History Camp

The kids have been to a variety of camps this year. First they went to horse back riding camp for 5 full days, and then they went to a painting and drawing camp for five half-days at the Children's Museum. Ian spent four full days at Good News Camp, and Nadia was at Camp Susque for an entire week. Since they won't be going to Good News Camp August 8-12 as originally planned, History Camp this week is their final "camp" for 2016. It lasts for three half-days at the Priestley House in

Northumberland. Joseph Priestley was a chemist who is credited with discovering oxygen, and he spent the last ten years of his life living in that house, having lived most of his life in England. The camp's theme is “A Child’s Life in Northumberland in the 1790′s.” The children are doing a variety of activities that will allow them to become familiar with the Priestleys and how children were educated  in early America.  Crafts, games, stories, snack time, and visits with special guest presenters are part of each day’s activities. Today one of the highlights was making

marbles from clay. Tomorrow they will be writing in calligraphy with quills and ink. When I brought home 3 ears of corn on the cob today, Nadia asked, "Did you get those so I could make a corn husk doll?". I got them so we could eat them for dinner, ha ha. I recognized one other homeschooler in the camp.  

Because I didn't want Nadia to miss another summer musical rehearsal (she missed two while we were in Maryland, another while she was at camp, and will miss one more when we're in Ohio), I didn't take them to the baseball/softball clinic this

evening. One of Ian's highlights was winning a nice door prize last night. Similarly, Oliver won a nice door prize (a Bible story books) last week at VBS. While they were at history camp Oliver and I first shopped at Walmart and then spent a couple of hours at the Oppenheimer playground (which has a splash pad and gives kids a free lunch). They had a program from 11:00-11:30 today put on by someone at Evangelical Hospital about poisons, and Oliver participated in that. Something sank in from the program because once this evening he saw something and said to me, "I have to ask first before I eat it." After we picked Nadia and Ian up, we headed to our swimming pool and swam for three hours before coming home for dinner and the summer musical rehearsal. I also read Nadia and Ian a couple of books about the Olympics. Since we are studying ancient Greece this year and since the Olympics kick off next week, I am doing a little unit with them on the Olympics over the next few weeks. Nadia was thrilled to see a picture of Nadia Comaneci in one of the books.