Category Archives: Homeschool

Field Trip Friday: Camp Bayou

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Last Friday’s field trip was a half family field trip. It was more of a school thing for the youngers, so dad, baby and the teens stayed home to do other things.

The rest of us headed down to Camp Bayou in Ruskin, Florida for a class on weaving and a class on hut construction. When we got there they split us into two groups — ages 7 and up started with hut construction and ages 6 and down started with weaving. That worked out perfectly for everyone except me who had kids in both groups. I had to keep running back and forth to get pictures of both classes. Aerobics

I stayed with Jesse’s group first as he’s usually a little lot nervous about me leaving him anywhere.

The instructors first showed the children how weaving would work. Once Jesse had a turn, I ran over to check on hut construction. Happily, Jesse stayed with his group.

They were still standing around talking so I ran back to weaving!

After Jesse’s mat was done, we ran back to the hut construction, but it was over. That quick those kids had constructed a hut and then taken it down again! Oh well!! The groups switched and it was John and Sophia’s turn to do weaving and the little guys got to build a hut. First the instructor let them examine a hut that was constructed by the boy scouts for an eagle scout project.

Then it was on to building their own hut!

Once hut construction was complete, Jesse and I (he wouldn’t let me leave him this time) ran over to check on the weavers.

They were doing totally fine on their own so we ran back to make sure we didn’t miss anything at the end of hut construction. Good thing we did. They were just about to take a group picture of the kids in their hut!

I couldn’t help snapping a pic of the moms snapping pics with their phones and cameras. We do all love taking pictures of our kids, don’t we? Pleasure

After deconstruction to ready the activity for the next group, the instructor led them around the grounds. They were pretty interested in the gator trap!

When Jesse and I walked back to weaving, Sophia was running around playing tag while John and a few others finished up. What a great little place and a fun time learning new things!!

DeSoto National Memorial

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The whole family drove down to Bradenton yesterday to get baby’s handprint made for our wall collage. When he was done, we headed over to the DeSoto National Memorial.

It was QUITE chilly for Florida, but we thought the location was a hidden treasure.

The kids had a great time climbing around on the rocks. Mom was only a little nervous.

After running about outside for a while, we retreated into the visitors’ center to watch a 20 minute video about Hernando DeSoto. Overall, we found the story to be quite sad for both the natives and the explorers. I’m happy, however, for my children to have a more vivid account of one of the famous explorers than I ever had from school. After an obligatory shot of all the kids at the memorial monument, we headed home to get the kids ready for church today.

Field Trip Friday — Niagara Falls!

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Last week when we set out on our week long adventure to a retreat in Kentucky (and yes, this trip will provide fodder for Field Trip Friday posts for several weeks!), we had no intention of stopping at Niagara Falls. It wasn’t even on our scope. But as we were driving down the road, Kenny mentions that we’ll pass right by it. What?! Really!? Can we stop?!!! Wonderful man that he is, he says yes — even though it cost us about 2 hours of driving time.

Since we didn’t plan to stop at Niagara, we didn’t really know what we were doing. We had rented a Chevy Tahoe for the trip which had built in GPS so we just plugged Niagara Falls into the system and clicked on the first thing that came up. It did get us to Niagara Falls, New York.

wecome to nf sign

In my mind, I think Niagara Falls, New York, was just a big giant waterfall with maybe a post office next to it. And maybe a hotel.

It’s actually a bustling city and the falls are not that easily accessible. I’d say we wasted at least another half an hour trying to locate them. We finally found them in a state park. We paid $10 for parking and had to walk a little ways to get to the actual falls.

walking to the falls

Oh. my. goodness. It was SO worth it. Breathtaking.

I’ll let the photos speak for themselves.

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We saw some Canadians…

canadians

When we looked out at the coast of Canada through the mist we saw them again. I think they got wet!

Falls at Canada

Of course, we had to ask someone to take a picture of the whole family at the Falls!

Falls whole fam

And Abe kindly (although with a bit of grumbling over the kissing!) took romantic pics of mom and dad at Niagara Falls.

Falls mom and dad

Falls kissin

I also got a couple of great kid shots. 🙂

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Falls Dad and Jesse

If you’re ever in the vicinity, you must stop! We can’t wait to go back with passports and look from the Canadian side, too!

Field Trip Friday – Minute Man National Historical Park

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Wow. I can’t believe it has taken me a month and a half to get all the Massachusetts posts up! What a trip! I promise this is the last one. 😉 I’ve been calling this part of the trip the North Bridge, and we did see the North Bridge, but it turns out we were at the Minute Man National Historical Park. (I found this out while writing quarterly reports which were mailed yesterday — WHOO HOO!)

To be honest, by this time in the trip everyone was pretty much ready to head for home. But our future was very uncertain (we were pretty sure we were moving to Tulsa, OK, at the end of the summer) and I didn’t want to pass up the opportunity to see where Paul Revere stood waiting for the signal to ride. Plus, we ON PURPOSE read “The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere” by Longfellow before we left for Massachusetts.

Concord isn’t that big and we found the park easily. We parked near a visitor center and had to walk about a quarter of a mile to get to the bridge. Here is a shot of it as we started out walk.

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And yes, I did hear some grumping and complaining. (Can’t we just look at it from here? We can say we saw it. I’m tired. It’s hot…)

But the homeschool mom in me pressed on. Seriously, we can’t get that close and not go stand on the bridge, people!

Getting closer…

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Oh wait! Gotta run into this secret garden real quick…

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And someone else got distracted by wildflowers…

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Dad took the camera for a while. I like this shot he got of Jesse and me…

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Abe standing on the North Bridge. I’m not sure if I took this shot or if Kenny did, but we’re lucky to have it. Abe was not photo friendly on this trip!

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Taking a break and looking over at the “Old Manse” which was the home of Emerson’s father, William Emerson. They would have been able to see the first skirmish from their back windows.

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Monument at the site of the first resistance…

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Let’s get all the kids at the monument. 😉

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Back across the bridge…

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Poor Wes. He was so ready to go!

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Minute Man statue…

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(and no, I didn’t make all the kids get in a shot with the Minute Man statue. 😉 )

Can I jump in this little water puddle?

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Me, too!

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Seriously, Mom?

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Finally, we headed for home. When I walked out back to take some trash to the can, I was greeted by a garden snake!

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What a memorable trip. I’m not sure where we’re off to next. The kids want to join Little Troy Park again this summer so we’ll spend a lot of Fridays there. Novella wants to see the National Museum of Dance in Saratoga Springs. I want to go back to Massachusetts to Amherst and see the home of Emily Dickinson. And most of us want to get to New York City some day, but we’ve got to plan WAY ahead for a trip like that! The good news is we get to stay in New York for at least one more year! Yea!! We’re praying God will bless our sweet little church and we’ll get to stay longer.

Field Trip Friday — Last Day of School

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I’ve got one more Massachusetts post to put up, but yesterday was the last day of school so I’m going to blog about that this week. I’ll try to get that last MA post up next week.

We had a mad scramble to finish things at the end of the school year. We always have a bit of a scramble, but somewhere along the way three of the kids got behind in math. (I think it happened during the 2nd quarter when we had Christmas break…) I don’t mind if we don’t finish every single thing. New York only requires us to complete 80% of what we said we were going to do. But it really, really bugs me not to finish math. We set up a little competition to finish last year and that worked well so we repeated it this year.

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We also sweetened the deal a little more.

* Everyone who finished got a trip to Ben & Jerry’s in Saratoga Springs on the last day of school.
* The first person to finish gets $10.00!
* Anyone finishing with an A average gets $10.00!

As you can see, they all finished even though a few weeks ago some of them still had over 15 units left!

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Before we left, the kids kindly let me take a group shot of all the school age Baileys.

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Then I handed them the summer box. They always get excited about what might be in it. 🙂 This year it was a board game I found on clearance (Eureka), God’s World News summer times, a fun reading book for each kid, Lego Batman II game for the Wii and a few movies I got on clearance at Target. I don’t buy things for the summer box all at once. I catch things on clearance for a few months before school is out. Usually I put some craft supplies in, too, but we so don’t need any more craft supplies right now!

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We left for Saratoga Springs around 11:30 a.m., had a quick lunch, and played around for a while in the mall. The Wilton Mall has a play area for little kids that Jesse, John and Sophia thoroughly enjoyed.

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Dad and the big boys had fun, too…

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While Dad, Abe and Wesley kept an eye on the littles (obviously the above picture was taken while Novella and I had an eye on the littles!), Novella and I snuck a quick look at the clearance sales. We picked up a few great deals and headed back. After the mall, it was on to Ben and Jerry’s!

We got our cones and spread out on the park benches outside.

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I had fun taking pictures even though my ice cream was melting!

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I made Kenny get one shot of me to at least prove I was there!

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And, of course, there were the obligatory Ben & Jerry’s sign pics…

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Novella preferred to be in front of the sign. 😉

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Mom and Dad had to play, too…

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After ice cream we drove home and Kenny and the three oldest went to the movies with some friends. What a great last day of school, wouldn’t you say?

Field Trip Friday — Picnic on Walden Pond

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If we’re facebook friends, you’ve already seen a picture or two of our picnic on Walden Pond and maybe caught a little of the excitement I felt at seeing it in person. Seriously, people. WALDEN POND. I’m still giddy!

On our way to the pond we made a couple of quick stops for me to take pictures. We didn’t have time to tour all the author’s homes, but at least we can say we’ve seen them in person! First was Orchard House, home of Louisa May Alcott. I was most sad not to tour this house. I need to start a new list of things to see and do when we go back!

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Within walking distance of the Alcott home is The Wayside, family home of Nathaniel Hawthorne. I’m guessing from the sign that the Alcotts owned the home before the Hawthornes.

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It was closed due to major renovations in progress.

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People were getting antsy and hungry back at the car, so we took off for lunch. Walden Pond wasn’t too hard to find. 😉 There was another replica of Thoreau’s cabin about a mile from the pond. We stopped there after parking and getting out our picnic supplies.

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We were able to go in this replica and look around. There was even a reproduction of the writing desk we saw back at the museum.

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Some people couldn’t resist having a little fun with Thoreau’s statue. Wanna drink of water, Mr. Thoreau?

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Would you mind holding the lunch bag, Mr. Thoreau?

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Mom and Dad maybe went over the top a bit. Ahem.

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OK. OK. On to the pond.

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And the picnic.

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For some reason, that’s the only picture I got of the actual picnic. I guess I was too hungry to take pictures? Everyone is looking at a scary spider, by the way.

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And Kenny found an inch worm on his shoestring. I love the new camera! The old camera never would have been able to focus this close.

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Abe got a great Mom and Dad shot with Walden Pond in the background.

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We let the kids run around a bit after lunch.

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They wanted to stick their toes in the water, but Mom and Dad were feeling the need to get back on the road — preferably without sandy children since we had about a four hour trip home. I couldn’t resist getting one final shot of the pond right by the water.

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Great memories! One more Massachusetts post left. I’ll post about our stop at the North Bridge next Friday.

Field Trip Friday — Concord Museum

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After leaving Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, we drove down the road to the Concord Museum.

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We debated long and hard about what to see and what to leave for next time. There is a possibility that we will be leaving New York at the end of the summer so we knew there might not be a next time. Our options were the Concord Museum, Louisa May Alcott’s home, Hawthorne’s home and the Minuteman Museum. We decided the Concord Museum would be the most interesting to the most people (namely, the girls and the boys were likely to find things they liked).

The first thing we saw was a replica of Henry David Thoreau’s cabin he built on Walden Pond.

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The kids were in a good mood as we headed in.

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We got our tickets and the curator challenged the children to a scavenger hunt. They each had a piece of paper with 16 things to locate in the museum. The most exciting thing (to me!) we found was one of the two lanterns used to signal Paul Revere to make his famous ride.

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They had a room set up to mimic Emerson’s study with all of the original furniture and furnishings:

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Kenny was fascinated by this Victorian-style dining room. Personally, I find the wallpaper a bit suffocating…

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Upstairs has a wonderful seasonal Thoreau display. They even had some of his original journals and his writing desk. No pictures were allowed in this area — even without flash. I got so excited looking at his journal, though, and asked the curator if she’d ever heard of the English educator, Charlotte Mason. Thoreau and Mason were on the same wavelength! His journals reminded me very much of her Book of Firsts. The curator had not heard of Mason but she did tell me something I didn’t know. Thoreau is pronounced like thorough (i.e. — I’ll make a thorough examination of the facts.)

I could have stayed longer looking around at the Thoreau display. I’m super excited to learn more about him and his works now that I’ve seen this similarity to Mason. Jesse, however, is a two year old and was on day three of trying to be super good in public. He’d had about enough and wanted no more of the stroller. Since it wasn’t prudent to let a grumpy two year old loose in a historic museum, we opted to head out for lunch. I did manage a quick run through of the gift shop ;), and found this lovely little bird as a reminder of our trip:

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Of course, I couldn’t help but style it with my vintage Burgess books!

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I think all the kids (except maybe Jesse!) had a great time and learned a lot!

Field Trip Friday — It’s Back!

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Field trips have been sadly lacking from our homeschool this year. We participated in a once a week co-op and never could get our schedule quite right. Now that it has ended for the year, we have a little more free time for exploring the area.

Last weekend, Abraham had black belt testing in Concord, Massachusetts (a separate post will follow on that whole very long experience!). We decided to stop in Stockbridge on the way to Concord and visit the Norman Rockwell Museum. We knew all school year that the trip was coming so we incorporated Rockwell’s works into our studies. It was so exciting to see originals of prints we’ve looked at all year!

Our plan was to leave home between 8 and 9 in the morning. The museum opened at 10 and is about an hour from our house. I was slightly frustrated that we pulled out of the driveway at 10 and still had to stop for gas and batteries for the walkie talkies (we are still functioning in two vehicles). Kenny told me he’d get gas for his car while I ran into the grocery store for batteries. The plan was that he would meet me at the grocery store. When we pulled out of the driveway at home he went the opposite way that I did. I thought it was odd but knew he could go around the back way and thought he just felt like being different.

You see where this is going, don’t you?

We never said which gas station/ grocery store we’d visit. I went in to the store, shopped, came out, repacked the cooler, tried to get the iPod to work with a cassette converter. Still no Kenny. I moved the car to a more visible location. Waited. Still no Kenny. Finally I decided to drive over to the gas station. Of course he wasn’t there. At that point I remembered how he had gone the opposite way from me when we pulled out of our driveway. Yeah. I’m a little slow on the uptake. 🙂

Since I had both walkie talkies and no cell phone, I stopped at a convenience store to use a pay phone. Of course there are no pay phones. Thankfully the clerk let me use the store phone. By the time I got in touch with Kenny he was on his way back to the house. We met there and pulled out of the driveway for the 2nd time at 11 a.m.

We didn’t get very far before someone (SOPHIA) had to go to the bathroom — despite the fact that I made everyone go AGAIN before we left home for the second time. We stopped at a McDonald’s. Kenny and I needed coffee by this time so we all sat down and had coffee and milkshakes.

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It was past lunchtime before we actually arrived at the museum so we took advantage of the picnic tables on the lawn and ate lunch before we went in.

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FINALLY, we got to go in! We looked around for a while and then listened to a short talk about Rockwell’s life and works.

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We took some pictures of ourselves with some of our favorites.

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Abe was a little picture shy but this was one of his favorites:

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One whole room was covered with Saturday Evening Post covers. I was particularly excited to see this one. It’s the cover picture on a Norman Rockwell picture book/ song book I’ve had since I was a little girl.

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We had a friend in Montgomery whose father posed for Norman Rockwell. Sadly, she passed away several years ago. I wish I had listened closer to her description of the painting for which her father posed!

We spent about an hour and a half in the museum before the kids got tired and cranky. When Jesse got cranky he got *very* cranky and we forgot to walk through Rockwell’s studio which is located on the museum grounds. Oh well. Excuse to go back, right? 🙂

All in all, it was a fun trip!

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Field Trip Friday: Covered Bridges and Back to Bennington

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If you’ve been wondering what happened to the Field Trip Friday posts this school year, there haven’t been any posts because we haven’t managed to go on any field trips! This school year has been one of our busiest ever. That combined with the death of our trusty old van has made it very difficult to accomplish our grand field trip plans. But not impossible!

Last Friday we got up semi-early and headed back to Bennington, Vermont. You may remember that Bennington was our very first field trip after moving to New York. In the fall of 2011, we drove over just to see Robert Frost’s grave. What a great field trip that was. {contented sigh}

This year for picture study we’ve been studying the life and works of Anna Mary Robertson Moses (aka Grandma Moses). We had heard that there was a museum in Bennington that has a Grandma Moses exhibit so we knew we had to go back.

We’ve been meaning to go since September but kept putting it off. What spurred me into action last week was Christmas cards. “Wouldn’t it be cool”, I thought, “to take a Christmas card picture of all the kids in front of the red covered bridge museum?”

Turns out it cost us $18 to get into the museum. I suppose we could have just jumped out, taken the picture, and then headed on over to the Grandma Moses exhibit. But after an hour and a half drive, the four year old had to use the facilities. And I wanted happy children for the picture! 😉

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The kids were immediately fascinated by the huge electric train set. Especially my little future train engineer.

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We also learned some cool information about covered bridges. Did you know there were once over 600 covered bridges in Vermont but now there are less than 200?

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We attempted to watch a slide show with audio which told a lot more of the history of the covered bridges, but we knew we were pushing our luck if we wanted “happy” children outside. We looked around for a few more minutes and then headed outside.

I had to take a picture of this moose. I don’t know why there was a moose at the covered bridge museum. We actually saw a lot of moose hanging around Bennington. I should look it up. Maybe it’s like the horses all over Saratoga. Maybe Bennington has moose races in the summer…

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We had a little trouble with the Christmas card picture. Isn’t that just par for the course?

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I eventually got one that would work (I’ll post it closer to Christmas) and we headed over to the Bennington Museum.

The Grandma Moses exhibit was AWESOME. I was giddy! I had to go back to the car and get the stroller for Jesse because I was GOING to enjoy this exhibit!! I was a little disappointed not to see any of the paintings we had studied, but I was still thrilled to see her work. We also got to see her actual painting table and many of her supplies. They had a video interview playing but I didn’t get to see much of it. People kept pressuring me to get out of there and go look at the Christmas trees on the 2nd floor. {sigh} Who cares about Christmas trees when you can see REAL LIVE GRANDMA MOSES PAINTINGS, PEOPLE!! I yelled at calmly asked everyone to give me a few more minutes and found a replica of the schoolroom where Grandma Moses went to school. Novella enjoyed that part quite a bit. They even had a “Dunce” hat.

Kenny finally tore me out of the exhibit and we wandered around upstairs. The coolest thing I saw was one of the oldest American flags still in existence. The 13 stars were not even in the typical arrangement.

We weren’t allowed to take photos at all inside the museum — even without flash. We asked Abe to take a shot of just mom and dad outside the museum before we left.

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The boys were planning a camping trip that evening so we headed for home around 2:00 p.m. Next up — Amherst, Massachusetts!

School time!

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The work I did sorting the papers on the hutch launched me into something not unlike late pregnancy nesting. It’s called SCHOOL PREP!! I bet all the homeschool moms know what I’m talking about. A couple of weeks before the start of school each year (and sometimes the whole summer!) I decide to organize pretty much everything. I become the ultimate SHE, as Flylady would call it, and spend hours at a time going through school books and papers, re-arranging bookshelves and furniture, and making new schedules.

The school frenzy explains why Daffodil Days has been so quiet the past few weeks. That plus the kids discovered Minecraft and I’ve had very little computer time to myself. 😉 Thankfully, they agreed to put Minecraft aside except maybe on holidays.

I’ve got a cute post floating around my head for the first day of school (which was yesterday). I’m hoping that as the new schedule becomes more of a routine I’ll will have time again for blogging. 🙂

Happy school days!!