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Schoolin' On the Road
Mar. 14, 2007
Another Month gone by
and I am back to blogging here. I have been blogging on my knitting blog more than here because I have been doing a lot of knitting and nothing much has changed on the school front. We have gotten much better about doing a schedule and expecting ds to stick to it, which really makes it easier on all of us.
I had been not making him do some of the experiments and things that come up in his schooling because of our situation and there just not being the room, or us not having the resources and things like that. I started really looking at some of the things that I had let him slide on and realized that while he may not be able to do them exactly the way the directions explain them, he could do an abbreviated version of some of them and so that is something that he has been doing. There were several reports that stated that he needed X number of resources and he was able to use the encarta encyclopedia that is on his computer and we could, although I hate to let him, get on the internet for some more information. So far he has found what he needs in the encyclopedia and his reports are going well.
Last week we had an oversized load. That means that in most states we could only travel during daylight hours, couldn't travel if the weather was bad, etc. We were coming across South Dakota when that big storm blew through there and the DOT officer at the scales kindly suggested, in the special way that only a DOT officer can, that we go a few miles down the road to Rapid City and park because the roads were closed and we couldn't travel. So on Friday morning about 10 a.m. local time, we got stopped and sat until Monday morning. It was kind of a comedy of errors and bad weather that didn't allow us to move, but it all worked out in the end.
On Sunday of that weekend, we attended church in the truck stop. Our family of three increased the population of the service 300%. There was us and one other driver and then three people from a local church. The other driver suggested that we take a little road trip and go to Mount Rushmore. My husband kindly consented to drop our trailer and we took a little trip and went to see Mount Rushmore and then also to Crazy Horse Mountain. They are both awesome examples of American ingenuity and the ability of the human to envision something so awesome and then actually carry it out. If you would like to look at some of the pictures I took you can look Pictures of Mt. Rushmore and Crazy Horse.
One of the cool things that came out of our trip was that the ds became a Jr. Ranger. This is a program in all of the National Parks and Monuments. The children are given a booklet and they use it to find out information about the park and when they have the booklet filled out they take it to a Ranger and they are asked questions to see what their level of comprehension is and then they are given a little plastic badge that states they are a Jr. Ranger. DS was the one who wanted to do it, he went to the info desk when we got inside, and he did all of the info in the book himself and then took it to the desk to get his badge. The ranger that quizzed him asked some really hard questions and then if DS couldn't answer them, he used a process that lead DS to finding the answer himself. I was impressed with the ranger and the time he spent with our son.
The next stop was the Crazy Horse Mountain memorial. This is a very large complex that houses a Native American Indian museum and several other things. They have a very good movie as an introduction to the site and then you can wander through the museum, see the models that are being used as the basis for the mountain and if you are so inclined, you can grab a bite at the snack bar and visit the original studio for the artist. It too was awe inspiring and the plans, while they may not be completed in my lifetime, are quite ambitious. They plan to have a medical school for Native Americans, a very large museum, etc. One of the most interesting things about visiting there is the fact that it has been funded 100% by private donation and entrance fees. It costs $10.00 per person or $25.00 a car load to enter. All proceeds go towards the costs of maintaining what they have and continuing construction on the mountain. I at first thought that the price was too much and almost told DH that we didn't need to go. I am so glad that I didn't. It was well worth visiting and I would actually like to go back early in the summer before the crowds really jam things up, and see the things that we couldn't and also see the laser light show that they do at night.
We have been through some extremes in weather in the last couple of weeks. We have been in Laredo, TX in 80 degree weather, went to Washington which was cool and then hit that awful winter storm with temps well below zero and blowing snow, high winds, ice, and just flat out ugly weather. Then we went back to Laredo and now we are in Tennessee and it makes you almost makes me think that Spring is here....YAY.
God Bless and take care....
The traveling schoolers
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