Tons of homeschool info, tips, and links. Homeschooling in Florida, plus lots of other great info. Join me on our Homeschool journey. I have been adding to this blog for almost our whole time as homeschoolers, eight years. There is an abundance of info at your fingertips.
Our second week of school has been really good. We got a lot done, and we are adapting our schedule as needed. Tomorrow, I hope to get on the phone with one of the local springs to set up volunteer times for the kids. Tomorrow, I have not laid out exactly what we will be doing, but for sure a Chemistry lab, Chemistry chapter 1 test, Writing, Art,, and maybe some reading. Fridays are our days to get in some fun lessons, that are not traditional text book lessons. To supplement our reading on Africa, we found a nice documentary on Netflix.
I told you most of my daily posts would end up as weekly, lol. Anyways, Wednesday our school day was a field trip out the Marine Research Facility, in Cedar Key. They were putting on a presentation to help the kids study for the Marine Ecology Event in November. This was my first time to the facility, but DJ went last year with that team. They were allowed to look at specimens in person, go over all the slides, and ask questions. We didn't get time to do the outside portion, we were on a very tight schedule.
If you have never heard of Clickschooling, Google it, it is awesome. They send me cool links everyday. I swear they know we are studying Africa, because I got two resources two days in a row, for learning about Africa. The first one is a live webcamto view African animals. I have also used Africam in the past. The second is to learn an African language. We will be using both of those resources in our studies. As a side note, since we are still following this election year, from our History lessons last year, we will be recording and watching the debates. For another side note, I will be starting a weekly link up, each Sunday I think, for homeschool blogs, websites, or education related websites. So, watch for that.
Daily Log for 9/22:
DJ;
Language Arts: 60 minutes
Chemistry: 60 minutes
History: 60 minutes
Geometry: 60 minutes
Digital Design: 60 minutes
Psych1- 60 minutes
Caitlin:
Math, LA, History, Science, Reading, Spanish and Bible
Daily Log for Friday 9/23:
This was a half day, as my husband was home from work, and we started our weekly bike path walk with friends. DJ did 60 minutes of Psych1, and 60 minutes of Digital Design, in the afternoon.
Our World History, which I have adapted for both kids, has started with Africa. Yesterday, we did some reading, today we watched the video below. I have one learner that likes to listen, and one more visual. So, I have to mix it up for them both. The video was very interesting, I highly recommend it. Tomorrow we have our first Marine Ecology Team event, so no standard classes, or homework will be done.
Well we survived our last two weeks of a very busy Summer Vacation, and are ready to start the new school year in full. If you read my blog, then you know we had already started Math, and bits of other subjects. DJ, and I are also doing a Christmas choir, this year, and that has already started for practice too. So, yeah very busy. I wanted to make sure I mentioned our trip to Weeki Wachee Springs. Caitlin did not feel good that day, so it wasn't as much fun as it could have been. It really is a beautiful park, with plenty to keep you busy. The swim area is clean, and does have lifeguards. You can take a quick boat tour, watch the mermaid show, and there is an animal show. The one downfall, is even though it is a state park, and we have a state park pass that allows up to six people on our pass, they have their own yearly pass and would allow only two people in at no charge. So, we had to pay full price for three people, not cool in my mind. If you live near there, the year pass would definitely be worth it, but if you have a FL state park pass like us, not so much. Plus, the slides at Buccaneer Bay only run on weekends, again not real cool considering the price.
Since last year, first time ever, I lost my log book twice, I will be posting our daily logs here on the blog. They are boring, and not worth reading, but I have to have them. It may end up being a weekly post instead of daily.
We have our first Marine Ecology team practice this Wednesday. So, a field trip already, lol. 4H also started this past Saturday. A new group, and both kids happy with their new group.
Daily Log for September 19, 2016
DJ:
Chemistry: 60 minutes
Language Arts: 60 minutes
History: 60 minutes
Geometry: 60 minutes
Digital Media: 60 minutes
Psych 1: Still waiting
I do not log homework or study hours. I also do not log time spent for Caitlin, just generic what she does.
Caitlin:
Math, Science, History, Language Arts, Spanish and Bible
We started back to school for Math, and one other subject for each child, part time. For our last two weeks of our Summer Vacation, we have family visiting. MY FIL from NY, who loves the ocean, and my sister will be here next week. She will want to see my mom a lot, and hang out at springs if not flooded from Hermine.
Yesterday, we took FIL to Anastasia State Park, in St Augustine. This was our first visit to this park, but we frequent St Augustine public beach. This is on the Atlantic Ocean, and the waves were huge! We have been there in rough surf before, but wow! The boys were brave, and sore by the time we left, lol. Caitlin and I stayed in closer. There were rip current warnings, so no one went out too deep, and let me tell you if you have never felt a strong rip current pulling on you, it is something to feel.
Today, we went out to Cedar Key, which was just hit so hard by Hurricane Hermine last week. Of course there is a ton of cleaning up going on. It was surreal to see such a pretty little town with so much damage. Cedar Key is on the Gulf Coast of Florida. The last two images are from there. I didn't take any images of damaged homes or businesses, just so sad.
Tomorrow we are off to another FL state park, a spring this time. I will get pics up as soon as I can. Friday will be our quiet day, lol, Saturday clean and laundry for my sister to get here.
Well, Hurricane Hermine has come and gone from Florida, but the damage is immense. Where we are, damage was pretty minimal. Most people have power back in our county, and we never left power which I can not even believe. A puff of wind and our power usually goes out. However, I was outside trimming branches away from incoming power lines, and cleaning up before the storm was close. I noticed our neighbors doing the same. Maybe that is why our power stayed on, we were diligent. Of course you can't stop a tree, unless you just cut it down. It rained, hard, even before the storm got close, but there was really not much wind, or thunder and lightning. We have lived in FL for 11 years, and this was our first land falling hurricane experience. Cedar Key, which is about an hour from us was just inundated with water from storm surge. The Weather Channel predicted this storm surge days ahead of the storm, and were pretty much spot on. The pictures from there are devastating and sad. Cedar Key is just a lovely little fishing, and resort town in the big bend of Florida. Hermine beat it up pretty good. For a Cat 1, it was plenty scary. It really was not too bad until the eye started to get close to land. I mean within seconds weather went from not to bad, to frightening. We had no tornado warnings up until then, and and all of a sudden they were popping up everywhere around us, one after another. So scary! My husband is a firefighter so I could here all the activity, for our county, and it was something to hear. Our power did go in and out almost constantly during this time period, so we did have to turn off the air, for about 4 hours. I grew up with blizzards, so howling wind is not so scary, but losing power in the night time with howling wind, and not seeing what is going on outside your house, is plenty scary. I will probably never buy a generator, but I would recommend it if these things really frighten you. I was fully prepared to be without power for 3 days, thank goodness that did not happen. I think I slept one hour, and when I went out in the daylight we did have tree limbs everywhere, some of my plants look like someone took scissors to their leaves, and even some of my flowers had browned edges like they got wind burnt. Two pieces of older fence got broken up and had to be taken down. A gutter was torn off, but easily fixed. So, all in all we came out of it pretty good. But, what did I learn from all this?
1- If the authorities tell you to leave, leave. Thank goodness there were no deaths, in places that were evacuated, and I understand why people would stay for some reasons. But, when they say they are not going to come help you they mean it in this state.
2- Prepare for your pets, and elderly friends or loved ones. My mom is stubborn and won't leave her home, but I can help her be ready. She has been through several of these so she knows better than me what to do.
3- Even though we were prepared to be without power for days, I forgot to consider a battery powered radio for weather alerts. I do have walkie talkies that will do this, but I didn't think to dig them out and charge them. I won't make that mistake again, tornadoes in the dark are frightening.
4- Think about possibly renting a room for a couple of nights, ahead of time, and reserving just in case.
5- We were smart enough to have cash on hand, because ATM's don't work without power.
6- Talk to your children about how frightening it might get. We talk about a meeting place, and such. But, I was surprised how scared my 12 year old was. I was not prepared for that. Children, and adults all react to fear in different ways, be prepared for them to not do what you expect.
I do not want to do this again anytime soon, but at least we have an experience now to evaluate and improve. Note, the weather man said FL gets hit with a hurricane, typically, every other year. Good grief it had been 11 years, and I am not sure I like that stat, lol.
Now, that the hurricane has passed, mosquitoes will be everywhere. Zika is already in FL, but only in small amounts. The video below will explain how to prevent exposure to Zika. I am not a huge fan of bug spray, matter of fact I hate it, but even I bought a can of bug spray. Safe sex, and or abstaining, imo, are the best prevention methods for spreading it from human to human.
