Chag Sameach Passover!

Making Guatemalan Charoset

March - the month of plague

March has been somewhat of a bust for us with school work. I spent 3 weeks battling a sinus infection off & on. Then Niles & I both had the 24 hour tummy bug. We did some work, but certainly not enough so things slowed down a bit. Thank goodness for co-op & religious school, it kept us in somewhat of a routine at least.

Niles did get a chance to go to the Bentonville Civil War battle re-enactment with our friends. [I had to work that day.] And he really enjoyed that. They got to see the cannon line, the soldiers, etc. Niles enjoys just about any activity involving soldiers. I really need to investigate that civil war camp again for him. Ben is not old enough to go though, so it might have to wait til next year. I'm not sure he'd want to go by himself. Plus I signed him up for 2 weeks at the local JCC camp and about had to take out a mortgage so that all 3 boys could go. Craziness. Anyhow, that's why things have been quieter here.

Old Salem

Ballistics Class photos by Niles

Flat Stanley goes home. Here is the letter we sent back w/him

February 22, 2010

Dear Miss D--- and class,

Thank you so much for letting Flat Stanley come to visit us in Knightdale North Carolina! Knightdale is a small city, right outside the capital of Raleigh. Our town was founded in 1927. There are approximately 10, 322 citizens living in Knightdale. Our city is 733 miles away from yours, which is about 13 hours if Flat Stanley had to drive it.

We had quite an adventure while he was here. Normally winters in North Carolina are pretty mild compared to what you are used too. Our temperatures can average in the 50’s during the day and drop to around 32 degrees at night. But while Stanley was here, we got several inches of snow! Luckily, we were able to find some winter clothes and a toboggan for him to use for some sledding fun. Did you know that here in North Carolina, they call a winter hat a toboggan? This caused us some confusion when we first moved here from Michigan because we couldn’t figure out how you’d put a large wooden sled on your head! We’ve included a picture of him enjoying the snow. We’re also sending his snow gear and toboggan back with him, in case he needs it on his next adventure!

Flat Stanley came to our homeschool co-ops and we’ve included a picture of him next to a poster with the Pledge of Allegiance on it. We say that every time we meet for our Kindergarten group. We learned about Helen Keller recently while talking about how everyone is different and unique. Do you know who she is? If you don’t, maybe your teacher can read you a book about her life. When she was little, she got very sick and couldn’t see or hear. She had a special teacher come live with her because she couldn’t go to school like other kids her age. Because of her life, many schools were founded in order to educate people who were also blind and/or deaf. We were able to go visit a museum exhibit about the School for the Blind and Deaf in North Carolina at the State Capital Building in Raleigh. The most surprising thing we saw was pictures of the children playing music! They have music, printed a special way, for the children to be able to read it. This is called Braille & you read it with your fingertips! We were able to use a tool to write Flat Stanley’s name in Braille for you to be able to touch.

While at the Capital, we also toured the rest of the building. We took some pictures of Flat Stanley visiting the Senate and House Chambers that have been restored. There are also many monuments around the grounds of the building. Flat Stanley enjoyed seeing them and we’ve included some pictures of him by the Presidential monument and the Confederate Memorial. North Carolina was part of the Confederacy during the Civil War, while Massachusetts was part of the Union Army. We sent you a picture of what the Confederate soldier uniforms look like too.

I hope you enjoy all the pictures and information we sent. Thank you for sharing Flat Stanley with us!

Owl Pellet dissection

Visiting Flat Stanley

We have a visiting Flat Stanley here from a friend of ours. Stanley is getting to enjoy the rare & elusive snow storm in North Carolina! Here he is enjoying sledding. Did you know that the type of sled he is riding is called a toboggan? But here in North Carolina, the hat that he & Luca are wearing is called a toboggan & the sled is just a sled. Us relocated Yankees think that's just not right!