The Dean Homestead

Sissy made her first basket today. She is very happy with how it turned out. She thought that she was going to make a small basket and was thrilled when she found out how big it was going to be. Here is a picture:



She is planning on using it for a lunch basket when we go to events and on field trips.

We took a field trip to the Thaddeus Stevens Blacksmith Shop museum at Caledonia State Park. It was a really short stay at the museum since it is just one room.



Then the children enjoyed the rest of their trip at the playground. I love field trips. :)

Sissy started martial arts and she loves it. I am counting the class as her gym or physical education class. She has taken gymnastics and tennis and now we are on to this. The program is for a year with her earning a green belt when she is finished. She goes two or three times a week and has to practice while she is at home.

We took the summer off last year and that was a mistake. I had heard that the first several months were to review the last years work that was forgotten over the summer. I can now attest to it.

This year we took a week or so off and then jumped right in with 4th grade. No memory laps this time round. Also, we are back to 4 day school weeks. This helps out especially since we take a lot of time off to visit and spend time with family. It gives us a more relaxed school year, no rushing around trying to cram in school days.

I also divided her notebook differently this year. Everything is arranged by week instead of by subject. For example, all of the papers that she needed were right there with her week one assignment sheet. This took considerable time for me to prepare but made the school day go very smoothly.

Sissy likes to do her work in the order that it is given on her assignment sheet. I arranged her subjects so that she has her least favorite subjects, the ones that she struggles with, first and ending with her favorite. This years subjects, in order, are: Language Arts, Spelling & Penmanship, Creative Writing (she actually loves this but it goes well with the other in this order), Reading Comprehension, Social Studies, History, Science, Math and then Health & Safety, Arts & Crafts and Music alternating from day to day.

We have been working with this schedule for several weeks now and it is going very well. The only struggle that we have had so far comes when there are other children playing outside and Sissy has school work to do. Other than that, I am very excited about this school year!

This morning Sissy made her first quilted square. The quilting workshop was very nice and there was even a young boy in the class. They each had the opportunity to make a quilt square, complete with batting and a back.

She says that she enjoyed working with the leather more. In that workshop each child made a leather pouch and a bracelet. The girls also figured out that they could make earrings with the embellishments that were available to decorate their pouches.

These activities are so much fun and are a great way to make new friends. I will have to get supplies so that the children can make more of these crafts at home.

Sissy participated in a heritage workshop class today. She made tin cookie cutters. This was very cool for her and for me. I really don't know who had more fun.... and all I got to do is watch.

She worked with a partner and they made 8 cookie cutters in 3 hours. I was very impressed. She brought home 4 cutters; a hart, diamond, apple and a free form square. The first three she made using the "pin and post method". It is amazing what you can do in a short time when you have the proper tools!

Curly has been practicing her paper cutting. This is a special project that she can only do at the table, with supervision, during quiet time. She has some special scissors that she uses for the exercise. The scissors are for embroidery and are very sharp and pointed. She is so excited because they are her scissors that she keeps in her sewing box along with the "special" paper that I gave her.

Wow! We has quit a time at Landis Valley. They held a Victorian themed homeschool day. I am not sure who had a better time, me or the children.

There was so much to see and do that I will not even try to cover it all. I can tell you that we will be going back again whenever we can afford to. The admission isn't bad, just the driving. The living history museum is over and hour and a half northeast of us.

There were plenty of activities for the children. All of them were geared for the school aged child but they were also great for the little ones. Sissy had more hands-on activities than she could possibly do. There was a real school day with a school master, a house set up for parlor games and outside play, a sewing activity and here she is grinding corn.



Landis Valley is a living museum village. They have a shop set up for everything that a Colonial village would need. We visited them all. There was a leather shop, print shop, general store, tavern, school, blacksmith shop, a hotel, log farm (including house, barn and out buildings), fire house, several buildings set up as museum display areas and quit a few other houses and buildings that had been moved there from other locations around the state. I do believe that they were all historical houses rescued from being demolished.

There were alot of people dressed in period clothes, demonstrating activities in the building that I listed above. The fellows in the tavern were baking and displaying period foods, the school master was giving lessons and the blacksmith was banging away with his hammer. One of my favorites was the general store. I only wish that they had things for sale in there instead of just for display.

One of the neatest demonstrations was hand shearing of sheep.



Very, very cool! Here is a link to their website:
www.landisvalleymuseum.org

Sissy had her first day back to school today. She did very well. She is in the third grade this year and very excited.

We practiced getting up early all last week. This morning we were both ready to start our first day back to school. To get our brains rolling right off the bat, she took a spelling test. 85% (30/35) isn't bad for a review of some of last years words.

Then we jumped right in with a timed math page. She has 3 minuets to correctly complete a worksheet. She can try up to 12 times (no more than once a day) to get it. I started her off with 5 minutes and she finished more than half.

Other than that, we worked on reading, language arts, writing, Bible and Pa geography. She says that she liked all of her subjects today and doesn’t know which to choose as her favorite.

Well, it's back to school time again. We had taken the summer off for a change. It was nice to get the vacation from our usual 'year round classes'. We still made occasions of learning, just didn't have the enfaces on written or book work.

We have, or should I say, I have been gathering school supplies for the last month or so and writing out the curriculum for this year. I went over the basic goals with Sissy and she understands what we are going to be doing.

I think that she is more excited about Curly's school day than her own. Last spring, Curly couldn't stay out of Sissy's school books. She wanted to do school too. So this year she will. At three years old, it wouldn't be mandatory. I have gathered crayons and workbooks (coloring books) especially for our pre-preschool days.