Our Roxaboxen Adventures

We Love "American Girls"

 

This summer Alex read the "Addy"  series of the American Girls books....including the 5 or 6 additional mini books, and fell in love.

  We then took a family vacation to Philadelphia (setting of the books) and Alex was so thrilled to  be in the same location of her new favorite character. Given the book takes place right at the end of the Civil War, we weren't able to truly revisit the areas, but we were able to locate Society Hill which is Addy's home towards the end of the series. Unfortunately, all our summer pictures were lost, so I have nothing to share :(

Currently Alex is finishing up the Kaya series, and as a special surprise- we took her to a POW WOW this Saturday to really be a part of the Native American culture. Here in Virginia we have an array of tribes. We visited the Chickahominy. This is one of the early Virginian tribes that had contact with the English colonists in Jamestown. It was a wonderfully enriching experience.

This year Alex's teacher says their theme will be the "America's", so I'm really hoping to pull in all the American Girls books and make a full year of it. If anyone has any resources they'd like to share, please do email me.  Oh, we also attend an American Girls book club once a month at the local bookstore. There are about 8-10 girls who attend and bring their dolls. Alex does not have a doll and is saving up a quarter of the cost to purchase Addy.

Here are some pics from the Pow Wow..... when I get a moment, I'll add a link for one of the dancing/drumming videos.

 

 

 

 

 

 
 
 
 
 and here's my little one- who has been given the name "Bright Star"......an appropriate match, I think.

 

 

 

My little scientist

We've been going to the Science Museum more often lately. Once a month they have telescopes on the lawn and invite the community to come out and explore. Of course, those pictures were in the batch that were destroyed but we did go last Saturday to complete a lab on water quality.

  This week Alex has been doing self-initiated research on volcanoes. She's been writing facts from her many books and gave a "mini" dissertation the other day on the topic. She doesn't know that I have a volcanoe stashed under the bed that I plan to do with her this weekend, to celebrate all her efforts :)

 

 

First you choose a water sample container with non-living creatures.

 

Take out all the "creatures"

 


View them under the microscope, identify them by their characteristics & picture cards, then complete a chart that tells what type of water quality was in the sample based on which animals  live in it.

 

Take a picture proudly displaying new Jr. Ecologist button in front of the DNA model :)

Our lives continue

I hope theres's still someone out there in cyberspace stumbling upon this blog. I took the summer off from blogging to deal with my mother and enjoy being home with the children. Unfortunately, I lost ALL my summer photos when my computer was re-imaged, so there's not much to share except to say that we enjoyed each day to the fullest and am sad the summer has come to an end.

 

Alex has started back to Montessori school and is in first grade. She's still an avid reader, artist and budding scientist.  Jordan & Kennedy are back at grandma's although I haven't started setting up Jordan's Montessori shelf work, thinking I'll start in October. Right now she's enjoying stories, cooking and outdoor play with grandma. Kennedy has two baby teeth, is standing and I really think she'll be walking by 10 months.

 

Me, I'm back at work. I took on the extra responsibility of Special Ed. Dept Chair at my school, which has kept me plenty busy. This summer I began exercising and lost 20 pounds, I'm trying my best to continue but it is much more difficult to find the time.  I'm happy to be back blogging, I've missed this part of my life tremendously.