We go to Tannehill Ironworks Historic State Park fairly often. It’s not close to our end of Birmingham, but it’s a beautiful place to hike, get outdoors, explore pretty places, and to photograph. Plus, my family camped there often when I was a kid, so I have very fond memories. I do not, however, remember […]
Hands-On Alabama: Archives and History Museum
One of the dozens of benefits of Carla Jean joining us on our project (aside from her fabulous research, entertainment of and by my children, having another adult along for long car trips, and her spectacular articulation of our journeys) is that people have read her articles and emailed her, inviting us to places we […]
To Bake or Not To Bake.
In my B.K. era (Before Kids, or Before Kaos, or Before Konstant Losing Of My Mind, but that, I suppose, would be B.K.L.O.M.M.), I enjoyed taking on Extreme Holiday Baking. I reveled in making lists of the various homemade treats I would create, then keeping a tally of the number of each I created (often doing double […]
Alabama History…Err, Geography: Horse Pens 40
All I knew about Horse Pens 40 was that it was one of the places that will live in infamy of the “embarrassing” stories my parents tell about me. (I’m not really embarrassed but I assume they keep telling the same stories over and over in hopes that I will become so – revenge or […]
Hands On History: Alabama’s Origin Battle.
First of all. If you’re following our history journey to either emulate it now or later, I have recently discovered a complete game-changer: the dream series of books about Alabama history. I happened upon them at the Vestavia library, thought they looked interesting, and grabbed them to look at later. When I finally pulled them […]
Hands-On Alabama History: The Native American Trips.
We’ve still been keeping busy with our Alabama History project and field trips, but I’ve been waiting to catch up on posting about them until I could share some fun news: a dear friend, Carla Jean Whitley, jumped onto our Alabama History bandwagon a couple of weeks after we started. She is an author of […]
The Scandalous Side of Botany.
Parental Guidance Suggested. I love our Botany book. I struggle with finding history and science books that I like, but this one – it’s just perfect. The organization of the chapters is clear and succinct, the writing is beautiful, and the experiments are easy enough that even this severely un-experimenty mom can make them happen. […]
The Ghost of Fort Morgan.
It was a dark and stormy morning. No really – it actually was. We went down to the beach last weekend to visit the Chris’ Aunt Kitty and Uncle Leo (famous around here for many things, such as Toenail Art and Crochet Shorts.) It was actually a month after our planned trip to visit them, […]
Hands-On Alabama History: Weeks Two and Four.
We’re doing a year’s worth of Alabama field trips to study our history in a hands-on fashion. For an introduction to what and why we’re studying Alabama History, click here. We haven’t moved on from dinosaurs just yet, because I wanted to take my kids to experience The McWane Collection. Housed inside The McWane Center, […]
Hands-On Alabama History: Week One.
As we approached 4th grade, I felt my rule-following self and rebellious self fighting each other (which is a pretty much daily battle anyway.) I know that it’s “expected” to study state history in 4th grade, but I still remember my textbook. It was awful. And with a little research, I found out that Alabama […]