The 1st step is admitting you have a problem

Okay, okay I admit it. I am addicted. It's horrible. I can't help it. I know it and yet I can't seem to control myself. My name is Vanessa and I am a Photoholic. (head hanging in shame) yes, I took just shy of 400, ahem, 550 pictures on my two week vacation and I'm looking at my camera ready for more. lol.
Really though, that is alot of pictures and on the days my dh got the camera there was alot less snapping. The deal is that I had yrs of bad pictures when my boys were smaller and I think I am trying to make up for it. I figure I take at least two pictures of the same thing and if one doesn't turn out than I still have a back up copy. Seems reasonalbe right? Except then I get them all home and I love them all with very few exceptions.
So it would seem that I need two albums to cover one vacation. How crazy is that?? No I will definetly have to pare them down so i can fit them into one album. I think one album is sufficient for one vacation. Don't you?
Yes we went to many places and had plenty of photo opportunities but going through that many pictures has been a bit overwhelming. I love them all and have plenty of ideas surging through me ready to takle the huge task before me. I just hope my surge doesn't fall short of at least 80% complete.
How many pictures do you take when you are out an about, on vacation or at a special event? I tend to take on average of 70 pictures. My love of scrapbooking has geared me to look at pictures in a very different light then I used to. I look at thing and picture how I would do a layout and a title all right there in that snap of the photo. Then silly me I take months to get to those picture by which point I am struggling to figure out a title. Although I do have to admit that thinking about the layout has helped immensly since I find that fairly easy. I always keep in mind the odd number of photo's looks more pleasing on a page and that you want some standing and some sideways (the picture at different angles).
What are some of your addictions?? Go on you know of at least one, fess up.

Vanessa

Ft. Pulaski

On Cockspur Island in Georgia is Ft. Pulaski. Built to guard the river approaches to Savannah Georgia. 30 hours after being attacked by American forces the commander of Ft. Pulaski surrendered. After that Savannah was easy to take.


This Fort is just outside of Tybee Island and it is a great place to visit and partook a big part in history. We drove here and the boys really enjoyed seeing it. The best part was when they had a show with musket firings . It was really interesting to watch not to mention loud. The fort isn't all that big and they have places they recreated to look like what it might have back in those times.



http://www.nps.gov/fopu/

The fort website
http://www.nps.gov/fopu/forteachers/war-for-freedom.htm

A curriculum based on the importance of the fort
http://www.eparks.com/store/
Parks web based store (love it)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Pulaski
Great facts and pictures of the fort and its historical importance
http://fortpulaski.areaparks.com/parkinfo.html?pid=3933
Some info on the animals and such at the Island. Click on the Teacher link it has suggested reading and such there. Really nice addition to studying this place
http://www.quantumtour.com/entity/pulaski/
Virtual tour of the Fort
http://gorp.away.com/gorp/resource/us_nm/ga_pulas.htm
A great outline/timeline of events at the fort

What a neat place to visit and include in your curriculum. If you have any neat places you think I missed that relate please let me know.

Vanessa

I'm baaack

Well vacation is over and I am still finding myself tired. It's funny I went to Germany twice a few yrs back and the time difference didn't bother me one bit. Everyone was a bit astounded I could get acclimated so quickly. This time we only had a two hour change and here it is two days after coming home and I am finding myself tired in the morning. And I'm one of those absurd morning people. Guess my age is catching up to me, lol.

We had such a great time. We did almost everything on our list. The only thing we didn't get to do was to eat at "Lady and Sons". My little chef ,colin, would have loved it but we went there at lunch time and they were booked till 9:15 that evening. We were going to try again but opted to head over to Hilton Head Island instead.

I tell you vacation is the best starting point for ideas on the next school year, Everyone should do it. We went to so many places and we spent quite a bit of time with Chris's side of the family. My mind just went crazy for the things we could study based on this trip. I estimate it could potentially take half the yr if not the whole yr.

Favorites among our family were the Dolphin tour and the beach. My personal ones were the historical places like Ft. Sumnter, Ft. Pulaski, Charles towne landing and old historical savannah. The historical part of savannah just about had me in tears. It is beautiful and to think about the pride of workmanship that went into building and how long it took back then is just amazing. It reminded me so much of Germany with it's old buildings that you just can't help but be in awe of. I have never been that into history, all those boring history teachers in school killed it for me. It was just never that interesting but being there and seeing it gives me a different perspective and I apreciate what people did then and want to learn about them too. I guess being a hs'er is getting me to like some subjects I didn't before. The dolphin tour was really cool. After learning where we could find dolphin's I was a bit upset at the "tour". Did you know that to find dolphin's just find a shrimp boat, when they discard the unwanted stuff they caught the seagulls and dolphins swarm the boat getting their fill for the day.

We spent a good bit of time at the beach and the boys literally went in when we got there and came out when we had to leave. They are definetly beach babies. The thought that kept going through me was you can read about the beach and it's diverse ecosystem but there is nothing like acutally being there and experiencing it, and it sticks so much better. So even hanging out at the beach was very educational. We found shells, conk shells, sea snails, jelly fish, horseshoe crabs, hermit crabs and even a sand dollar.

I have a gazillion pictures and we had them all put on disk but for some reason when I downloaded them they duplicated and got all wierd. So I have a few fuzzy versions and like 5 copies of the nice one. It is taking forever for me to go through them and erase the ones I don't need so it will be easier for me to make a slideshow, that I hope to share soon.

Oh one more thing, my boys love the junior ranger program and did it at Ft. Sumnter. I learned that if you are not able to actually go to the park itself you can still participate in the junior ranger program. They have a web junior ranger program. I love this program and how lovely to find that we can go to the parks virtually. It will be a wonderful addition to our homeschool. We have done junior rangers for some yrs now but somehow I never saw they did it online, perhaps its a recent venture. Sometimes the best things seem to escape me somehow. http://64.78.32.69/webrangers/
After playing around a bit on the webrangers page it isn't designed as I thought. You don't go to each park you do activites based on people, history, parks, animals, nature, science and puzzles. You may learn about a few parks at once. It is still really neat plus as I learned at the Great Sand Dunes some parks have great curriculums if you visit the parks sites.
http://www.nps.gov/

Vanessa

Beatiful Southern Colorado

Colorado has numerous diverse places to visit to keep you busy for some time. One of those places is the Sand Dunes in the southwest part of colorado. We camped out there this past weekend to see the dunes, check out the gator farm and visit Zapata Falls.
My mom came with my niece and Austin's friend Josh came along with us. Kathy and her boys came out too along with a few hs'ing families from all over colorado. We had a spectacular time and I'll take a cue from my friend kathy and share the pictures now and work on the wonderful curriculum later (thanks Kathy).
We are getting ready to leave on the 11th for 2 weeks vacation. I don't think I will be able to work on this till I get back, we will see. I wish I did because I have so many ideas of where this could go but as we are leaving tomorrow I have no time.

http://s159.photobucket.com/albums/t150/cvacc5/?action=view&current=705adc3c.pbw

http://s159.photobucket.com/albums/t150/cvacc5/?action=view&current=77f2abab.pbw

http://s159.photobucket.com/albums/t150/cvacc5/?action=view&current=6ffdd312.pbw



Vanessa

A tip for a few tip's

Here is my tip to you. Hands of a Child, now Currclick, has great freebies. This one is a notebook on the "Declaration of Independence." I tried to put a link to it on my Homeschool links, check sidebar. It didn't seem to work??? I will have to see what I can do about that but at any rate you should definitely check it out. I am saving this one to do with my kids when school is back in session.

On the home front I have been trying to organize, clean up, clean out everything. I have never been overly organized but it is starting to drive me nuts. I remember when I organized my photo's , this was when creative memories came out with their massive organizing photo box. It was tedious and took some time but when all was said and done I can to this day find pictures I'm looking for. That is a great feeling. So this needs to spill over into other parts of my life, mainly my house. I can't stand buying something only to find I already have it. I am tired of hanging on to those gifts from relatives, for fear of hurting their feelings by getting rid of it. Most importantly I am tired of not finding stuff I'm looking for or not having a home for the stuff I do have making "putting it away" a stressful venture. How crazy is that. I'll tell ya, it is without a doubt absolutely nuts. So I have started going through our stuff and have managed to get rid of quite a few things. This isn't spring cleaning, it's life cleaning. Of course finding a place for everything is turning out to be more problematic. I will put stuff away and a week later look at the space and think -how can I use this space better? Then I beat myself up for a week trying to figure out the best things to put where. Of course this leads to if I just have this my life will be organized manner of thinking. Like I would love to have a big entertainment unit to put all those movies away, not to mention some books, some cute knickknacks and photo albums. Most of these things have a home already but I think I could use the space better. By getting an entertainment unit I think all that will go there and then I will have this other space to put xyz. Really?? I think not. I think I have too much stuff and I need to make do with what I have and see if I can make it work. I don't want to be one of those people that does the If only I have this or wear this my life will be perfect. Huh, yeah right. Real life doesn't work that way. If anything I will only keep doing that and thinking that exponentially and then what? No I need to do this and work with what I have (although can I still have the entertainment unit?I'm awful I know believe me I knoooow) .

I have tried the Flylady. I got stuck on the wearing shoes bit. I do not allow shoes in my house. Of course not everyone listens to me . I tried and one of my son's saw this and said something like "mom your not supposed to wear shoes in the house". So I was caught -Do what I say not what I do. I could try again and skip that part. hmmmm.

So if anyone has any tips on getting your house organized once and for all, please let me know.

Oh one more thing. I desperately need some help with pie crust. I can make it but I can't make it pretty. You know the edge of it, I have tried and have not come up with desirable results. Is it just practice?? What is the secret to a pretty pie crust? I made apple pie last night and I will share the pictures with you if you promise not to laugh. It's quite horrid. So since I'm asking for tips on stuff if you want to pass on your genius on beautiful pie crust please let me know.

Vanessa

International Towne

International towne is a program put together by Young Americans Center for Financial Education. It introduces kids (generally 12 and older) to the financial realities of the global market and allows them to run a "world" of 16 foreign countries.
Concepts that are tought through a 29 lesson curriculum (purchased seperatley, its a huge 3-ring binder) are

-Respect for foreign cultures

-Export and import activity

-Global carrer opportunities

-Foreign currencies & exchange

-Free trade in global markets

-Global customs and laws

This is the discription from one of our handouts given by Young Americans Center for Financial Education.

The boys had a terrific time. Austin made bird houses and goofed off mostly and of course made plenty of friends. Conner filled out paperwork, I have proof in pictures(snicker). His country had the radio station and they played adds for other countries and songs over the radio to be heard by all countries. Colin enjoyed having power over others and while he did well it was a learning lesson for me. He really seemed to enjoy being able to boss his "Country" people around. I think he was the youngest and he had two teenage girls and he would tell them they were late or they needed to do this or that, let's just say I wonder if it didn't all go to his head. His country was in charge of Passport pictures, which everyone had to purchase. He also made it on the front page of the newspaper.

The kids got various brakes and were able to purchase several items like soft big prezels, slushies and drinks, keychains, birdhouses, chocolate pyramids, bracelets, chinese fans. they were also some crafty things they could do like dot art, mask making and oragami wallets. They got paid for whatever job they had in money from that region. If they were in EurRussia they got paid in EurRussian money. If they wanted to purchase something from a different region they needed to go to Singapore (site of the world bank) and exchange their money. Exchange rates where based similarly to the real thing and they got more money for some regions and less for others.

Kathy and her boys Brenden and Alex came as well and really seemed to enjoy their jobs and have a good time. Kathy and I went across the way to see AmeriTowne. Same concept except its a town not countries and you run buisnesses. It was really cute, I'd post the pics but I already have so many up I don't want to add too many. Kathy's boys did AmeriTowne and she told me about it. It sounds so neat that I would like to do that with the boys too sometime. The group that did InternationalTowne is doing AmeriTowne in February, so that is probably when we will do it.

As always whenever I head into Denver it is a 12-hour tour from start to finish. We did go back to the Colorado Mills Mall where the Lego store is and Colin loaded up. Kathy and her boys came too, more like showed us the way(lol). We toured the Putt putt golf, we definetly need to do that sometime when we go there again. We also toured the indoor skateboard place and the boys really liked it . It would be a good thing to do on a rainy day.

Conner is Germany's Finance Minister
Austin is Finland's Carpenter.
Colin is Egypt's President. (Pharoah??)
The countries line up to tell their greeting, life expectancy and what their coutnry makes
The countries pin their flag on a World map and put their flag on this table during the opening ceremony.

Conner's doing Germany's paperwork. There is lots of paperwork the Finance Minister is in charge of.Austin makes plenty of new friends.

Colin buys the newspaper from the paperboy. They made it that day and Colin made the Front page.

Austin makes some bird houses as a thank you gift to the people who helped put International towne together.

My Friend Kathy helps out with the Newspaper. She was so helpful to the kids the newspaper turned out great.

Here are the different regions. YOu can see the Countries flag's . Egypt is in the back where colin is. Conner is up front there and is going to purchase some items.

All the South American Countries.

Asian and the Pacific Countries.

Erope and russia. Conner and Austin are there in front and across from each other.

At the end of the day Colin and Conner hang out with their new friends Brenden and Alex, Kathy's boys.

Vanessa

Gathering Catalog's

I am trying to think about all the neat catalog's out there that help us hs'ers out. There are the ones that are oriented to one subject like science and then there are the biggies that cover everything. I am compiling a list as my sister has fallen in love with what we have been able to do as a hs'ing family and I want to be able to give her and others who venture into hs'ing a good list of catalogs, what they are and cover and if they cost anything . This is what I have to date.

Rainbow Resource (of course, cover's everything and gives a review of it too)
Tobin's Lab (Science)
Timberdoodle (Critical Thinking)
Banks School Supply (School Supplies at reasonable prices)
Sonlight(great reading lists)
Love to Learn
My Father's World
http://www.visionforum.com/
http://www.veritaspress.com/ (wholesale)
http://www.christianbook.com/
http://www.workshopplus.com/ (Science)
http://www.hometrainingtools.com/ (science)
http://www.answersingenesis.org/
http://www.winterpromise.com/
http://www.aop.com/ (alpha omega publications)
http://www.bfbooks.com/ (beautiful feet books)
https://apologia.securesites.net/
Home science tools
Delta Education
Learning Resources
http://www.criticalthinking.com/
http://www.hewitthomeschooling.com/
http://www.sycamoretree.com/
http://www.homeschoolfcgs.com/
http://www.learningthings.com/
http://www.dhss.com/shop/ (online discount hs supply)

Added on from my friends (thanks)
www.teachers@doverpublishing.com
www.scholastic.com
www.theeducationcenter.com

Some great magazines
Teacher Helper
Bookbag
Mailbox
Owl
Scholastic News
Time for Kids
Cobblestone American History
Kids discover

What other's are out there?? Can you think of anymore?
I will be updating as I gather more.
Vanessa