Posted by Cindy on November 21, 2011
I {heart} Pinterest! Seriously. It may very well be the greatest invention on the planet. Okay, the greatest recent invention.
Through Pinterest, I found (and archived) some fun leafy art lessons to go along with our botany studies this autumn.
While we didn’t get to all the wonderful ideas – this autumn – we found time for two of them. The first was a lesson about layering oil pastels from Art Projects for Kids.
And the second was a fun shaving cream transfer painting from Little Wonder’s Days.
Speaking of botany, the last couple of weeks have been full of wonderful botany related field trips.
At Hallway Feeds, we were able to view the creation of specialized animal feed from start to finish. What an amazing and utterly detailed process. The kids were even allowed to EAT some of the feed!
At Color Point Nursery, we walked through state-of-the-art greenhouses and learned the process of growing and shipping plants on a very large scale. At the time, there were 600,000 poinsettias set to ship out soon. This place was huge!
I’ve lived in Kentucky my entire life and have never been to Churchill Downs. My father-in-law owns a thoroughbred racehorse that happened to be racing at Churchill Downs last week. Even though “our” horse came in 6th, we had a great time taking in all the sites and sounds – which can certainly count toward biology hours, right?
Enjoy your Thanksgiving week!
Posted by Cindy on October 17, 2011
There’s very little better than a field trip to make learning come to life!
Eli (our preschooler) has been begging to go to the zoo for months. Lucky for him, we won two free tickets to the Cincinnati Zoo not too long ago and last week was the perfect weather for an outdoor field trip. While the trip was as much for the little guy as everyone else, we definitely took advantage of our middle and high school studies in biology this year while we were there, too!
Here are a few fun photos from the day.
We found zookeepers throughout the zoo allowing us to pet animals and ask question. This little penguin was WAY cute!
Another zookeeper was asking the kids to hunt for a snake in the sandbox. Notice who isn't in the photo? Me!
The children's petting zoo was full of farm animals.
Eli has a fascination with animal ears - always has. Maybe he'll be a vet who specializes in hearing difficulties!
What kind of strange tortoise is this?
Eli's "wing span" was the size of a red-tailed hawk. He thought that was pretty cool since he enjoys watching hawks fly around our farm.
I think all three of my children weighed the same as something like 45 million insects!
I love watching my children love learning.
We enjoyed listening to zookeepers present brief shows about various animals.
Everyone's favorite and noisiest animals - the gibbons.
One of our favorite photos of the day.
If you’ve been to both, which is your favorite – the Cincinnati Zoo or the Louisville Zoo?
Posted by Cindy on October 13, 2011
I’ve wanted to attend the Ohio Renaissance Festival for years. Since this is our last medieval history cycle with Mahayla (boo hoo), visiting the festival was now or never. What a fun experience! (A little gypsy-like at times, but fun nonetheless.)
We attended on their special school/homeschool day. While I didn’t like dealing with the loads of middle and high school students who were forced by their teachers to unload from the yellow school bus (it was very obvious from their behavior that many of them didn’t want to be there – shameful!), it seemed as if “adult” weekends could’ve given us even more fits.
In spite of the “real” teacher in me coming out a few times to rebuke some of the unsupervised public school kids, we still enjoyed the sights, sounds and performances.
My children and hubby were trained as medieval warriors. I think they're ready to go to battle!
This one's really ready for war. I think his tactic is to make the enemy melt from the sweetness on his face.
Sword fighting was one of Caleb's two favorite things to see.
Leonardo DaVinci (at 39) told us all about himself and his inventions/art.
William Shakespeare shared about his life as a playwright.
Queen Elizabeth shared about her life before and after becoming queen.
Or wait, maybe this was Queen Elizabeth?
Craftsmen were sharing their trades (and selling their wares - quite expensively.)
Musicians made beautiful music.
A little lesson in Renaissance art fit in perfectly.
We even found pirates!
This one had to be rescued!
Everyone's favorite - a real jousting session!
And as we were leaving, we found Excalibur. I wonder where King Arthur was?
Posted by Cindy on July 19, 2011
A peaceful family afternoon can turn into a wonderful nature study experience! My husband likes to fish – I, um, don’t. However, rather than be a party pooper, I decided to tag along on the afternoon of fishing to spend some time with my family. And, like usual, whenever I take the time to get outside, God blesses me with His creation!
As my son ventured out into the creek on some large rocks, I found a bountiful area of shells and pebbles.
As my daughter worked her way to the bottom of the dam, I found an amazing wall of rock layers to explore.
As my little guy “fished” for moss, I spied a mallard duck couple searching for an afternoon snack.
See what I would’ve missed if I had stayed home to catch up on laundry and answer emails?
Posted by Cindy on
Nature study can come in many forms. Since we live so near to the Kentucky Horse Park in Central KY, we had the awesome opportunity to visit the Alltech FEI World Equestrian Games last week. This isn’t what some people might classify as a nature study trip, but in my mind it most certainly was since we were observing and learning about the mighty and majestic horse. Ofcourse, I considered it a trip of history, science, technology and culture, too. Rarely does one topic fit into a neat and tidy package in my house!
Below are some of the sights and sounds we observed.
There was so much more to see and do than I have room to post photos. We were very blessed to be there!
