Hiking in the Southern USA!

After being in Albuquerque I stayed in the USA and dropped in on Ashley. She lives in Brevard, North Carolina. This is a small town in the Appalachian Mountains. The Appalachian Mountains are the oldest mountains in the world! These mountains go all the way from Georgia to Maine! There is a trail in the Appalachian Mountains that is over 2,000 miles long, and Ashley hiked about 500 miles of it in the Spring right before I got here. 



I really enjoyed looking at the pictures of her hike, the scenery is spectacular.

Since Ashley enjoys hiking so much she took me on a few trails near her home. Here I am walking along one of the trails we explored near Brevard!

While we hiked, Ashley showed me some interesting things in the woods! This is a plant called poison ivy, and some people are very allergic to it. I was very careful not to touch it!

We also hiked around to find different animal tracks. I saw some deer tracks!

Ashley is obviously a teacher. She taught me a lot about nature and how plants get their food while we hiked.

And, this is Looking Glass Falls. It's one of thousands of waterfalls in the area! Brevard is in Transylvania County, and Transylvania County is called "the land of the waterfalls".


It's beautiful, but water alway makes paper little me a bit nevous.

The USA has been great, such interesting people and places. I hope I can return some day it is such a big country and there is still so much to see. But for now I an going too Scotland to catch up with Lily's friends and family.

Homeschool doesn't just happen at home.

Homeschool

In America parents have the choice of sending their children to school or schooling them at home. When they do their education at home it is called Homeschooling. It is legal in all 50 states but every state has different requirements. In New Mexico we have to school for 180 days; learn math, science, english and social studies. The state does not require testing although many of them do.

Agusta and her family have a school room in their home and Sara is their mom and their teacher. Agusta is helping me out with some math in the picture.

Agusta was in 4th grade last year and she did; Math, English, Science, Icelandic, Spanish, History, Government, Social Studies and Bible as the main subjects. She also did Art and crafts and many fun Field trips as well as sewing and cooking.

The benefit of being schooled at home is that every student can get an individualized education and can learn at their own speed and ability. Also we can travel when we want to.

A Day in the Life of Lily

This is Lily's school. She is in first grade.

Lily really likes school, she has lots of friend there and has lots of fun. Lily thinks her teacher, Eszter, is wonderful.

It is a Waldorf-Steiner school so it looks and does things a little bit differently from most schools around here. Most kids Lily meets here are surprised to hear they don't do reading in school yet.



The classroom is very pretty, the blackboard always has a beautiful picture on the front. Now there are the four Manós (forest efls) who help with numbers. New buds and flowers appear on the picture every day, just like the plants and trees outside. In the corner there is the season table. The children can bring in natural things they find to put on it.

Everyday Eszter makes all the children tea to drink with their snacks. All the children have their own cup with their name on it. We do watercolour painting every Tuesday. The paintings on the wall are of a Farsang ball where the Manós are playing together.


Eszter gave these rainbow strings on the very first day of school. We use them to play games, like cats's cradle, and make characters and scenes from the stories Eszter tells. In the picture Lily is making a butterfly. The children draw pictures of the things they learn in their drawing books.

Lily enjoys knitting at school. She is making a teddy bear and has made a case for her recorder.



After school we go to the market to do some shopping. It is very colourful and busy at the market.

We can buy almost everything we need from the maket and the vendors are very friendly.

We can get very nice and fresh meet at the butchers, as well as yummy szalámi and kolbász sausages. Gábor even likes to buy bones to make meat stocks from.

On the milk market we get fesh cheese, yogurt butter and milk. Turo (cottage cheese) is used a lot in Hungarian cooking. Jen like to buy raw milk to make yogurt Lily thinks the cheeses are not just tasty but they are beautiful too.


 







Lily's favourite part of the market is the flower market. The smells are wonderful and sometimes the vendors give her a little bunch of flowers for free. The market is full of lovely spring flowers like these daffodils and hyacinths.

Once we are finished at the market we have all the ingredients we need to make Goulyas Leves (Goulash Soup) for dinner.








But before that we go to Kárász Utca (the street that was on the postcard) to get some ice cream and to play on the square in front of the town hall. Lily loves to climb on the trees and the statues. While we were on the the square we saw folk dance troup on a parade.

Now it's time to make dinner.

Jó Étvágyat


Coming up: Szeged Sights