CCH Literature Fair

In November, our homeschool group hosted its first Literature Fair. We modeled ours after this one, based in Georgia, that I had read about it a few years ago on Homegrown Learners. It looked like something our kids would really enjoy doing, so over the summer a few friends and I adapted it to work for CCH and we saw the fair come to life one cold November night.

For the Literature Fair, students choose a book to read, a topic to research, then prepare a display. The night of the fair, they are interviewed about their book and research by a judge.

Rosemary chose to read Dolphin Tale, the Junior Novel and research prosthetics. Benjamin wanted to make a display about the Great Smoky Mountains, so he chose to read When I Was Young in the Mountains. Although that’s not technically set in the Smokies, he figured that the Appalachians in West Virginia were close enough.

Sixteen very enthusiastic Literature Fair participants

Our exceptional judges, and some of my very favorite people

A few of the families. We hosted the fair at night to allow families to attend all together. It was great that so many dads were able to be there.

And a few of the displays by the kids:

Ben was very proud of his display. He painted the entire background of his board on his own and helped to make the cornbread. He also carefully built his log cabin out of his Lincoln Logs.

Rosemary worked very hard on her project, too. While she didn’t receive a ribbon, it was still a really great learning experience (for her and for me). As a result of this experience, Rosemary got to meet Kevin Carroll, one of the prosthetists who worked with Winter to create her tail. That was one of the highlights of our entire year, let alone this project.

Kevin Carroll, Rosemary and Ben (thanks, Kyra, for making this happen!)

Denise did such an amazing job with the refreshments. They were delicious and such a nice touch. I just wish I had a better picture!

To wrap up the night, the kids were presented with certificates and the top three in each age level (except K-1st) received ribbons.

K-1st graders

2nd-3rd graders

4th-5th graders

6th-9th graders

It was a lot of work to make this happen this first year, but we are so excited about doing in again in 2015. It really provided us with an opportunity to dig deeper into a book and learn something new.

Washington, DC & The Great Smoky Mountains–Day 6-Laurel Falls Hike

On Friday, we got up, ate some breakfast, and got ready for our day. Getting ready was certainly more interesting on this camping trip than on others that we’ve taken. One of my requirements for camping is that where we are staying must have flush toilets and hot showers. Elkmont has flush toilets. No showers. So…to make this work, I was able to shower in the Roadtrek. It was an exciting experience, and I ended up clean every morning.

So, after getting ready, we made our way to Laurel Falls to hike.

Charlotte was my hiking buddy. She made it up the entire trail on her own two little legs.

A view of the Smokies from the trail.

We made it to Laurel Falls!

Ian and Charlotte walked part of the way down like this. It started raining near the end of the trail. I don’t think we can go camping where it at least doesn’t rain a few drops.

Enjoying the campfire.

Washington, DC & The Great Smoky Mountains–Day 5-Great Smoky Mountains & Jonathan’s Birthday

We were up and out early from Jason’s and heading to Tennessee for a few days of camping at Elkmont in the Great Smoky Mountains with Jonathan’s parents and his sister’s family.

We were the last to arrive (it took awhile to drive across Virginia), but the kids wasted no time joining their cousins in the stream just down from Richard and Janice’s campground.

This spot afforded many-a-hour of adventure and fun.

Our set=up around the campfire at Janice and Richard’s site. We did all the cooking and hanging out over here. Our campsite and the Harris’ site was across the street, away from the stream.

Janice made dinner for us our first night.

Rosemary was so excited to hold babies. Charlotte was, too.

It was Jonathan’s birthday, so we celebrated with cake. We’d had cake with Jason and Nikki the night before, too.

Ben & Ian

Opening presents.

Washington, DC & The Great Smoky Mountains–Day 4-Udvar-Hazy National Air and Space Museum

After our full day of sightseeing on Tuesday, we got off to a bit of a slower start on Wednesday. Before we headed out, Jonathan noticed something was wrong with one of our tires. We decided to take care of it when we got back from our morning at the museum since we didn’t have anything planned for the afternoon.

We arrived at the Udvar-Hazy shortly after it opened.

Ben was very excited about this museum, too. One of the first planes he saw looked just like Skipper, from Disney’s Planes.

The main reason we wanted to visit the Udvar-Hazy was to see the Discovery. We saw Atlantis earlier in the year at KSC.

The Udvar-Hazy has an area dedicated to restoration, but Discovery was kept in its original condition, showing all the work that it did over the years and on its many trips in orbit.

We did a walking tour with one of the docents. It was really very interesting, at least for me and Jonathan. The kids made it most of the way through.

The kids and I ducked away from the tour and headed over to the kids story and craft time.

We saw a Concord.

The Enola Gay

Perhaps the biggest highlight, was seeing the SR-71 Blackbird. It’s literally “faster than a speeding bullet.”

Before heading out, we headed up the elevator to the observation tower.

The Udvar-Hazy is beside Dulles Airport, so we got to see a few planes land and take off.

Then we headed back to Jason and Nikki’s.

Once we got back, Jonathan dropped the kids and me off and went to have our tire taken care of. It ended up being both worse and better than we thought. Before we left on our trip, we’d had some work done on the van. As it turned out, the work hadn’t actually been done, and one of our tires had been worn clear through the tread to expose the metal. Thankfully, there was a sister-store in Virginia and all of the work was done and our tire was replaced at no charge. We were so thankful that we had been kept safe while driving so much over the past few days. It really could have been tragic.

With the car taken care of, we just needed to wash some laundry, visit some more with my brother and his family, then pack up to head on to our next stop.