S.T.A.A.R. Testing or The stars at night, are big and bright...

(clap, clap, clap, clap)

Deep in the Heart of Texas!

After a long day at the baseball park, the kids convinced us that a picnic on the patio and some night swimming was in order. While the kids played in the pool, I stretched out in the cool grass and tried my best to capture how bright and beautiful Venus was in the westward sky tonight. Of course the photo doesn't begin to do it justice. It was amazing! We are definitely adding a good telescope to our ever-growing wish list for our new classroom. While I'm adding to the list, I'll go ahead and pencil in a new zoom lens for the camera. I am forever shooting stars and never getting the images I really want...so frustrating. You'll just have to take my word for it, it was AWESOME!

After getting the kids to bed, I grabbed a blanket and headed back outside to claim a spot for the Lyrid Meteor Shower. I really wanted the kids to catch some of the action, but it was getting late and they were quickly losing interest. I couldn't even get Coach excited about it. He saw two shooting stars and called it a night. Not me, I curled up in the lounge chair and stayed outside until I couldn't hold my eyes open any longer. It was so cool! At times, the sky was so busy that I couldn't decide which way to look! I didn't even try to get any photos. I miss a lot of good stuff when I'm behind the camera. Tonight I just wanted to relax and take it all in.

Next week, we'll be concentrating on a different type of star. The kids will be taking the State of Texas Assessment of Academic Readiness, otherwise known as the dreaded STAAR test. Don't even get me started on the many reasons that I think this test is ridiculous. I'm not completely against standardized testing, but I am totally opposed to throwing the fundamentals out the window in order to spend the entire school year teaching to one particular test. I have preached on this subject ad nauseam and I'm just over it. I have promised my kids that this time next year we will indeed be taking a star test, only ours will involve actual stars, maybe a cool field trip to the planetarium and some late night sky gazing.

Museum of Nature and Science - Dallas, Texas

Planet Shark Exhibition at the Nature and Science Museum - Dallas, Texas

Happy Friday!

I had good intentions of sharing all the cool details from our recent field trip to The Nature and Science Museum, but it's going to have to wait. Today is the beginning of an insanely busy weekend, and an even more crazy week to follow. I want to cry when I look at our schedule for the next few days, but I don't have time! Football, baseball, softball, scouts, birthdays, testing, photo shoots, field trips...help me, Rhonda! I need a vacation. Yeah, I know I just got back from vacation, but I need another one. Don't judge me.

I'm sorry I don't have time to give you the lowdown on the Planet Shark Exhibition, but all you really need to know is that it was awesome and you should check if out if you're into that sort of thing.

http://dallasmuseumnatureandscience.org/sharks/ 



I'll be back with more info and photos from the museum trip when I actually have time to put a clear thought together. I hope you all have a wonderful weekend!

Megalodon teeth estimated to be between 2 to 25 million years old

Fossilized teeth of the extinct Giant White Shark ~ 60 million years old

26,000 - The number of teeth a shark sheds in it's lifetime

Lots of teeth!!!

Mako Shark and Tuna frozen at a chilly -4F

Learning all about shark skin and teeth

New things to explore around every corner

Beautiful Rain and Scheduling Decisions

Life is not about waiting for the storm to pass, it's about learning to dance in the rain.

I'm so thankful that we didn't get any of the severe weather that was predicted to head our way today. You just never know what's going to pop up during a spring storm in East Texas! Luckily, we were blessed with a peaceful Sunday and a nice steady rain. Our beautiful lakes and rivers are on the rise, the grass and trees seem greener than ever, our little garden is putting on a show and the smell of sweet jasmine hangs heavy in the air. I know this bliss is fleeting, so I hope to savor every moment. Before long, we will be driven back inside by mosquitoes the size of hawks and temperatures hotter than the hinges of the devil's door, but for now we intend to enjoy every moment of wonderful we can get.

After considering the brutal summer we are sure to have, we've made a decision regarding our homeschooling schedule. We have decided to try year-round schooling, which sounds a lot more intense than it actually is. We won't be adding additional days to our school year, we'll simply be incorperating more frequent, but shorter, breaks. Instead of taking off three straight months in the summer, we'll distribute those weeks throughout the year. So when the temperature soars, we can take refuge indoors and handle a lot of school business. When the weather is too beautiful to be stuck inside, we can take more time to relax, play, explore and enjoy our more beautiful seasons.

Another factor in our decision, is that children lose a lot of important information over the summer and must spend the beginning of each new school year reviewing the previous year's work. By arranging our schedule to include several short breaks, instead of one long vacation, I hope to strengthen the kids' retention and avoid wasting a lot of precious time in review.

I'm still new to all of this, so it's very possible that in the future I may look back on all of these early ideas and have a good laugh at myself for thinking I have it all figured out! But for now, it all makes sense to me, so it's full steam ahead! Fingers crossed.

Grayton Beach State Park

Migrating dunes at Grayton Beach State Park

On a recent trip down Florida's Scenic 30A, we stopped to enjoy a hike along the Barrier Dunes Nature Trail and through the coastal forest around Western Lake at Grayton Beach State Park. Consistantly ranked as one of the most beautiful beaches in the world, Grayton Beach offers an abundance of opportunities for relaxation and exploration. Our hour long nature hike definitely did not disappoint.

 

 

 

We started out the day with a picnic of spicy boiled shrimp on the sugar soft banks of beautiful Western Lake. While eating, we enjoyed watching the stand up paddle boarders cruise the lake and immediately decided to add paddle boarding to our ever-growing wish list of things to do next time we're in the area.

Entering the tree tunnel on the Barrier Dunes Trail

Western Lake is brackish (salt and fresh water) and is a rare coastal dune lake. True coastal dune lakes are only found in two places in the world, South Africa and Walton County Florida. Now we can say we've dipped our toes in one of them. Maybe one of these days we'll set out to find the other one. What a field trip that will be!

Exploring Western Lake

During our walk along the lake, we came upon a salt marsh ecosystem teeming with activity. Among all the plants and grasses, we discovered many different fish, tadpoles in various stages and hundreds of baby crabs burrowed in the sand. It was a really cool observation area, the kids could have stayed in that one spot all day!

Salt marsh crab nursery

My favorite things along the trail were the gnarled, sea spray covered trees. They've been naturally bent and twisted over the years to form a really cool tunnel over part of the trail. We had a blast climbing and exploring the "tree cave" and of course I had to prove to my kids that even moms can climb trees!

After we completed our hike, we spent some time on the beach, playing frisbee and watching the pelicans dive for their dinner. There was a storm moving in, so everyone else had packed up and left for the day. It was so nice to have the beach all to ourselves...so peaceful.

We really enjoyed our day at Grayton Beach State Park and are looking forward to going back to explore more (and go paddle boarding, of course) the next time we're in the area.