Thursday, January 18, 2007

Call of the Wild(life Museum)

Wednesday we started the day with a very long overdue trip to the grocery store. We were out of everything! It was so bad that we literally had nothing for lunch. We had no choice but to go. Luckily, we did have oatmeal and milk or we would've had to go to the store before breakfast... or wait, we could've just been forced to go out for pancakes instead! Oh man, did I blow that one! ;)

We rushed home from the store, put the groceries away, made peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and jumped back into the car with our sandwiches and headed out to Park Day. We were late, as usual, but it was a beautiful day so there was no way I was going to miss it. We got there twenty minutes late to find that we were the first ones there!! Unbelievable! But we stayed and played and several of our friends turned up within a half hour or so. Seems like everyone has been in a lazy kind of a mood this week - or out of town.

Then we came home for ice cream (our treat for finally getting off our butts and going to the store!) and schoolwork. We finally had bread to do our bread mold experiment, so we toasted half of one piece, dampened the other one and then put them both into Ziploc bags. We're supposed to make observations each day. Remind me to do that later, lol. Next came phonics and Cameron learned the soft sound of "c." He seemed pretty shocked to find out that cent was spelled with a c instead of an s. That's going to be a tough one to remember, I think. Getting through the word list was tough. It probably didn't help that Cassia wanted to learn to read too so we were taking turns reading the words. She would "read" by saying silly nonsense noises as I pointed to each word and then Cameron would go through the same list and read the words correctly for us. It was fun and silly and kept everyone in good spirits, but it broke his rhythm and he had to relearn the lesson with each row of words.

Thursday we started the day with a trip to a local wildlife museum. It was a great trip. I can't believe we've lived in this area for so long and have just completely missed so many places! Have I mentioned how much I appreciate this field trip group (and MomJ for organizing it all!!), our 4-H group, and our homeschool group in general?? Because of these groups, we are doing so many things that have always been "on my list" but that I never got around to doing. It's so easy to say "someday" sometimes, but when you have a plan and a group of people waiting for you, someday becomes a reality. Not to mention all these places that I'd never even heard of right here in my backyard!

But back to the museum. It's a really neat place because it is run by the local high school and completely maintained by the students! The upkeep of the exhibits (mostly taxidermy) and the animals (mostly reptiles) is done during regular class periods and so tours are only given on a strict timetable. We were almost late, lol. We got lost since I knew nothing about the school campus and there were no signs on the street. Most kids tour with their school, so I guess they all know the ropes already. Our docent tour guides were students and very, very nice. The give public school students a good name.

Cameron was a riot. He had a question or comment for absolutely everything. One of the moms leaned over to me and said how great it was that he was so enthusiastic and involved in everything. :) One of the docents commented on how polite he was because every time he interrupted them he said, excuse me. LOL. Now if I could just get him to stop interrupting people we'd be in business! ;) Cassia was great too. She was a little figity, but really not bad at all. They were both interested and respectful and a delight. BIG switch from that dreaded Post Office tour a couple weeks ago, lol. Coincidence that S5 wasn't there? Hmmmm.

Next was a quick trip to the library to drop off our movies from last week and to pick up two more. They got Dora's Halloween Adventure, which is scratched and won't play, and The Muppet's Wizard of Oz, which they are watching now. Then we headed off to gymnastics and both kids, though bouncier than Tigger before and after class, actually listened and performed well. It looks like they actually listened this morning when DH said his usual, "Don't drive Mommy crazy today," as he walked out the door. ;)

Cameron finally figured out that tours with the homeschool group equal school and insisted that this should count as science. I said you're right, it's science, but you still have to do math and reading before you can play video games. They opted for library movies instead.

1 comment:

G said...

Sounds like a busy, but GOOD, day! I really need to check out that museum some day.

Hope to see you later today!