Field trips and summer plans

There are many reasons why I love homeschooling, but one of my top ten reasons would definitely be that we can take far more field trips than kids in school typically attend in a year. I was known for taking kids on more field trips than usual when I was a teacher. My goal was about 8 field trips a year, and the biggest obstacle I had with that goal was getting enough parents to chaperone that many trips. Kindergarten teachers don't have that problem. Almost every child has a parent or grandparent who would like to attend the field trip, but with middle school it can be more of a challenge, especially as kids that age often don't like their peers to see them with a parent so sometimes the kids were telling their parents "don't volunteer" which is again not generally the case with younger children.

I have not done as many field trips this school year as usual for a variety of reasons, one of which is that I just emotionally have not been myself the past six months. The drastic reduction in the the number of photographs I have taken and the frequency of blog posts are evidence of a change. I usually love planning field trips and other special events, but that hasn't been the case lately. It also is more complicated when your house is on the market and you don't know where or when you will be relocating. The kids only went on one field trip in January and one in February prior to this week, but this week we had our second for February and by Saturday should have had our second for March already.

On Monday night I took the kids to an event at the public library about Leap Day.  After the librarian read a couple of books, the kids went to various stations to make an origami frog, see how far they could jump, and do an experiment to power a clock with apples, lemons, potatoes, milk, onions, or soda.

Tuesday morning we headed to a state park for a program on rocks and minerals. At the end of the program we worked in small groups to identify 14 different rocks (granite, mica, amethyst, etc.). Nadia enjoyed the part where she played the role of a volcano, which the naturalist named Mt. Nadia. This Saturday afternoon we plan to take the kids to a musical at Bucknell.

Since our house has not been shown for 2 months (we did turn down one showing when Oliver was in the hospital) it seems like our house won't be selling in the near future. Also, we have decided if I don't get a job we will stay here in this house one more year. Also we will stay here if I am offered a job at Lock Haven. We figure we can afford to live here one more year because Paul will receive a double salary for four months as he plans to start at KCI in May but will be paid by Bucknell through the end of August. That double pay can also pay for Nadia's braces. If I am offered a job at Messiah College, then we would move this summer, but we could wait until the end of July to do so.

Because of all the uncertainty, I held off on signing the kids up for camp although there was a financial incentive for doing so. However if we do it by March 15 we can still save $40 so I decided today that I will sign Nadia up this week. Now that we know the dates of the theatre production (she's excited that she'll be doing Little Mermaid Jr this summer), I let her pick which week of Girl's camp she wanted to attend. She picked the first week because it will have a Medieval theme. Ian at one point said he wanted to attend the 3 night camp like Nadia did last year, but he has changed his mind, which is fine with me. Nadia will be attending seven nights of camp this time around. I am planning on signing both of them up for a week of horse camp where they took horseback riding lessons two years ago. That camp is just during the day (M-F). Finally, I am planning to send them to one week of CEF's Good News Day Camp at a church near us. They've never done that before. I think doing these camps will be fun and help compensate for the fact we're not planning on going on a vacation this year (unless I get a job). I also have picked two dates to go to Knoebels and two dates to go to DelGrosso's. I also want to schedule one day at Sesame Place (we didn't go last year) and also a pirate ship cruise in Annapolis once in the summer. I am also planning to sign Nadia and Ian up for tennis lessons, if they offer them again this summer. I may not know for sure where we'll be living in September, whether the kids will be homeschooled or enrolled in a school next year, or whether I will be employed or a SAHM, but it's at least nice to start making plans for our summer. If I am not offered a job in the next couple of months, we will take our house off the market.