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Finding Florida Friendly with Good Learning Soil!

                                Merry Christmas!

Our family joined a few homeschool groups this school year in our new Florida location. Turns out, the families are as friendly and fun here as they are in Virginia! In the spirit of reaching out and plunging optimistically into the community, I decided to direct another play at a local homeschool group.




This time, for the first time ever, I had the joy of using a script I wrote! It's an adaptation of one of my favorite children's stories, Understood Betsy. Here's a link to the play on Amazon: Understood Betsy for Readers Theater. All the young actors, including my two daughters, 7 and 12 years old, had fun, overcame fears of public speaking, learned new vocabulary words, learned history and made new friends.

                                                   SCIENCE FAIR CLUB

As we learned in Virginia, a local co-op group is a portal to an immense web of connection and opportunity for young learners. In our SALT group, we met some friends who directed us to a Science Fair club in our county for middle and high school students. It turns out to be a very well-organized and well-run group, and the kids involved are friendly and hard-working. My kids are excited about their projects and about making new friends.


Rachel updates her Science Fair club friends on her project's progress.


The best part about the kid's science fair projects is that their dad has gotten involved. They are having so much fun picking his brain and enjoying his wit! 
My 15-yr-old and his Dad working late into the evening on a computer programming science project.



ART AND CAROLLING     
My 7-year-old has been enjoying getting to know the community, too. She has been participating in a weekly Spanish/Art class with a wonderful teacher who has become a good friend!


This new teacher friend invited us to carol with her and her family at several local nursing homes. For the first one, we made Christmas ornaments for the residents. Because we are teeming with shells here in our beach condo, we decided to make our ornaments out of the sea's bounty!










We're thankful for the rich soil in which to grow this school year! 

MERRY CHRISTMAS, and A HAPPY NEW YEAR!



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