A Fun Florida History Find

I found this fun stereoscope picture at Wolf's Head books in St. Augustine. According to an EBay auction, the photograph was taken in 1909, although there is no date on my copy.


The caption is a little faded, but it reads, "Delivering fresh milk. Key West, Fla."

A close-up of the picture:

Acting Out Lewis and Clark

I posted this to our class blog last week, but I'm reposting it here, because, of all the school pictures I've taken this year, these are my favorites.

Last week, my history class of younger elementary students finished up their unit about Lewis and Clark, by dressing up and acting out scenes from the Corp of Discovery's trip to the Pacific Ocean.


The younger elementary students aren't just learning about the Corps of Discovery, they ARE the Corp of Discovery.President Thomas Jefferson asks his personal secretary, Meriwether Lewis, to lead an expedition to the West, to make maps, study plants and animal, make friends with the natives, and possibly find a water route to the Pacific ocean.
While the corps spent the winter at Fort Mandan, they were joined by a French trader,Toussaint Charbonneau,and his young Shoshone wife, Sacagawea. They would work as guides and interpreters for the explorers. Sacagawea's baby, Jean Baptiste Charbonneau, better known as "Pomp" was born while they were still at Fort Mandan.
Sacagawea

Toussaint Charbonneau

Sacagawea and baby Pomp played an important roll in the rest of the trip. The native people they met were less suspicious of a group traveling with a woman and child, because they knew that nobody would take a woman and child to war.
Sacagawea knew which plants were edible and was able to cook for the men.
Once they crossed the mountains, they made dug-out canoes and continued their journey westward.

They finally reached the Pacific Ocean!
They spent the winter at Fort Clatsop.
The men became very fond of Pomp and Clark often referred to him a "my dancing boy".

The journey back to St. Louis:

This will be our last week studying Lewis and Clark. We will be finishing up this book tomorrow:

One of the reading groups is also reading the book Tall Tails, which is told from the perspective of Seaman, Lewis' dog.

We will also be watching the movie of The Time Warp Trio: Lewis and Clark

The Bounty in St. Augustine

The tall ship, H. M. S. Bounty, which was built for the 1962 Marlon Brando version of the movie, is giving tours to the pubic in St. Augustine this weekend.



We drove over there to see it, yesterday, and had a great day. I love St. Augustine!

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After touring the Bounty, we headed to the nearby Santa Maria restaurant for a light lunch and a chance for Blaze to feed the birds.

The Santa Maria is built on a pier, so that it is surrounded by water on three sides.



The tables are placed along the windows of the restaurant and each table has little hinged doors built into the windowsill, through which the patrons can throw food to the sea gulls, pigeons, and other birds that flock around the building. Each table is provided with a basket of bread to feed to the birds, while they wait for their own food.





Watching the pirate ship backing into it's docking place was also fun mealtime entertainment.



After lunch, we spent the rest of the day making the rounds of the shops on St. George Street and the antique shops.



We didn't know this beforehand, but the last Saturday night of every month is Uptown Saturday Night along San Marco Avenue, so the antique shops had snacks, wine tastings, and lemonade for their customers and there was live music outside.



Wolf's Head Books was the last shop we visited and the one where we were finally able to uphold our fine family tradition of always buying something awkward or heavy to carry while in St. Augustine. DH's books are awkward and heavy,



and so is the set of cast iron bookends that I bought for Blaze's room.



Sunset on the Bridge of Lions:

Preparing letters for the Chronofax

On Monday, I began reading The Wrath of Fate, by "Captain" Robert Brown, aloud to Blaze as a bedtime story (there is a little adult language in the book, but it's not excessive and is easy to edit as I read). The writing style lends itself very well to being read aloud.



Blaze was very excited to start reading the book, because it was written by the lead singer/songwriter for his favorite band, Abney Park, and the story is based on the band's songs.

Here is a sample from the book, read by the author:



The story is full of interesting ideas, such as the one I used as a writing prompt for my language arts classes this week. After reading chapter two, Chronofax , I thought it would be fun to see what my students would write to their future selves. In the chapter, an eight year old boy uses a machine called a chronofax to send messages to his 28 year old self. His first letter tells about his frustrations with being a child and what he is hoping his future will be like.
I took the book to school and read that first letter aloud to each of my four language arts classes (children ranging in age from 6-11). I then asked each of them to write a letter to themselves twenty years in the future. The first part of the letter would be what they thought of their current age and the second part would be about their expectations for themselves as adults.

Here are a few samples of the finished letters that I was handed today (I realize that there are a couple things that need to be edited, but I am very pleased with what was turned in). I have removed the names, because I do my best to never post children's real names on a website that is open to public viewing.









This is the one Blaze wrote:




I am placing each letter in an envelope with "Do Not Open Until 2032" written on the front and giving them to the parents to hang onto.