Week 34 - Florida Bound and We don't want to leave!!

On our way down, we marked 3 more new states on our map.  We went through South Carolina and Georgia.  We had just learned about them in our state study.   And of course, none of the kids had been to Florida yet!

We were very fortunate to meet up with one of the kiddos that play on the Homeschool with Minecraft server with the kids!!  We met them in St. Augustine and explored a little of the history of the Spanish colony there, before we finished our trip to Fort Lauderdale.

It was great to spend the day with this wonderful family!!

We were very fortunate to get a hotel room overlooking the beach!!!  So our first week down here, I decided to do school 3 days and partial loads, because we were all enjoying the sunshine and ocean.  The hotel also has a heated pool.  It was chilly with the wind, but the ocean has been warm and we have been enjoying playing in the surf.

We have been eating our breakfast and lunch on the balcony.

 Enjoying the beach.

Lydia doing her reading.

We played games like Scrambled States of America and Uno of course.

Lydia and I played Tri-FACT-A  - Multiplication and Division Game.

Even Brayden is out on the beach.  He normally hates it.  He is on the hunt for the coolest shells.  He still won't get in the water though.

Playing UNO with Daddy.

We got Ice Cream after we went to a local nature center in Hollywood, FL.

Schoolwork is best done on the balcony also!

They live such a troubled life!

Caty worked on division in her math this week.  We used a combination of her Saxon workbook and also CTCmath.com for practice.  I forgot our math manipulatives, so CTC was helpful in allowing her to divide out the problems easier.  She also learned more about reading a map at the zoo or amusement park.

Joey and Brayden kept chugging along in their normal work.  They finished up and enjoyed the lighter workload this week.

Lydia worked on division with remainders and was very proud of herself when it clicked almost immediately!!

The girls and I learned about farm habitats this week in our Sassafrass Twins adventures.  We didn't do any experiments this week.  The suggested experiments were things we had done before, and to be honest.....we wanted to be in the sand.  I figured we learned more about the Everglades habitats this week too.  So we were learning a lot.

One day we went to the Anne Kolbe Nature Center.  We were learning more about the Everglades and we were hoping to see some manatees.  But it was too chilly.  We did get to see mangrove crabs and also heard snapping shrimp on our walk.  It was very neat.  We didn't get to see any manatees, it was a bit chilly that day.  But we are still hoping to see some in the wild on our adventures!

A homeschool friend shared with me about Homeschool Days at LEGOland in Winterhaven.  It was quite a drive for me, but so worth it.  I got tickets for all 5 of us for $80.00!!!  So it was well worth it.

We went to a science museum in Fort Lauderdale and were horribly disappointed in it.  We saved it for when we picked Daddy up from work.  It was just a disappointing experience.  They charge an outrageous price for what you see.  I was hoping for an Everglades experience before we went on the airboat ride, but we didn't get that.  Their "Airboat Adventure" was nothing more than a video with an airboat that jerked us around while watching a video.  On Saturday we went on an airboat ride and it was nothing like that ride at the Museum.

I will post more about our adventures we had this next week.  We are making plans for this next week and plan to meet another friend that lives near here!!  We are super excited!

Hope everyone had a great week!

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