Kids' show and tell displays

Tucker's stuff, minus his coin collection. 

Books Tucker has been reading. 

Savannah's display.

Carson's stuff.

Painting by Tucker, from a Bob Ross episode.

The Creek

Carson took these pictures during the recent walk to the creek

The lean-to the kids put together

the bridge

Homeschool Testing

Every state has different laws regarding homeschooling. Virginia requires homeschooled students to take a standardized test at the end of the school year to prove progress. We ordered ours online and they came in the mail. The boys will complete their tests next week and I'll mail the answer sheets back to the testing company and they send us a complete score. Then I send the scores to the Home Instruction Office here. Savannah has a different test called the Terranova, since the CAT isn't offered for 1st grade. 

Bob Ross painting class

The kids have done two Bob Ross 'classes' so far. We have this craft table in the basement, so the kids watched a Bob Ross episode and painted along with him. 

Hidden Oaks Nature Center

We go to the Nature Center (about 5 minutes away) every week. Carson is working on his Reptile Merit Badge, and one of the requirements is to observe a reptile once a week for 3 months. 

It has all kinds of hands-on exhibits about local nature and animals

there's a box turtle, 3 snakes, and 3 other turtles

Savannah's at the 'what's that sound' button station, where she can push a button and hear the sounds/calls of different birds and insects and animals

Carson is observing the corn snake in the bottom cage.

snapping turtle

They have trails around the nature center and an outdoor play discovery area for kids to dig in the sand, along with a frog pond. They have lots of programs/classes here through the county

Museum of Natural History

We went to the Museum of Natural History again, and this time we walked through the entire museum and saw it all. There were lots of school groups there, it was very busy. 

We first looked at the ocean exhibit and looked at fossils

Great White Shark teeth

There is a human origins exhibit that is very large and tries very hard to prove that we were once apes and used to walk on all fours, until we evolved to walk upright, among other things. The kids and I wondered about these things and compared them to the knowledge we've found in the scriptures. We are happy with what we know from the scriptures.

This is more of the ocean exhibit.

an ocean diorama made entirely of trash found in the ocean, strange, but cool

more fossilized plants

another part of the human origins exhibit

now onto animals

this is overlooking the ocean exhibit

now onto Gems, Minerals and Geology. Bunch of sample of rock that have been smooshed and folded from heat and pressure.

Really bad picture of the Hope Diamond, it's a deep blue color.

They have a small section of Egyptian artifacts that was super fascinating

This is an actual mummified bull

part of a wooden coffin, with drawings/heiroglyphs

looks kind of like the Oscar statue

The tall one is a mummified cat, the small ones are either empty, or just have parts of cats in them. 

They also mummified falcons, alligators and lizards

They had the bug cart out again in the insect exhibit, this is Tucker holding a huge cockroach. It was a very docile cockroach, it walked very slowly and wasn't threatening at all.