Historic Savnnah

Ahhh ye ole streets. I simply adore old cobblestone or masonry. It's a sickness really. I mean think about how much it takes not to make brick buildings and stone walls. Now think back to a time when half the equipment wasn't motorized but simply your own sweat and tear, perhaps a bit of blood. At one time bricks were made by hand and to see a whole building made out of them is simply mind boggling. I ask How long did it take? What were these extraordinary laborers paid for all that work?


We walked around some of the historic district but since old brick and cobblestone didn't interest my children (ye jest surely how could they not???, no I don't need a life mine is just fine thank you) we only spent a few hours to indulge mom. Of course they didn't seem to mind going into the shops in hopes of getting something. We did end up at a candy store and it had a train running along the ceiling through the shop, it was so neat. The kids enjoyed picking candy while I marveled at the walls and floors and old time metal signs. We found the river and walked along and it looked as if a fest of some sort was getting ready.


We also found "Lady & Sons" and tried to grab lunch there but lunch at 9:30 at night did not seem appealing. I would have loved to go eat there even if it was expensive. We watch Paula Deen on Food Network all the time. Although she isn't my favorite I do enjoy her warmth and southern hospitality even if I can't bring myself to make the millions of thing she does that look oh so yummy but you can tell entirely that it is without a doubt fattening. Don't get me wrong I don't mind putting away calories and I love really good food. You know the kind where you just have to learn how to make that because it is simply marvelous? OK now I'm getting of the subject.


There are tours for everything. Ghost tours, historic tours, pirate tours, dolphin tour, culinary tour you name it they probably have it and then you have to choose how you want to travel by foot?, by horse drawn carriage? or trolley? And everything was incredibly expensive. The walking tour would have cost $70 for us 5. I thought OK I'm walking and I'm paying them for what ? to tell me about Savannah? Not to sound horrid but how much are they embellishing on and how did they come by the information? I mean I can walk up to a building and say this is so and so building built in whatever yr and so on. So while we sprung for the dolphin tour by Tybee Island we didn't do any of the tours in Savannah.


We had a great time though exploring all on our own.

Just look at that, where can you find this in Colorado? No where!

My Dh and Ds crossing the cutest bridge
Wonder if these were stables once upon a time?
Isn't this just stinking cute? It's a model at eye level on a pole. Very well made.
My boys find a little play area. Photo Op.

The streets of Savannah.
Look at this trolley. The rate was outragous.
Old Cotton exchange and Masons building

More along our walk
A Lion fountain in a garden enclosed by a beautiful iron fence. Each segment of fence has a circular picture of someone improtant.

This is one of those pictures in a segment of fence. This particluar one is of Benjamin Franklin.

The back of some of the buildings by the river.

Friends everywhere

Ok I know this isn't necessarily homeschool related but I just had to share. Besides I could make it hs related by doing a unit on friends and friendship. Hmm that's not such a bad idea.

Anyway.....

We went to the pool a couple of days ago and it just so happens I found one that had a great slide attached and so instead of going to the pool I usually went to we went there. I brought my latest book, I am so wrapped up in it but that is a whole nother post. I am sunning and intermittently dipping in the pool since it is in the high 90's, it' hot.

Conner comes up to me and says "hey mom I just saw Jeannie and her brother". Huh who are you talking about and then in the back of my mind I can only think of one Jeannie and her brother,although why they remembered her name and not his is still puzzling. So I say "you mean Matthew and Jeannie?? and he says yeah. At this point I'm thinking it has been at least a yr since we saw them, we are at the pool he must be seeing kids that look like them.

To make a very long story short I got up went in the pool to investigate further and sure enough here are some dear friends we haven't seen in at least a yr. There are few people in the world that just touch you and you want to remain friends, this is one such lady. Anja is an incredible person, she is so giving and creative. We would come over and I would feel so welcome and she would have baked something, she was forever baking, and her kids would be making some sort of craft. She made me want to bake and be more creative and do great things with my kids. I felt inspired from her on so many different levels. Anja opened a daycare and well we lost touch a bit and then I moved 45 min south and we just never managed to reclaim that wonderful friendship.

I was so surprised to see her and we caught up on everything. It was just amazing. What was a frustrating morning turned into a fantastic afternoon and I realized something. I miss this. I miss hanging out with my girlfriends and chatting. It is the best stress release I have found to date.

I gave her my new number and we promised to get together and well I intend on keeping that promise.

Also this week I was invited to go to meet up with some hs'ers for park day about 30 min. west of us by my dear new friend Kathy. Kathy again is one of those people that just never ceases to amaze me. She finds these cool places to go visit and makes friends wherever she goes. Of course she has one of those great personalities that well most people adore. It's fun to watch her in action too. We went to a place together and she starts talking to a person that works there the next thing I know is we get a free cd. Umm why does this not happen to me?? Of course hanging out with kathy it has been happening to me much more. You think there is a correlation? Nah (big grin). Her boys are just great and my boys and hers get along and it just makes me all so blissfully happy. She also has this great blog with just the best lesson plans, really check it out on the sidebar-it is what it is. Great music too.

We end up at this park way where I never would have thought there was a park and all the ladies are just so sweet. I had just such a fabulous time. The kids had a great time although they didn't make new friends they had the option since there were kids their age there. A guy from the local paper came up and asked permission to take photo's of the kids, all the mom's said great. Of course my boys decided to be camera shy. I got to talking to this one mom about a sourdough starter. I've been wanting to do one but am scared to. She made it sound so easy that I think I'll give it a shot. If it works I'll be sure to share pictures of the bread I make with it.

The greatest little place where hs'er connect

View my page on The Homeschool Lounge

Homeschool conference giveaway

If you haven't heard of this by now get out from under that rock and check it out. Heidi from Review's by Heidi is giving away 5 tickets to go to this wonderful conference. This conference sounds so wonderful and the best part is you don't even have to leave your home and find daycare for your children or any of that. It's a virtual conference. How cool is that. You can check out more of it here
http://www.hotmconference.com/
And of course if you would like to enter Heidi's contest here is the link for that as well.
http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/ReviewsbyHeidi/
Wish you guys lots of good luck.
Vanessa

Tybee Island

I just thought this was plain cute. There were little turtle statues all over the island. It was cute. I don't believe I got a picture of them though.

Tybee beach

Colin having a blast with some minnows and small clams.

Conner trying to get the hang of the boogie board. He had a really good time with it. He ventured some into trying to surf along the incoming waves ,I forgot what it was called, and he never did get the hang of it although he probably would have given just a few more days at the beach.

Austin comes in for a bit of suntanning. He tried the surfing too and fell and his back hurt for a few days. But he did try again after that.

What a great little place to find. It was either this beach community or Myrtle beach. I found all those tall skyscraper type hotels on Myrtle beach a bit "not what I have in mind for a beach". Then I happened upon this little community. It was just great. They don't have a wal-mart and we only saw one fast food joint. I think they are trying to preserve the island and not have it as commercialized. I loved that. There were still a million people there during the weekend we went but the beach is just so big that there is so much room.

The boys immediately head out into the water coming in only when we call them. Although Austin did come in once or twice to lay out in the sun-not that he needed it. I tried to talk them into building a sand castle but after being left to do it on my own it was just not as much fun. They tried boogie boarding and surfing along the incoming tide very close to the beach. It was quite hard and although they got much better at it they still didn't quite get it. I'm sure if we had spent just another week at the beach(alone) then they would have it down.

We walked along the beach and had sort of a school session, not really but now come to think of it yes it was. We talked about the tide going out and how far it had gone that it revealed a sandbar. How the sandbar had all these ripples and how the ocean current had formed them. We walked out quite a ways and lucked out and found several animals. We found a urchin(dead unfortunately) a sand dollar (dead also, fortunately for Austin who kept it). Chris showed them how to find sea snails which they did for about 45 min, I still can't believe they kept interest in that so long. Chris also showed them something else. Have you ever seen those holes in the beach close to the water and sometimes they sort of bubble???I never thought about it but apparently there are small little clams in there. So the boys dig and dig, they get quite good, and find the clams. Then Chris shows them something else that had me just dumbstruck. It was sooooo cool- I am such a big kid. If you put these little clams, no bigger then say your finger nail, you put them on the wet sand sort of sitting up and wait. It is the most bizarre thing. After a bit the little clam starts to shake and ,here is the craziest part, it shakes and that creates a hole and it disappears into the sand. How cool is that. Please stop laughing at me, okay it does sound ridiculous that I could be so astounded at such a simple thing and here my hubby says I'm expensive. The boys and I had the best time finding these clams, poor clams, and digging them up so we could see them dig/shake/rattle and roll(lol) their way back into the sand. This honestly kept us occupied for over an hour.

At one point we do head to the Marine Science Center. They have hands on exhibits. They do alot with the Loggerhead Turtles that nest there.The kids get to hold all sorts of neat stuff and they love it. They hold a sea star, sand dollar, horseshoe crab, hermit crab, sea snail among other things. They get to see several different turtles and what was once made with them back when it was still legal to kill them. The Center isn't all that big and it's right in front of the pier at the beach. But it is such an important resource. It helps find the nest of the loggerhead turtles and protects them. There are no lights allowed on the beach past 9 at night so the females coming on shore to lay their eggs will not be scared away.

We did walk down the pier and it was cool. People fish from there although it seems the fish aren't biting. The pier has several different concession stands and is really cute. The beach has lifeguards , which we assumed were paid by the community which was in turn getting that money from the revenue of the parking. It was $3 for I think 4 hours but hey I don't mind when I see life guards and good streets and a quaint community.

So many ideas came to from just going to the beach. WE could study any of the numerous animals/marine life we found and saw. We could look at the beach and its ecosystem or the tides and temperatures and such. What about the lighthouses?? that would be fun as well.

Beach

http://www.tybeemarinescience.org/

Tybee Marine science center

http://www.wetlandsinstitute.org/education/teacher/Beach_Exploration.pdf

Lesson plan for the beach

http://www.soest.hawaii.edu/SEAGRANT/bmpm/coastal_ecosystems.html

Lesson plans based from hawaii beach, looks like upper level

http://www.nationalgeographic.com/xpeditions/lessons/14/g68/beachshark.html

National geographic lesson plan for going to the beach, shark related

http://www.atozteacherstuff.com/Themes/Ocean/

A to Z Ocean theme lesson plans. there are several different ones here at a few different levels encompasing all sorts of things ocean related.

http://www.teachingheart.net/beachteach.html

A fantastic resource for beach related things. Very well put together. The time it took I can only imagine.

http://search.enchantedlearning.com/cgi-bin/uncgi/search?key=beach

Enchanted learning- great stuff find what you want. I love this site.

http://www.learningtogive.org/lessons/unit85/lesson1.html

Why we should clean the beach lesson plan, real cute has some virtues we can teach to our children

Loggerhead turtles

http://www.kiawahturtles.com/Loggerhead%20Facts/Lifecycle.htm

A bit about loggerhead turtles

http://www.dnr.sc.gov/seaturtle/

Great info and links about loggerhead turtles and other turtles as well. There is a wealth of info here.

http://www.enchantedlearning.com/subjects/turtle/Seaturtlecoloring.shtml

Enchanted learning label of a sea turtle

http://savannahnow.com/node/361547

Scroll down and click on the interactive video, it has terms and it is very neat

Dolphins

http://homeschooling.about.com/od/unitssubjsci/p/sealesson6.htm

A whole lesson plan made by Beverly Hernandez. It's got really good stuff here

http://teacher.scholastic.com/dolphin/weblinks.htm

Some really great links to discover about dolphins and whales

http://www.enchantedlearning.com/themes/dolphins.shtml

Enchanted learning dolphin stuff

I could go on and on but I'm sure you would be bored stiff, that is if you are still here. Anyway there is all sorts of great information out there. If you have found some outstanding stuff relating to anything here please let me know in the comments section and I will take a look.

Vanessa

Homeschool planner give away

At the homeschool lounge one of my friends noted this and so I am passing it on, Hurry the contest ends soon. I love these things. Thanks Angela and the Old schoolhouse.
http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/byourlove1
Vanessa

Ft. Sumter

My boys and I at the entrance of Ft. Sumter.
A galley of cannons

Father's Day took us to Ft. Sumter National Monument. Being on vacation I actually forgot till we got on the ferry, oops. Chris didn't seem to mind although I know he would have loved to go sunning on the beach. He seemed to enjoy the Ft. as well. The Ft. is in the middle of Charleston Harbor and is only accessible by boat. Before taking the ferry we visited the Visitor Education Center which has great interpretive displays and a great little shop. There is also the Aquarium right next door, but we did not have time for it. It took only about 15 min to get to the Ft. while we enjoyed the scenery of Charleston Harbor. The Ft. surrendered shortly after being attacked, about 34 hrs.It is bigger than Ft. Pulaski and has a museum on the grounds. You can see for miles from the top. There is officer's quarters they re-created and looked quite sparse.( gosh I sound so snobby). It's a beautiful Island. They still have several of the spots where cannons were fired and lodged or left a big dent in the fort. It truly transpires you back to that time.

You get a limited amount of time due to having to take the ferry there and back. Although 2 hrs seems like forever when you are walking the perimeter of the fort from the top and going through the museum that talks about the history of the fort it seems as though it took just minutes. It went very fast.

We rented John Adams from blockbuster. HBO made it and it is quite terrific. Be cautious though because there is nudity, it was made by HBO after all. If I had been taught history through this type of breathtaking film I would probably have had a lot more interest in the subject. As it stands I am intrigued by the films. The first one is leading up to and the writing of the Constitution. I think it would make an wonderful addition to any Revolutionary War history class/unit.

http://www.nps.gov/fosu/

Main website for ft.

http://www.nps.gov/fosu/forteachers/curriculummaterials.htm

Curriculum

http://www.charlestonscrealestate.us/

Web cams of Ft. Sumter and Charleston

http://www.sonofthesouth.net/leefoundation/battle-fort-sumter.htm

Great resource for a few different wars including the civil war

http://www.civilwarhome.com/ftsumter.htm

Has detailed official records and a breakdown of events.

http://www.tulane.edu/~sumter/

Vanessa