Great Day

Tomorrow is going to be a great day!  I am extra excited!

We will get up and do our Bible time as a family and do our Math lesson for the day.  Then, I hope to have time for Emily to finish writing her short essay on Jamestown.  She is learning how to make a key word outline using a pre-written paragraph and turn it into her own words.  This is something I really struggled with in college when writing papers....learning how to take an idea and make it my own without copying!  I also hope to do John Daniel's grammar and english lesson.

Then we will go meet with our monthly book club group to discuss the book Harriet Beecher Stowe and the Beecher Preachers.  Our book club is doing biographies this year and this was a very interesting one.  We just visited a working 1850's town so the kids had a visual timeframe in their minds when reading this book.  I told them that Harriet Beecher Stowe though lived in the North and her home looked much different than the homes in GA in 1850.  They both will do an oral presentation.  John Daniel has drawn a picture of Abe Lincoln and Harriet Beecher Stowe together in his office from when Mrs. Stowe met with the President.  Emily did a more formal book report. 

The book was a little bit strange in the beginning...I could go into it but it had all kinds of new issues in it like water treaments, suidcide, women's rights, ministerial conflict, etc.  It was a little dry but became more interesting later on in my opinion.  I really liked reading about the time where she wrote Uncle Tom's Cabin (which I have on hold at the library now to read myself) and how she felt about the leadership of Abraham Lincoln.  I loved how she called President Lincoln up to meet with him and make sure he was planning on signing the Emancipation Proclamation....President Lincoln said, "So here is the little woman that started this big war!"  Later, Mrs. Stowe's children laughed at President Lincoln's way of speaking and his "country-ness."  I really enjoyed learning more and I feel a little smarter for reading it!

After our book club meeting, we usually all stay and eat lunch....all 16 kids ages 2-13!  Tomorrow we are going to eat and do a little science demo about smooth muscle.  We started learning this week about the muscular system and how the smooth muscle moves food through our intestines.  We will use a ball of clay (food) and a nylon stocking (the smoth muscles of the intestines) to demonstrate what goes on inside of our bodies as we eat....the kids will mold and push the food through the stocking to see how this works! 

After lunch, we will rest and then go up to the Florida Historic Capitol to participate in the Constitution Day Celebration.  The James Madision Institute in celebration of the 224th anniversary of the signing of the United States Constitution is featuring reenactments portraying some of the leading voices in American and Florida History.  There will be a Benjamin Franklin, Patrick Henry, James and Dolley Madison reenactment demos and a reenactment of the Lincoln-Douglas Debate. The performances are all about 20 minutes long.  We look forward to seeing and hearing them....John and I just finished watching a series called John Adams on Netflix and since we are doing American History with the kids...this fits right in.  Since visiting Washington DC, the kids remember names, buildings, time periods in relation to what they saw and heard in DC...it is neat to see their eyes light up when they remember something....They saw the original Declaration of Independence and US Constitution up close and personal in the National Archives so this is super cool to me! ....and them!  We are loving American History! 

That is our day....

John got asked to go shooting tomorrow with some friends at a gun range...but he texted the guy back, "Can't go...why you ask?  Because us homeschoolers are going to the Capitol to participate in The Constitution Day Celebration and hear Ben Franklin Speak...."  He's so nerdy!