We took a day during our Geography studies to veer off course a tad and ventured to Mars for the day. We also saw the space shuttle along with an Egyptian Mummy display and the Amazon Rainforest! They were at our museum this week and even though we aren’t in Egypt or Brazil I wanted to make sure we caught this while it was here. And went to Mars, where we got to hold asteroids, & moon rock! Checked out the giant earth and named all the oceans and continents. They did pretty good so that made Mama happy! They all tried their hand at docking the space shuttle: They loved this one, it is Mars sand that had water running down the tray. They were supposed to build a dam to slow the water then a delta to direct the water. Great activity to go along with our geography vocab! They had a live astronaut there talking about what it was like to be on Mars and interacting with the kids.   They also got to drive the shuttle from inside, this was a favorite. Next we ventured … [Read more...]

We had a chance to go on a ‘hands-on’ type of field trip today and we love those! A dear friend of mine has a new goat farm and did a wonderful session on milking goats for our Keepers at Home group. The girls had a wonderful time playing with the babies and learning to milk goats. We even got to bottle feed a baby, and try the milk our selves! It tasted quite good and I look forward to sampling some of her cheeses soon ;o) Click below to view the whole album.   View Full Album Thanks Audra! … [Read more...]

Well, its not like us to take 2 field trips in one week, but there was another free Pioneer Days by our house, and since it was a weekend our Daddy could come so we ventured up. First we saw a live buffalo and got to touch the fur.Then we watched Apple Pressing and got to taste the freshly squeezed juice, yum!We saw a salamander and some snakes, namely the rattle snake which we are trying to learn to live with in harmony...uh-huh.Next the girls made corn husk dolls, and got to dress them as well. They turned out cute.Next we took a wagon ride down to their sod village, where we met up with lots of different people making a homestead.We went into one of the 'nicer' homes of the day, it was a sod home, but the walls were covered with wood slats. Her house was quite cute.Then we got chased by her turkey.Next we went to see the blacksmith, everyone got a turn pumping the fire and we learned how to make a J hook.Next we went to a house where they were making pies. The girls were surprised … [Read more...]

Field Trip! Today we went to the Vision Heirs Living History Day. It's a fun re-enactment of the signing of the Declaration of Independence and a great way to see what it was like to live in the days of the pioneers. As we are going through this in our curriculum, timing was great. There are lots of pics in this post, so bear with me ;0)They start with a play where they explain the Declaration of Independence and why we are at war with the British:Then we went outside to their different stations, our visit was with the long hunters, named that due to the long trips (6 months at at time) they would take to hunt and trap furs. We learned how to load a rifle, why it was called a rifle (due to the spiral inside the barrel) and how to set animal traps and tan a hide. Did you know that God created the animals to have just enough brains to tan their own hides? Me neither, but apparently they would kill the animal, then soak it in their own squished up brains to make it nice and soft...ewe … [Read more...]