it. Where did cocoa come from? We may have to revisit the Children's museum or check out a website.We've read Eragon by the home-schooled teen and talked about it. We still have to go see Lord of the Rings, Return of the King. My boys have racked the leaves to earn the movie. Payoff this next week. Movie day, anyone? Speaking of growing mold, we watched some Seals take training and wondered if the kids might like to go to Boot camp in January. Up at six, run a mile, lessons at nine, lunch at 12 and back to lessons, all working as a team and taking punishment in extra lessons if they don't do chores. My husband thought this up. Along with the study of C computer language this month. The charts have helped organize us and we have been doing a lot of work so far. But, we haven't exercised as much Let's talk more about building a strong body as well as strong kids. More ideas about that in this month's newsletter. . Oleg will be at the Red Ribbon Run on Eisenhower tomorrow. It's five K. Come on over and cheer him on if you have time. December 31, across from the Hoffman movie theater. |
4-H meetings Mt. Vernon Club
The Cloverbuds and the Active H'ers had a wonderful time in December
with boat building. we have some nice pictures for our scrapbooks.
Everyone, including our two year old V constructed a winning boat
design from our Junkyard Building project using meat trays of foam,
duct tape, straw, balloons, and straws. Each one of the boats was
different and they all held rocks and didn't sink (except one) and
that person had luckily made two. So, we had success. We had a talk
about buoyancy.
We are so proud of the ingenuity and the participation. We did float the boats in the kiddie pool with snow all around. At the Christmas party, we made a Christmas decoration out of old cards. And, we partied with lots of drinks and cookies and food. The music played and the children talked and played card games. Tuesday, Jan 13 11:00 A.M.
Leather working, stamping, braiding, sewing, punching a hole with an
awl. We thought about buying some leather kits and making a bracelet,
key chain, belt, whip, bring leather scraps and make a purse. Or, ear
rings. We'll see. Found a Michaels in Leesburg that had a lot of
inexpensive kits, Didn't see any at our Michaels.
Tuesday, Jan 27 11:00 A.M.
Meet at the Bowling Alley (under Shopper's Food Warehouse, Shopper's food warehouse, 6228 N Kings Hwy, Alexandria, VA. Bring leather projects to show. We will
meet to let our bumpers down and roll some balls down.
History Units for Enthusiasts at our house
Personal Timelines with yarn and 3X5 cards. All major events will be
documented. we will hang these around the windows in our rooms for
decoration. We also have the yearly challenge of thank you notes to go
out this January with a deadline of January 10 and no one can spend
McDonald's money until these are completed.
More history Starting unit of study on the Lewis and Clark expedition with diaries of these travels to open the West. We are planning a red wagon walk down the Potomac as as study in planning and getting things together. We will pack a lunch, walk down the trail and turn around and walk back. The boys ride their bikes all the way to D.C. but the girls generally wouldn't do this. We will study the maps and look at the geography and history of the westward migration. We will rent movies like Shenandoah and others to see the challenge of the trip. We hope to travel to a portion of the trail and follow in the footsteps of the explorers sometime in the spring. For the first part of the adventure this month, we will keep a diary of our preparedness, gear, goals and make the hike down the river. |
Geography studies
Letterbox Games with Global Positioning Satellite (websites) Make a
stamp for this adventure. We will design a stamp and get notebooks.
This will be an adventure for us in locating geocached boxes and
leaving a stamped sheet from a post-em note that we have been to the
box. This game is played with GPS but it can be played with
directions and e-mails saying go here by a certain date, look for the
clear box with something in it, leave something, take something and
move that thing to the next box. A scavenger hunt to learn how to
follow directions. The seekers are expected to keep a notebook, place
a tin or plastic shoe box on a site and offer directions to other
players. We will set up a separate page for our group to use working
with our webmaster, Jeff on a week-end before the end of February and
commence the game immediately afterward. know who will be at the
seminar and we will work this up,
Margaret and Paul brought this to our attention and thanks for the great idea.
There are at least three cached boxes in Huntley Meadow and players
all over the United States. Ongoing adventure for the spring months
await us.
Exercise
We are starting a Junior Seals group at our house. Dad has been
showing tapes of the Navy Seals
training camp to the boys. Mom needs exercise. Monday morning at 7
A.M. we start with a run-walk in our neighborhood. Then, we come back
to the house and do push ups after breakfast. Swimming once a
week. Bicycles after classes. See you at Seal camp. The word is exercise
and fun. The diet continues with a Jan. 12 weigh-in at Discovery and
membership in Bally's for three months. Come walk with me. We will
start with one mile and increase the miles. We will run after the
third week.
Here is a link: http://health.discovery.com/ Every Wednesday
Committed to Math, Algebra, and English. Twenty little Lessons in
Art. One day in the middle of the week with co-operative classes. Yes,
we will continue. Teens are meeting with Paul V. Thank you,
Paul. Lisa N. has helped the younger crowd with Math-It. They have
all worked together on Fractions, time and money. We have some fun
times with arithmetic facts. We have pattern blocks and tanagrams.
While the teens are working on English, writing and grammar, the
younger children practice spelling, writing and word endings and
blends.
We will probably add one other day to work on geography and history. We have a request to learn history so Alex can go to Harvard and be a history major. Happy to comply. We generally meet when the teens ask for a reading of a play. Or, if they ask for a get-together. We would like to get together to play Board games once in a while or have a floating dinner or tea party. All of the children enjoy getting together. In the cold of winter when schools are out, we are always still working with our studies. Even on snowy days, we may miss some meetings or cancel for illness, but we still are home and going on with our work. We would like to make more lap books, this time we would like the children and teens to choose a continent, a country, weather, volcanoes, forces of nature and complete their lap books by the middle of March to be presented at the Sherwood Library with a talk about why the child likes a particular place on earth. Group study. Pangea, dinosaur, weather, mayonnaise jar with fog, rock formations, India, mountain ranges, continents, chose a subject and let's work. Forgot the oceans. It's earth, never a dull moment. Earthquakes. You all did a great job on the universe and the universe
I like Antarctica and penguins. This is my research for Mom's Lap
Book. and, it's my favorite time of year, too.
Thank you Webmaster
Thank you, Jeff. The newsletter has been up and out for several
years. It serves a limited audience here in Mount Vernon in
Alexandria, Va. The ideas come from the mothers involved and the
children keep us excited about socializing. The pattern of
development has been streamlined over the years by Jeff. He has made
the process very fast. He scans the art and the clip art, forms a
gallery and uses a template to produce the HTML. I write, kids edit,
and we all work in the family to present the newsletter. It has been
viewed thousands of times, and the ideas are here for other homeschool
families to use.
This is a special thank you to our webmaster. Happy 24th anniversary. Ready for the next 26 years? Happy New Year
Peace, Harmony and Happiness
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| January / 2004 | ||||||
| Sun | Mon | Tue | Wed | Thu | Fri | Sat |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | ||||
| 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 Co-op lessons |
8 | 9 | 10 |
| 11 | 12 | 13 4-H 11:00 A.M., Lisa's house |
14 Co-op lessons |
15 | 16 | 17 |
| 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 Co-op lessons |
22 | 23 | 24 |
| 25 | 26 | 27 4-H 11:00 A.M. Bowling (see article for address) |
28 Co-op lessons |
29 | 30 | 31 |
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