Rice Plantation Field Trip

We went on a field trip today with our homeschool group to the Hofwyl-Broadfield Rice Plantation in Darien, GA.

This is Gabriel and Silas in the museum. Gabriel thought the rice hook was cool, although I'm wondering if he was planning to use it as a weapon on his little brother.

This man is from Sierra Leone. Because this is Black History Month, and most of the slaves who worked this plantation over 150 years ago were from Sierra Leone and other West African countries, they brought him in to speak. He taught the children a game called "I have a dog." It is very similar to our "Duck, duck, goose."

Here you can see Gabriel (in the blue jacket) arriving back at his spot just a little too late!

I wish I could remember his name, but the Man from Sierra Leone also did some storytelling and got the whole group invovled, even the little ones! That's Silas in the green shirt and his little friend Gabriel behind him.

While we were eating our lunch, the kids had a good time climbing on this cut off tree stump. There were many living trees with trunks this large. I love our southern live oaks!

This is Naomi standing on what we were told was an old sundial. It was located directly in front of the main house on the plantation.

Here are Naomi and Gabriel standing on the overlook at the marshes. This area used to be the rice fields, but has now turned into marshland. For those unfamiliar with marshes, it may look like a field of tall grass, but you would sink up to your waist in oozy, black mud and water if you tried to walk in it. These marshes are all over southeast Georgia.

Here are myself and the kids standing at the trunk of one of the massive live oak trees at the plantation. It was a beautiful day, although somewhat cold. Overall, I think we had a pretty good day. We learned a little, had fun with friends, got some exercise out in the sunshine, and enjoyed ourselves.

I'm really going to try to keep up with this.

Well, here I am again. I'm really gonna try to get into this, I think. Maybe. Like I said, I'm gonna try. We're still praying for the house to sell, and eventually my folks here in Georgia and our friends might want to keep up with us. So I need to get in the habit, right? And post pictures.

I'm so much faster at typing than writing. This should be the spot I come to when I say, "Ooh, that was so cute what that kid just did. I need to write it down so I don't forget." But I always do forget, because I don't write it down.

So, I'm gonna try.

State of the Family

Hello! Welcome to my first blog post! I probably should have been doing this for years. I hate that I've not written down so much of my life. And, my counselor always said it would be good for me to journal. =)

So, the current state of the Starr family is basically limbo. Tom has gone up to Virginia, where the Navy sent him. We are planning to join him, but we must sell our home in Georgia first. Unfortunately, we just can't afford to pay rent up there and the mortgage down here.

We are still a homeschooling family. There are days I wonder about my sanity, but I really do believe it's the best thing for our family right now. Of course, we struggle some days, but other days are great, and I love, love, love the flexibility it provides for us. We can vacation when others are in school and things aren't as crowded. We can visit the zoo during the day when we want to study animals. The children can learn at their own pace, taking more time on things that trouble them and moving ahead on things they understand.

Naomi is currently in 4th grade and Gabriel is in 2nd. Silas is 2.5 years old and drives us crazy most of the day. Besides their individual math, reading skills, grammar, and writing, we are studying world history together. We've been doing this for close to 2 years and are nearing the end of our world history adventure. In January 2009, we will begin studying American History, and we're truly looking forward to all the field trip opportunities that will be available to us in Virginia!!!

We also are studying science together. We've been learning about all the things God created during the beginning of the world. We're working on Day 5 right now and have just finished a study on fish. Last week we began studying birds and had a nice trip to the zoo.

Well, speaking of school, I need to go right now and finish up some things with the kids, so this "State of the Family" report will be continued in my next post.