Our piece of history...

Last Friday we were able to participate in a field trip with several other homeschoolers. We were able to travel back in time to 1910, to a one room school house for a full day of school. This was complete with a packed lunch only like they would have been able to pack back then and dress as they would have. So here they are beginning their day, of course the girls are on one side and boys on the other.......unless you act up to much and have to sit on the opposite side! Thankfully we didn't have anyone have to do that ;)

They were given a list of spelling words to write on their slates....

then one group was called to the front for recitation while the other group stayed at their seat and practiced writing each spelling word, in turn, 10 times on the back of their slates.

Here was the girls cabinets holding their lunches.

The cabinet on the left here contained the boys lunches and the table on the right was the hand washing station, complete with lye soap!

The students took turns washing hands, girls first of course, after which time their hands were inspected by the schoolmarm.

There were a variety of options for what we could pack for lunch. Some lunches include "leftover fried chicken from last nights dinner", bread and butter, bread with meat,etc.... Many apples and surprisingly LOTS of hard boiled eggs were had. No oranges or bananas were allowed as tropical fruit would not have been common in Oklahoma during that time period. 

 And of course lunches were packed either in a pail or basket, with food wrapped in paper or cloth and a tin cup to drink out of.

 After lunch, which had to be eaten inside due to the rain we'd had that morning, they were given a small amount of time to play outside on this wonderful thing called a flying jenny! The kids had a blast.....I so wanted to join in ;)

 Following lunch they had a short moral story while they rested their heads on their desks. After that was the history lesson  current events discussion where we talked about recent issues here in Oklahoma including our recent statehood which  occurred in 1907. Many of the other facts we discussed I found very interesting and news to me! Last but not least, the spelling bee. Miss Snap made it up till the last cut, she and one other student missed the same word leaving the last student to win....so close!

 And of course this trip wouldn't be complete w/o a shot of them in front of the schoolhouse :) I'll have to take a close up of their mini quilts they (with some help to get them done in time) made to cover their lunch pails ;)

Fun in the......water?

After a trip out to play in the water  mud this is how The Zipper came in, covered almost head to toe!! Boys will be boys huh?!?

April highlights

My mom and I took a trip with the kids to Iowa mid-April to visit some family and had quite the adventure! Here was our first "rest stop" which was just a slightly rural gas station where there was some fun exploring area for the kids.

Of course I had some GREAT intentions of taking lots of pics and documenting everything......which didn't happen :) But I have to share our grand adventure. As we were exiting the hwy in a not so great part of town in the Kansas City area mom's engine just dropped the gear. No matter how she tried to change (even reverse) nothing was catching. So we found some guys at the QT a block away, which was why we were getting off in the first place, to get gas there, and asked them to help us push the car into the parking lot. They towed us with a chain into the parking lot where we started checking things and making phone calls. Long story short 3 1/2 hours later we were on the road in a rental van while mom's van was towed to a dealer to get a new transmission! Lovely start huh :)

Well after making it to Des Moines and staying the night with my cousin we headed to the capitol building the next day for a tour. The Zipper was full of excitement

as he spotted this....pretty huh!

Among the many things we learned there I think one of the coolest was the fact that the exterior dome is "painted" with real gold. It's a coating that if you scrapped it all together would be about the size of a baseball....wow, that's a small amount to spread over that whole dome! I believe they said it has to be redone about every 20 years. It takes about 2 years to do it because weather conditions have to be exact for them to do it in.

The 2 younger boys needed a nap so my mom and cousin took the older 2 to the military museum on the base where she works. Among other things the kids loved the para-scope.

And the jump area of a plane.

I'm just now realizing I didn't really take any pictures of family or other activities we did :( We also went to the Music Man Museum in Mason City and visited with my Aunt and other family there. It was a great trip and we look forward to doing it again sometime :)

Easter fun

I got the coolest idea to do along with Easter this year. It really has nothing to do with WHY we celebrate Easter, it's just added fun for mom the kids! I of course can't find where I got the idea now....if you know PLEASE link it in a comment and I'll add it. But here it is (sorry, only partial pics) The idea is that you have wheat grass, or something similar, and you have the kids put jellly beans into the grass....

Here's miss snap with her packet and patch of grass.

The button with his....

the zipper.....

and zigzag stitch!

and in the morning......a magic flower has grown (sorry no pics of this but it's one of the big lollipops that are rainbow colored.) Of course the older two totally know it's mom and dad but who doesn't love a giant sucker! LOL

Lots of catching up to do...

Well I have sooooo much to get caught up on. I've got pics of some of the things I made family members for Christmas (that of course I couldn't post till they opened them), pictures of what I received in the handmade gift exchange I participated in, and sooo much more, but 1st...... the other day I was having a really hard, off day. So I got online to try and unwind a bit and I came across the greatest blog. It's called "V. and Co." which was wonderful, but the best yet was this post! Oh my, they say laughter doeth good like a medicine...I got a great dose. I was in tears from laughing so hard! My kids couldn't figure out what was so funny......needless to say I'm sooo hooked on her blog now :) Enjoy and I'll be back with some updates and pics :)