A visit to Colonial Williamsburg, part 1

We had a great family vacation to the Historical Triangle area in Virginia. We saw Colonial Williamsburg, Yorktown Victory Center, and The Jamestown Settlement. We combined lots of family fun with an educational experience for Olivia. It went right along with our current history reading of colonial America and the early years of our country. They were having their biannual homeschool days which meant lots of great programs and extra hands on activities. I will break this up into several blog posts because there are so many pictures to share.

First Olivia got to dress up in a colonial dress and hat.

Then we headed out of the 21st century and into the 18th century of Colonial Williamsburg. We headed down the street to find the printing office. We got to see the Virginia Gazette being printed and hung to dry. This tied in great with our history reading last week on Benjamin Franklin and Poor Richard's Almanac.

On our way there we ran into a gentlemen. It was fun talking to him. He was wearing clothing of the day and acted as though he lived during the Colonial times. He asked Olivia what colony she was from. He asked how she traveled, whether by horse or by sea. He explained that the last time he had been to North Carolina it had taken him 7 or 8 days so therefore we must have had very fast horses to bring us there. Olivia, in her very literal way, said, "no, we came by car and then boat" (she meant the ferry). We then explained that they didn't have cars in those days so that travel took much longer.

We watched the weaver at work.

We visited the Govenor's Palace kitchen and garden maze.

Note: Ezra slept through all the family fun here.

She got to play a hoop game on the Palace Green.

We visited a farm of the middling class just outside of town. There she got to try her hand at candle making. (This was her favorite activity of the day.)

She learned her courtesies (waiting at the door to be invited in, not speaking unless spoken to, and how to curtsy).

And of course was a kid.

Oh, how I love that picture! :)

Homeschool Activities

We started back into our My Father's World curriculum at the end of August. Once again, we are really enjoying it!

Our bible for two weeks was on Jesus, the bread of life. And he is! He is the only thing that will truely satisfy us. All other people, things, and food will only satisfy us for a while but then the hungry will return. But that longing in each of us can be satisfied with a relationship with God! Then Jesus declared, "I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty. John 6:35

As usual the science lessons corresponded nicely. We did some science experiments with yeast. We also made our own modeling dough and yeast bread. To add to the fun we got to watch one of the owners of our local bakery make bread from grinding the wheat, all the way through the process to the oven. Then of course we tasted some! Olivia's favorite parts were the huge mixer and how she cut designs into the tops of the bread.

We have been reading more about colonial times. The history stories have been written from the perspective of children during that time. It has been fun and educational. One of our stories was about a boy who helped to take care of the cows that were brought over to the New World. To go with this, we watched a history channel presentation on milk from the cow to the store. We also went with some friends to the Hunter's Farm Factory for a tour. They get milk from Jersey cows off of family farms and produce milk and ice cream. Olivia loved sampling the ice cream at the end of that tour. :) Also, that week we made butter from cream. Olivia thought that shaking the jar for so long was difficult but it sure tasted good on our bread at dinner that night!

We have also been looking at the works of some great American artist from the colonial period. I blogged about one of those projects not too long ago. And of course we continue with reading, writing and math instructions. We are headed to Williamsburg, Yorktown and Jamestown next week. She will get to see some colonial life hands on. We'll post pictures of that for sure!

Gabe is 2 years old!

Sunday, Gabe turned 2. Its hard to believe! Sept 5th, 2 years ago was certainly a memorable day for us. We were blessed with our first little boy. He loves trucks, trains, and tractors! He is generous with smiles, kisses and keeps us laughing. He runs around with such excitement although still somewhat unsteady. He talks "up a storm" and is very serious about what he has to say. While he is gaining new words daily, we still can't understand him when he really gets to talking but you can be sure he knows what he is saying. :) He also loves balloons and cake. Well, he loves food in general! He plays hard and is "all boy" as the saying goes.

This year we celebrated his birthday over 2 days. Daddy, Olivia, and I woke him up with balloons, a couple of presents and singing happy birthday to him. So he started the day smiling for sure. :) Then in the afternoon, we headed down to my parent's house to celebrate. We went swimming, had more balloons, sang, ate cupcakes, opened more presents, went to see a large train set that ran around the top of a living room, and roasted marshmallows around a little "campfire". Monday, we continued the celebration by having dinner, opening more presents, singing and of course more cupcakes with Nana and Pop-pop. (Nana and Pop-pop have the pictures of this celebration) It was a fun birthday for sure! Gabe is exhausted tonight to prove it! :)

Summer is for Swimming

We have enjoyed lots of time at the pool this summer. It has been a great way to spend time this hot summer!


It has been a big year for Olivia. She has been mostly afraid or very dependent on a float for the last couple of years. This year, she took 6 days worth of swim lessons with five other 4 and 5year olds. I was really excited when she was excited to go to swimming, tried to put her face in the water some, and didn’t freak out on the teacher. Well, she exceeded my expectations. On the last day of class, the teacher took the students to the deep end and encouraged them to try and jump off the diving board. This was a long spring board in the 12ft deep end of the pool. Olivia climbed up on the diving board no problem. I was amazed. Then she walked to the end, looked down, and instantly starting shaking all over and crying hard. She was helped back off the diving board. Then a lifeguard went and sat on the end of the board to help give some to the kids more confidence. I talked to her about staying calm (she counts to 10 while taking deep breaths) and just walking out there again. Well, that time she did just that and then jumped off. After that, she was hooked. She has loved the pool and jumping in ever since. This week she was trying to dive off the board. She even jumped off once having forgotten to put her water wings on and managed to swim most of the way across the deep end. Granted, she was rather panicked as were we but she did come back up out of the water after jumping and kept her head up.
 

 

Gabe loves the pool! And watched Jeremy and Olivia jump in from the diving board a few times and then followed suit. He gets very upset when we drive by the pool without stopping or when we have to get out to leave.

We did take Ezra in the pool once a week or so ago but he wasn’t much of a fan--too cold for him I guess.

Portraits

One of our art lessons this week was on the work of Gilbert Stuart. He was a painter from Colonial America and known as one of our foremost portrait artists. His most well known work is a portrait of George Washington--the one we see on the one dollar bill. Olivia and I did portraits of one another. We did them in crayon and then crumpled them and covered them in a thin black paint to make them look aged. It was fun. Don't laugh at my art skills. I mean I was doing it mostly one handed with Ezra in the other hand. Actually, it wouldn't have made much difference if I did have both hands. :) Olivia really enjoyed this activity and her art skills are blooming.

Ezra at 3 Months

Ezra's grown so much! And not just in size. He's getting quite a happy personality. He's smiling and laughing more than either Gabe or Olivia did at this age. You can't tell me this kid isn't cute! :)

Blueberries, Wheat, and Books

We have been reading a couple of books this last week. Climbing Kansas Mountains by George Shannon and Pancakes, Pancakes by Eric Carle. They are great books!

Climbing Kansas Mountain is about a boy, Sam, whose father takes him to climb a kansas mountain. The boy's response is "sure, when pigs fly" (not in a mean way but a funny way as he had heard his father say before). They go off together to where his father works at the grain elevators because, as his father says, a mountain is just a high, quiet view. They see the Kansas landscape and notice that it is as flat as their table at home and the roads among the fields are like their checkered tablecloth. Its a cute story with lots to talk about. Along with idioms, similes, metaphors, geography, and the artwork, we talked about the process of harvesting wheat and turning it into flour. Daddy brought home some stalks of wheat cut from a friends farm.

Pancakes, Pancakes! is a fun book. Here is the summary taken from amazon: The barnyard rooster crows and Jack wakes up -- hungry, of course! What does he want for breakfast? A big pancake! But first, Jack's mother needs flour from the mill, an egg from the black hen, milk from the spotted cow, butter churned from fresh cream, and firewood for the stove. Jack's mother get strawberry preserves from their cellar to put on the pancakes.

On Saturday morning, we went to pick blueberries. We went to Watt's farm in Belew's Creek. Its a family farm that has been growing blueberries for 30 years. Picking blueberries is easy, fun for all of us, and yummy. The blueberries were at the perfect height for Gabe all the way up to Jeremy. Of course, Gabe pretty much ate everything that he picked. But he would first pick them and put them in his cup before he then ate them. Olivia indulged too. Before we left she drew a picture of herself picking the blueberries and then asked if we could eat some for lunch when we got home. :)

* don't you love Gabe's face! :)

On the way home, we stopped by the Old Mill of Guilford. It is a restored, fully operational 18th century grist mill. It is picturesque with a big water wheel and all.  Unfortunately, the lady was done running the grinding equipment for the morning when we got there but we got to see it and talk about how it works. This is just like she saw in Pancakes, Pancakes. We bought some of their buckwheat pancake mix to make at home. Olivia and daddy made the pancakes for dinner that night along with some of our fresh blueberries made into a sauce for the top. YUMMY!

Another book we read not too long ago and went perfectly with this adventure, was Blueberries for Sal by Robert McCloskey. Also The Little Red Hen i remember from my childhood.

Play Time

Playing with the cardboard bricks. Its a daily favorite!

Gabe running around playing.

He still has a bit of a potbelly. He used to run with his arms swinging behind him all the way but I think that we were too late trying to catch that on video. He runs with such gusto. :)

Ezra playing too

Ezra, 2 months old

This has been a month of smiles and the beginnings of coos. He is interacting with us. His eyes are so expressive. When awake he likes to lay under his mobile or floor gym. He is really stimulated by the black and white toys/images hanging there. He wiggles and kicks and "punches" with his little fists so much. He will put his feet down in my lap and straighten out his body putting his weight down on his legs. I am amazed at how strong he seems. Below is a little video of his activities:

Recent Homeschool Adventures

I have to say that Olivia is doing fabulous with her reading skills. She is enjoying reading books to Ezra whenever she gets a chance and we often find her in her bedroom, sitting in her little rocking chair reading books. I love hearing her read. Often if the book is a bit above her level, we will read it together. She reads all the words she can and I just pitch in with the words she doesn't know.


She has a early readers NIV Bible that she is able to read from each day too. If I didn't plan for her to read from the Bible on a given day, she will now ask. :) Isn't it amazing when God uses your kids to help keep you accountable. We are continuing to memorize scripture. I am amazed at how easily she can memorize as well as how good it is for me to teach her cause I am finally able to put more scripture to memory. When its set in our minds and hearts through memory, we can bring it up easily and apply it to situations throughout our day.


In addition to reading and math, I am using My Father's World for our curriculum. I love it! We are using the Adventures level. It is an exploration/overview of American history and patriotic symbols from a Christian perspective. It includes bible and science. The curriculum is very bible centered. We talked about Jesus being the Light of the World and our science involved space and stars. We have also done some really fun experiments involving air. Just like air, we can't see God but there is evidence that he is all around us. There are a handful of scripture passages for her to read herself out of her Bible and for us to discuss. Of course there are tons of fun crafts. I am having Olivia draw the experiments we do and label some of the words she knows how to write. We keep those in a notebook along with the bible verses she copies.


Our history study so far has us looking at the founding of America. We have studied the Vikings, Christopher Columbus, Jamestown, Indians, and the Pilgrims so far. We are creating a timeline and notebook. We study these through several texts. One is the style of a straight textbook, we include lots of library books, and many are stories told through the eyes of children. I read her Squanto and now we are reading Sarah's New World. It is a great book for character discussions in addition to learning about history. We have also learned some about the American flag and listen to some patriotic music. Here are some pictures of our fun adventures.

Sailing the Niña, the Pinta, Santa Maria

Indian wigwam and teepees

Indian Costume

Pilgrim Costume and poppet (a doll played with by British children in the 1600s made from scraps; ours is made from an old sock with stuffing and wrapped in a piece of felt)

making a compass

Grandpa's look-a-like

Chick-fil-a Cow Appreciation Day

Yes, we went out in public looking kind of silly but we got free lunch at Chick-fil-a so it was worth it. :) Olivia was also wearing a cow bell but had taken it off when we got this picture.

Jeremy's look-a-like

Our New Name

Hey all,

You may have noticed that our blog name has changed. We decided that just having our names and continuing to add children's names to it might become somewhat long-winded and really wasn't very imaginative. As we debated changing it, Rebecca asked a friend of her for some ideas and her friend suggested the "thoroughly" part. So then it was "Thoroughly" What? We went through "Thoroughly Sarine" and "Throughly Family" and maybe one or two others, but nothing really described us in terms that everyone can relate to. I kept thinking back to what the blog is about, which is our children and how much we are blessed by them and it came to me: Thoroughly Blessed. It's as complete a name as there every can be for us. We are blessed with wonderful children, loving families and great friends.

We hope that by sharing our blessings, all who read about them will be blessed as well.