Homeschool Memoirs #11 - Field Trips

THEME:
This week I’d like to invite you to share your favourite field-trip that you’ve been able to go on since you’ve started homeschool.

Field trips are so much fun!! We love to take breaks from our regular school work and have what we call a "fun day". We've gone to pumpkin patches, museums, zoos, aquariums, parks, fishing spots, historical sites, etc. The best part is when you learn something new and it doesn't feel like "school". :)

I think one of our favorite field trips was the time we went to a colonial farm. Everyone there was in period clothing and talked as if we had been transported back in time. We were visiting on their farm! They shared so much with the kids and there was quite a bit of hands on activities.

Learning about the colonial life and their food.




Hard at work hauling water.


Here she is grinding grain.

A view of the cabin from outside.

The day included playing some colonial time games. :)

Here they are about to enter the tobacco barn where all the leaves are hanging to dry.

This was a view from another cabin. It actually had some separate rooms and glass windows.

We thought this chimney was really interesting.

road trip....

So last Friday was one of those days. Mike decided to take off work and spend some time with us. I love those days!! There is something about taking a break on a normal workday and leaving it all behind. Skipping school and housework is thrilling. Yeah, it doesn't take much to thrill me. However, if you had a big mountain of laundry in front of you and some dirty toilets to scrub and last night's dishes piled in the sink and I said to you...."skip it and let's go for a drive." I'm betting you would be in the car before I finished the sentence!! ;o) Go ahead, admit it!! Ok, so the house wasn't that bad....but it is still exciting to be given permission to just put it aside and enjoy something else for a change.

What did we do? Well, we jumped in the car and headed northwest. We were on a mini-road trip. About an hour and a few minutes later we stopped for lunch. (my calzone was delish and the best part was no dishes to clean up afterward) The scenery was just so pretty. Kid #4 couldn't stop commenting about it and she decided then and there that when she grew up she was moving to this town. Pretty fall colors were everywhere and there were hills and valleys all around us. After a little exploring we found a pumpkin patch. Not just a little pumpkin patch. This one had a corn maze, baby farm animals, hay rides and crafts. It was a perfect fall day!! It refreshed me just enough to not mind facing the housework on Saturday. :) Here are a few shots from the day:

She is getting so tall!!

During the corn maze adventure we grabbed some dried corn to feed the goats. They were most appreciative!!

This little guy seemed to prefer chewing his cage. I think he wanted to come home with us.

Here we are in the middle of the corn maze.

Which way to go....

Ta da....she actually found the exit first. It took us a little over 20 minutes to make our way out. The lady said someone earlier in the day was lost for over an hour in the maze!

After we got out of the corn maze we looked back toward the farm...

...and waited for the hay ride to pick us up again! :)

Just a random farm shot....

and now

a random animal shot....

Betcha can't do that!!

Mount Vernon

A few days ago we had a chance to go back in time. Well, sort of. ;) We headed to Mount Vernon, home of our first president. Kid #4 has been looking forward to going there for quite a while. Last school year we studied early American history and made a plan to go to Mount Vernon. Unfortunately, on the day we had planned she woke up with a high fever. I had no desire to go during the hot, hot days of summer, so we put the trip off. Our plan was to go in September sometime. However, the weather cooperated and off we went.

I am going to let Kid #4 post about the pictures.

Here I am walking with George and Martha and their grandkids. These statues were in a building. There was a movie theater in the building and we watched a movie about George Washington during war. They had a model of George Washington's house and it opened and closed. You could see inside.

This is a picture of the slave's quarters.

We took this picture of George Washington's house while we were standing in line to go inside. It looks like stone on his house, but it is really wood. They painted it and added sand to make it look that way.

This is a picture of George Washington's Riding Chair. He would sit on it and a horse pulled him.

Here is one last picture of George Washington's kitchen. It was a separate building. That helped keep the house cooler in the summer, because they wouldn't be cooking inside. Also, it helped reduce the risk of the mansion burning down.

Fishing....

Mike took most of this week off and we are doing some random field trips, of sorts. Kid #4 was very excited about this idea, because it counts for days of school without having to do math. ;)

On Monday we headed to the Eastern Shore and tried our hand at fishing. We decided to go to the Choptank River Fishing Pier which is the old bridge that went over the river. The weather was cooperative and we all actually got up early enough to head out close to the planned time. Sons #1 and #2 were able to join us, as well as my dad.

We all caught something. However, our plans for a big dinner were dashed when we saw what size we were pulling out of the river. At one time, I reeled my line in to check if I still had worms on my hooks. My son looked over the bridge and said, "you have a fish on your line!!" Oh my word!! It was so tiny that I had no clue it was there. Anyway, kid #4 was so excited because she caught over 20 fish!! No one else was even close. She told us, "You just drop your line and play with it a little and a fish jumps on." Wouldn't you know....she did just that and a fish jumped on everytime.

Here are some pictures of our Monday adventures....

I believe this was fish number 3. We had no clue at this time that the fish wouldn't get any bigger and that this girl was gonna snag over 20 of them.

Yeah, she is having a REALLY good time!

Kid #1 is joking about this big whopper that he pulled in all by himself!

This is number 13 or something like that. You can see grandpa right behind her and daddy further down the bridge.

Kids #1 and #2 enjoying themselves. #2 was intent on trying to pull a crab up. He had one hanging onto his line right up to the railing when it decided to let go. #3 was stuck working on Monday. We missed him. He, on the other hand, didn't miss much!!