By wisdom a house is built, and by understanding it is established; and by knowledge
the rooms are filled with all precious and pleasant riches. ~Proverbs 24:3-4
• Oct. 9, 2009 - Field Trips!
We have been doing school but we have also been taking field trips! I love the outside ones this time of year.
Last week, we went to a local state park that is along a river. The rangers did two classes for us - one on identifying trees and the other on animal tracks. Although they did not find any tracks, the kids made their own by pressing molds into sand. It was a beautiful fall day and great to be outside.
Don't you wish you were this excited over cedar trees?
Yesterday, we went to a School Days event put on by a local Native American tribe to educate children on what Indians were really like in this area. Perhaps the most surprising thing I heard was about the animal populations in our state:
- there are more deer now then there was prior to first contact - i.e. early 1700's
- elk and bison used to live here but they became extinct in the early 1700's
- wolves are pretty much gone here
- coyotes and bear are on the rise and they estimate there will soon be more of them than there was in the early 1700's
So maybe those bear and coyotes can start controlling the deer population, but only if we don't mind the bear and coyotes in our backyards in the cities.
Demonstration of Indian hunting weapons.
Women's Dance by Elder of the tribe.
Storyteller - her dress weighs 45 lbs. The jingles are made from the lids of chewing tobacco cans.
I let the kids get slingshots, but they have strict orders to only point them at squirrels, deer, and non-living objects such as box targets and trees. These pictures are at the tribal grounds, but they have been practicing at home too.
Kids & I learned that you can use arrows in sling shots, so they were trying with sticks.
In school news, Mark is loving his General Science. I got this Knex Educational Kit on levers and pulleys for the chapter he just finished. It was a great review.
Mei is zooming ahead and I am considering adding additional Language Arts to her work. She is so efficient in getting her work done that she distracts Mark from his.
