Field Trips

Oliver trying to pick up a worm for his bait.

If you've read my blog for any length of time, you probably have figured out that I place a high priority on taking my kids on field trips. Being able to go on many field trips is one of the perks of homeschooling in my opinion. That has been curtailed over the past two months due to me going back to work. In the past we skipped some field trips due to our finances being tight. Now we skip them because time is the limited commodity. On Monday I took the kids to an art class at an art studio. I brought a book that I've been trying to read as I determine which textbooks to submit to the bookstore for my classes next semester. In reality, I didn't end up reading the book during their art class. I find myself torn so many times these days as to when to just be in the moment with my kids and when to do my work although I am physically present with them. Not trying to get my work done at the same time also frees me up to take pictures of them, which is something I also really enjoy doing.

On Wednesday we went to Bald Eagle State Park for a four hour program put on by students at Penn State. The program was very well done. It included five stations plus a group session focused on a broad winged hawk, which is kept at Shaver's Creek because it is blind in one eye. Seeing the hawk was Ian's favorite part of the day. My kids were put into the red tailed hawk group. Our first stop was tree identification. Then the kids went fishing. None of my three caught any fish, but another girl in our small group caught four different fish (perch and rainbow trout). Oliver said the fishing was his favorite part of the day. We ate lunch in our van because it was COLD out. It was about 51 degrees, cloudy, and very windy. Brr! After lunch we did an activity about what to pack if you are going backpacking for a few days. That was Nadia's favorite part of the day. Our fourth station was a bird identification talk. The kids were given field guides, binoculars, etc., but we didn't see many birds. Our last station was probably my favorite as we went on a walk and then collected various macro invertebrates from the water. The kids found newts, damselfly nymphs, water spiders, etc.

Broad winged hawk

The downside of field trips is that it sometimes means we're not home very much on a given day. We still had some time at home on Monday, but on Wednesday we were gone almost the whole day between the field trip, getting the van to Sears for an oil change, tire rotation, etc., and AWANA for the kids and choir for me that night. Thursday I took the kids to the library, Walmart, and a trunk or treat event right after I picked them up from the babysitter so that was another day that we were gone from the house for about 12 hours straight. I was very grateful on Friday to stay HOME until 5pm when we left so I could take the kids to our church to help out with that trunk or treat event. Somehow Halloween has morphed from a one day event when I was a child to a six day event for my kids. Having a day at home means I have time to get work done for the university plus also time to do things like vacuum, exercise, do the laundry, etc.

Today is our first Saturday without flag football. I'm taking the kids to an art class at the Children's Museum in Bloomsburg, and then I am participating in an Open House event at the university for high schoolers who are considering being an education major at the university. Paul is taking the kids to a trunk or treat this afternoon at the church where they do Upward Basketball. The last few days I have been putting a lot of time into planning out field trips and vacations for the next about 14 months. I am hoping to take more trips once this semester is done. I am assuming next semester will be more manageable since I'll have more course preparations done before the semester starts. Having a job does make planning field trips more complicated because some of the days that a particular venue is having a "Homeschool Day" or a "Hands-on History Day" happen to fall on a day I am teaching. I'm thinking that in January or February I will know more of what my schedule for next fall might be. I'm hoping to be on Tuesdays and Thursdays again because I have planned some four day weekend trips (Friday through Monday). If I am teaching on T/Th next fall, then I think we're going to skip participating in a team sport next fall so we can go on more trips in September and October. I'm still trying to figure out a way to schedule our vacation to San Diego for October. I'm thinking we could be gone 6 days if one of the days we were on vacation I had my students take their midterm exam. It would be about $900 cheaper to go in October as the kids would get in free to LEGOLAND, Sea World, San Diego Zoo, San Diego Safari Park etc. If it won't work to go in October, then I think we'll go late May or early June. I do love planning field trips and vacations! Now to get back to grading.....