The Many Faces of Education

Last month, the kids got to see government in action when we went up to the state capitol to stand up in a hearing and declare that we did NOT support the bill they were trying to pass that would  infringe on homeschoolers rights. 

We waited in lines for 3 hours (such a huge turnout--the politicians there that day had never seen so many constituents turn out for anything before) for our 30 seconds at the mic, but it worked and the bill was dismissed that evening. I hope my kids always remember that it is worth it to show up and speak up. If everyone there that day had thought that it wasn't worth the drive, someone else would do it for them, then the vote may have gone another way.

Our new favorite "school" activity--Poetry Teatime. I can't take credit for this idea (it comes from Brave Writer/Julie Bogart, who I listen to on her podcast), but I finally made it happen. And I did make the semi-healthy chocolate chip scones that the kids scarfed down with their hot chocolate.

The basic idea is to put out a bunch of poetry books, serve some type of snack and drink, and let the kids enjoy. By introducing poetry in a fun way when they are young, they won't be intimidated by it when they come across Shakespeare or Dickinson later in life.

We took turns reading aloud from the books we'd picked, but then my favorite part was that Bean got excited, remembering some poems she'd written and ended up pulling out a bunch of her old stories and poems and read them all to Peanut, who loved seeing what she'd been working on when she was around his age.

You really can't tell from this picture, but the kids spent our last couple creek-side park days creating villages out of rocks. Bug built an ancient Greek style palace and throne, while Bean's was a Viking-inspired village with a blacksmith and chiefs house and a museum.

Photo from our homeschool end-of-year picnic. Because we like a good excuse to play at the park with friends. Finding a homeschool community has been key for us--all my kids, wherever they fall on the extroversion/introversion spectrum enjoy our weekly park days and I absolutely love the support group of parents--as a sounding board for questions and inspiration and experience. We've learned about so many awesome classes and field trip ideas, and we've made some good friends.

Sacramento Field Trip

We had the chance to go on a tour of the state capitol with our charter and I thought we should take advantage of the field trip. Sacramento is really not too far away for us--about 1.5 hours, which it easily takes us that long to get to SF most of the time, too.

I have found that homeschoolers tend to be habitually late. We were listening to a really good audio book on the way up, The Boys in the Boat, and were at a crucial part of the story when we got there, but even though we sat in the car until the last possible moment, we still were the first ones there and our tour started about 20 minutes late while they waited for everyone. It did give us a chance to look around the rotunda a little and take a few pictures.

Most of the group finally arrived.

I love old architecture, especially in these domes.

We got to visit the State Senate room and our tour guide explained how it runs in there.

Interesting note--everything in this room is green. The State Assembly room is a replica, but done in all red. Guess that would help you to make sure you weren't sitting in on the wrong meeting.

Another interesting fact--the state mammal is the bear, which I knew, but I found it funny to see the various artists interpretations of bears throughout the building. I wouldn't have recognized these wood carvings in the stair posts as bears if they weren't pointed out. Looks more like a wolverine or something.

And another one--a little more bear-like, but he has pretty scrawny legs.

Our guide was excellent with the kids and talked a lot with them about how important each individual is to making the system work for the people. Maybe it's time to get the kids involved a little more in politics. I need to pay attention to the opportunities that come up.

CA state seal--the kids were able to identify a lot of the symbols in here from our CA history last year, which was fun.

The capitol at Christmas--looks like they were just getting everything set up.

And then, our group went to the CA State Railroad Museum. We had just been there in May, but school groups can get in for free, so I figured why not? Plus, there were a couple things we had to rush through last time, so we tried to get to those.

And some things had a little more significance after the rest of our learning last summer. We listened to a great audio book about the Chinese involvement building the RR, the Dragon's Gate, and learned just how dangerous scenes like this were for the workers. 

And this diorama is of the spot of the Golden Spike, which we got to see in real life this summer.

We also toured the different cars, like this mail car, and a dining car, and sleeper cars. I would love to do an overnight train trip with the kids someday.

We also explored a circuit exhibit--these kids love hands on stuff.

And saw the models, which are always fun. Such a great field trip in the capitol.

A Capitol Time

Wednesday was our Salt Lake City day. We actually split up for the first part of the day. I dropped my mom and Bean at the Family History Library by the temple for a couple hours of research and playing around with family trees. Bean has gotten really interested in this the last year and my mom used to spend a lot of time at the library down there, so she was happy to show her the ropes. Although a lot of the library has totally changed, so they spent awhile exploring some of the new fun things together.

In the meantime, the boys and I went up to the Capitol. I'd never been here, and, once again, was led by a geocache. (By the way, anyone who is in Utah, and who might be curious about geocaching, or already like it, there is a great GeoTour series--5 in each county, that lead you through clues to find the location of the final treasure. We really liked the two we did today. I highly recommend them.)

We did some exploring inside. Bug found his county, where he was born. He has a strong affinity for UT, knowing he started his life here.

It is very befitting that "his" state is also such a treasury of all things dinosaur and fossil.

The building was absolutely gorgeous inside.

We had a lot of fun exploring a new place. I'm excited that I get to take the kids on a field trip to the CA Capitol Building in a few weeks.

Then, the boys and I went back to the Family History Library and got a quick tour of some of the fun things (seeing how closely related we are to a bunch of famous people, like US presidents, Walt Disney, and to Savannah's joy, the Studio C people; seeing the % of our tree from each country and other maps--lots of fun ways of looking at where our families came from.) We had a very late lunch (or early dinner), and then left my mom to work in the library for a few hours while we went to the Natural History Museum.

And of course we found more dinosaur stuff.

This was really cool. They had a glass floor over a "dig" and then matching pictures of the dig on the wall that could be rearranged to form the site as you can see it.

It actually took a little work to id some of the sections and was great practice for Peanut looking at the details and orienting correctly.

This tree of the Ceratop dinosaur skulls was also fun. I never realized how many different ones there were.

There were also exhibits on Utah geology, plants, animals, and life. Peanut had fun making a protein

and a cell.

We had a beautiful sunset on the way down the hill.

And at least got to see the beautiful temple there as we drove by, even though the kids were a little disappointed that we didn't have time to actually walk around this trip.

I kind of can't believe how well these last two pictures turned out since I took them with my phone as I drove by, without actually looking at what I was doing (trying to be a good driver! It will be nice, someday, to have a newer van with side windows that roll down so I can hand the phone to someone else to take these pictures.)

NC Field Trip

After spending the year learning about NC history, geography, science, and legends, the 4th graders got to spend a day at the capitol.  And even though it was a bit of a juggle finding someone to watch Peanut and get Bug to and from school, I'm glad I got to go along.  Since I didn't grow up here, and we haven't been to Raleigh to do all the museums and government stuff, there's a lot of new stuff for me to learn, too.

  Bean's class, in front of the governor's mansion.

Bean, and her friend, M, who I got to spend the day with.

After meeting at the school at the insane hour of 5:45, the buses and chaperone carpools all met up around 9 a.m.  Raleigh is set up perfectly for these types of field trips, with the Natural Science Museum and History Museums right across from each other, and the Capitol Building at one end of the block, and the Legislative Building at the other.

First stop for us--the Natural Science museum.

Bean brought along Bones, our little skeleton friend, who has been the subject of family stories for about 7 years now.  Most of his adventures are crazy, fictional ones that are hashed out in bedtime stories, but we also drag him around on the actual adventures our family goes on.  I can't believe he hasn't been lost in all this time.  He enjoyed his tour of the capitol.

Bean, her friend, E, and a huge quartz.  They've been learning about rocks and minerals at school recently, so they enjoyed this section of the museum.

And who doesn't love a giant shark's jaw?  These 4 girls were cracking me up.

Bean took this one for her Grandpa.  (Although this particular memorial was for WWII.)

This statue was a gift, honoring the women who sacrificed so much during the Civil War.

These 4 girls have so much fun together.  I'm really glad that Bean has been able to be back with old friends, as well as made a lot of new friends, this year. 

One of the fun surprises of the day was when the governor walked by during lunch.  I'm surprised at how excited all the kids got when they saw him (although I don't think mine was the only one who didn't actually know who he was until someone told her.)  He gave out high fives and hand shakes all around.

After lunch, we hit up the history museum, where the kids learned about the native americans, the various wars, and some of the major social movements that have occurred in our state.  We didn't have as long here as I would have liked because there was a lot to read, but we also had to make it to the Legislative building for our tour, which was honestly pretty boring.  It didn't help that I'd been up for almost 10 hours at this point, but I had a hard time staying awake when they sat us down above the senator's room.

And then, it was time to put the kids back on the bus, where they were surprised with the movie Frozen, and the rest of us adults made the drive back to Charlotte where we got to wait for another hour for the kids to make it back (WHY can't buses drive a little faster?!)

Our family will have to go back to revisit the museums when we have a little more time to read and explore.  What a great city!