Watching Documentaries...

We love to use documentaries as supplements for our homeschool. Here's two documentaries that we have viewed lately. Both are on Netflix.

All In This Tea This is a interesting documentary about tea farming and buying in China. Beautiful scenery and we learned quiet a bit about tea. Of course we were sipping our favorite tea during the show. Iced Peppermint Green Tea.

To Market To Market To Buy A Fat Pig Let's get in the mood for the farmer's market!

 A great documentary showcasing  different farmer's markets around the United States. I can't wait for summer!

I'm a little sad about the farmers market in our downtown area. They built a new, metal barn-ish building and tore down the wonderful old brick market. I was so upset by it.... just because my grandparents shopped there, my mom took me as a little girl and I took all three of my kids there. It was old and wonderful.

Now it's new and just okay... in my opinion.

We usually shop at our neighborhood farmers market called the Allen Street market it's an open air market set up in a parking lot once a week. We help promote the market with a yard sign in our yard. I love to visit this market and help support the local farmers and feeding my family some good food!

The old City Market...sigh.

A Little Change and Summer Homeschool Learning

I've decided to sign Noah up at Time4Learning a secular online curriculum to help supplement our homeschooling. It's very reasonably priced just $19.95 a month and you can cancel anytime you'd like.
Just like everything else in our lives, we'll use what works and leave the rest.
Noah loves using the computer so maybe this online curriculum will be a good way to learn certain subjects like math and language arts. There are quizzes at the end of each lesson which I think would be good for him.
We'll still be using his interest led subjects for social studies and such. But it happens to have many of Noah's favorite subject for the fifth grade level in social studies... such as the Civil War.
Another cool thing about Time4Learning is that when you sign up, you assign a grade level such as 5th grade to your child but you also have access to all of the 4th and 6th grade curriculum too. We'll just have to see how this works out for us.

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This summer we are learning about an area in Michigan called Mackinac/Mackinaw and the Ojibwe and French voyagers that inhabited the area. (both of Noah's ancestors) We'll be visiting Mackinac in September on our vacation. Can't wait!

We are reading some really great books from the library.

Lore of the Great Turtle / Indian Legends of Mackinac Retold

and

Were~Wolves and Will~O~The~Wisps/ French Tales of Mackinac Retold

also Mystery of the Copper Turtle and Trouble at Fort La Pointe (which at the time I ordered it, I didn't realize it was an American Girl story but it is prefect for our studies. It's about an Ojibwe/French girl. Noah said he didn't mind this one time and one time only! :)
We have been studying the Ojibwe language for some time now and have learned many words. We use them all the time around the house. "Gi zah gin, Mom!" " Gi zah gin, Noah!"/I love you...

Now we are learning a little French to go along with our heritage. Oui!
Many French voyagers took Ojibwe women for their wives. The children of Ojibwe/French are called Metis (May-tee.) Noah is a Metis in a way, only he has an Ojibwe father and a French mother;)
Next week Noah is off to Revolutionary War camp... he's just a little excited!

Summer Plans...

We always start our summer with the Riverbank Pow Wow and the summer solstice. It's such a amazing event to start the summer... after that we just know it's late evenings of swinging on the porch... catching fireflies... roasting marshmallows... swimming... hiking....gardening and all the other great summery stuff!

We have a few camping trips planned. One with friends and the other just us. Yes, I know we just bought this tent last summer. But we've got our eye on a different one from Coleman that sets up in less than a minute... if you can believe that! Our tent from last year had a few problems last time we camped, like caving in! But I'm sure if we used more a few more anchor ropes we'd be okay... My husband is the one not lovin the tent. I'm still into it.

Noah has a few camps to attend this summer all at the Turner Dodge House. His first camp is Revolutionary War Camp, then Harry Potter (for the 4th year) and last but not least Civil War Camp (for the 3rd year.)

Of course we'll be going to the Civil War Muster in Jackson, MI and a few small field trips: letterboxing hunts and some other historical places. Speaking of historical places we are planning on a trip to Gettysburg for our fall birthday trip, which may have to be in Sept. not Oct. when our birthday really is. But that's okay. Oh yes, we'll be staying a whole week with a day trip to Washington DC to visit a few of the Smithsonian Museums. I'm so excited for that!

As for homeschool plans: Noah and I are learning to speak Ojibwa... at least I'm are trying. We've just started with these wonderful language Cd's I found through the library. Noah can now say: Hello, Are you Anishinaabe?, No, Yes, and thank you. He's much better at this than I am.... I guess my brain is a little slow these days.

We'll still be hanging out with our homeschool friends at park days each week. Towards the end of summer we'll be brushing up on our Civil War history... getting ready for our trip. Also I'm gathering up lesson plans for some fall classes I'm teaching the homeschoolers. Michigan's Native People and Letterboxing.

You know, this is almost the same as last summer's plans. Hmmm.....

Have you made any plans for summer yet? Hope you have a wonderful, relaxing summer ahead!

Fort: Homestead

Noah and his friend Ian playing Revolutionary War 1775.

Guarding the fort.

Who goes there?

HOLD IT, RIGHT THERE!!!

Time for lunch!

Just wanted to share this.

The History Channel is giving schools and homeschools a free DVD of the upcoming series AMERICA The History of Us.

Here's the link to get your free DVD. It's was really easy to fill out the request form, check it out!

Free DVD request form