Field Trips | Homeschool Happymess: A Naturally Inspiring Approach to Education

The Big E Captures the Romance of the Country Fair

Posted on September 24, 2011 by homeschoolhappymess

A recent visit to the Big E, Eastern States Exposition, gave our 21st century urban children the opportunity to experience a good old fashioned country fair. We visited farm stands, tasted cream puffs, rode on an elephant, saw real farm animals (I know to some that may sound mundane), rode on real farm tractors and went on as many spinning ferris wheels and roller coasters as possible. Oh..and saw the most amazing one ring circus in which each act really was death defying and heart stopping.

Bounce and Quantum may now believe that goats and camels reside happily side-by-side on most American farms.

Riding on an elephant is not nearly as easy as one would imagine when reading the Arabian Nights.

Watching piglets nurse and eggs hatch was endlessly fascinating to our urban-suburban group, most of whom are only familiar with cats and dogs and assume all pigs and spiders are friends, like Wilbur and Charlotte.

Of course nothing can compare with chasing one another through nets and tubes 100 feet above the ground.

Except, perhaps, riding high on a swing hundreds of feet above the earth.

Crazy Mouse at dusk: this was everyone’s favorite ride.

It was a beautiful day, made even more magical by sunset. This was certainly a “naturally inspiring” lesson in our ongoing study of early American History. Don’t worry, another day will be filled with proper lessons, notes and quizzes. But today will remain in all our memories as a tour of old-fashioned Americana, and of good plain fun, along the scale of Wilbur and Charlotte’s country fair.

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Our Homeschool is Now Officially Open!

Posted on September 14, 2011 by homeschoolhappymess

We spent our first day of school with several hundred other homeschool families at Old Sturbridge Village in Massachusetts. This is a great way to experience first hand the daily life in a small New England village in the early 1800’s. We were delighted with the apparent simplicity of existence and the quiet beauty of the village.

Bounce was thrilled to run into each village home He visited the Meeting House, the lawyer’s house, the Towne family home and several others. He was able to see original writing instruments (quill pens and ink), spools of cloth, jars of pickles and nails and scales for weighing non pre-packaged merchandise.

Bounce and Scooter made miniature town houses, studied archeology, made coyote footprints and also created solar photographs with leaves and flowers gathered from the garden.

Creatress, Quantum and Truth made candles, rode an oxen team and studied hard in their faux one-room schoolhouse.

In all, this was a great opening to our study of early American history.

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The Not-Back-to-School Picnic

Posted on September 10, 2011 by homeschoolhappymess

Today our homeschool neighborhood group met at a local park with an absolutely amazing set of seven trees that intertwine and grow into one gigantic canopy that appears to be a single tree. Within this fabulous forest paradise the children, ranging from ages 2-16, climbed, swung and socialized high above the forest floor.

The lowly surface-dwellers (parents) shared coffee, curriculum suggestions and plans for up-coming field trips.

New teams for this season’s various academic and theatrical contests where forged above in the foliage.

As a group, we watched one another’s children, helped keep an eye on errant toddlers and enjoyed some company in our otherwise private homeschooling endeavors.