Field Trips: Central Texas

Welcome to our families personal online list of field trips, I hope you find something your family will enjoy. Please leave the names of any field trips not on this list in the comments so it can be added to the list.

So this week we are participating in Hip Homeschool Mama's Field Trip Ideas Around the World. Our family loves museums & zoos so we tend to go out of our way to visit them. As I have grown in my homeschooling I have had to temper my desire to do LOTS of field trips but we still make time for this kind of super fun experiential learning.

Houston Area Field Trips:

• Space Center Houston - We went to Space Center Houston several years ago during it's school days program. We saw several versions of the space shuttle, sat in "mission command" and the kids answered questions, toured the facility on a 'tram', & enjoyed the various exhibits/experiments they had set up. 
• Houston Zoo - We really enjoy going to the Houston Zoo. It is a large zoo but you can see the entire zoo in one day if you get there early and keep moving.
• Weather Museum - We have been to this museum once and we really enjoyed it. However, in my opinion it is over priced and I would suggest attending on a free day! 
• Houston Museum of Fine Arts- The last time we visited this museum was when it had an exhibit featuring impressionists. We had a wonderful experience and the kids really enjoyed seeing Monet, VanGogh & Degas and frankly so did I. WARNING- Please check the exhibits they they currently have and make sure they are appropriate for children. For instance right now they have "120 days of Sodom", this is not an exhibit we will be attending. 
• Houston Natural Science Museum - You can click -here- to read a post on our old blog about one of our many field trip to the Houston Natural Science Museum. This is one of our favorite 
•  laces to visit in Houston. It is of course evolutionary in it's perspective but we have an  pologetics attitude about  museums. We have our children note each reference to evolution and Mama keeps score and they earn prizes for pointing out evolutionary theory. 
• Children's Museum of Houston- The kids have been to this museum several times when we had a premature baby in Texas Children's Hospital. So I have very fond memories of this museum. It is huge and there are lots of things to do for a wide age range. We haven't been in the last few years and it's my understanding that they have remodeled it. 
• Houston Health Museum- We have been to this museum a couple of times on the free days. This muesum is jam packed with interactive activities that our kiddos really enjoyed. They also have a couple of movie theater type displays one of which featured Bill Nye the Science Guy. I also recommend this field trip on it's free day. 
• The Rest of the Houston Museum District - this is a list of the many museums in Houston.



Houston Zoo

• Forbidden Gardens - "The latter invites tourists to "Discover the mysteries of Imperial China," but the world's oldest civilization has proved no match for the blistering sun and hothouse humidity of south Texas. Still, we recommend visiting F.G., a unique sight for Texas " 

Brazos Valley Field Trips

• Washington on the Brazos - In August Washington on the Brazos has an education program for teachers that I have attended with 10ish year old children. Then in September they have school programs for different ages. This trip is well worth the money and the time if you are studying this time period. We will return to Washington on the Brazos in two years when we get back to American History.
• Anderson, TX Stage Coach Days and the Fanthrop Inn...This event is jam packed full of re-enactors and re-enactments. Another field trip well suited to the study of early Texas or American History. 
• Burton Cotton Gin - We haven't been there yet, this is another field trip that is on my list when we get back to early American history.



Fanthrop Inn

• Antique Rose Emporium -One of my favorite places to go to explore all the flora and fauna.

• Blue Bell Ice Cream - This is an informative video and tour of the ice cream manufacturer. We have gone on it 3 or 4 times. At the end of the tour you get a free scoop of yummy Blue Bell Ice Cream. (Children under 6 are free)
• Texas  A&M Vet School Open House
• Texas A&M Chemistry Open House
• Bio Blitz at Lick Creek 
• Air Port
• HEB (grocery Store)
• The Eagle (News Paper)
• Brazos Valley Solid Waste Management (aka the dump)
• Police Station
• Fire Department
• Brazos Valley Corn Maze & Pumpkin Patch
• Animal Shelter 
• Brazos Valley Natural History Museum - This is a very small museum we have visited many times. 
• Brazos Valley Children's Museum - We have been to this museum several times but not in recent years.It is a very good small town museum. 



Houston Museum of Natural Science George Bush Museum

• Renaissance Festival School Days (Other days it is my understanding that there is a lot of drunkenness & 1/2 naked women)
• Younderway Farm- A working Farm that produces beef, pork, chicken and eggs runs by the Kramer Family! This farm delivers it's wonderful food to several strategic spots in Central Texas.

North of Bryan College Station Area (Waco, Dallas etc...)

• McDonald Observatory- We have not gone to this one yet but it's on my list of family field trips this year since we are studying Astronomy this year. 
• Witt
• Dr. Pepper Museum
• Waco Zoo -here-
• Mayborn Museum in Waco- You can click -here- to read a post on our old blog about our field trip to this little children's type museum. 

• Fort Worth Zoo - We love this zoo it's very family friendly, it's small enough to be feel small town but big enough to be fully entertaining. 
• Sand Creek Farm - A working farm that uses plow horses, aqua-phonics and makes raw milk.A very enjoyable field trip especially for city slickers.

I hope you are able to infuse a bit of excitement into your homeschool with the occasional excursion off the beaten trail.

Also, please leave your Central Texas (and general) Field Trip ideas in the comments I am really looking forward to hearing from y'all!

Classical Method: English Grammar Recitation

To teach or tutor? 

"The goal of teaching  by the Trivium s to give students the tools of learning with which to learn on their own - to liberate them from the drudgery of task-performance and to make them independent scholars." pa 301 Teaching the Trivium

Over the years we have worked with some great grammar programs that were VERY TASK intensive Abeka's Language & Christian Light Educations Language are wonderful programs but they did not fit the out method of education for the Grammar Stage. We then switched to Climbing to Good English which is a wonderful Mennonite Program but it is also a workbook and although it's not as intense as Abeka or Christian Light it was still very task orientated.As we have focused our homeschool on the Classical model and wrote our Distinctives it became evident that our grammar was in violation distinctive #2 which states "

1. "Emphasis on independent study by the student with Mama in the role of tutor. Thus we adopted much of the methodology of the Classical Method. Which allows me to insert Charlotte Mason type elements into our homeschool without usurping the role of teacher. (again see Proverbs 2:6)"

The programs we had chosen were teacher intensive and were not creating independent scholars. Recitation seems to be very teacher intensive but I am really just giving them a tool and they are learning to recognize grammar and to use it.

Switching Gears

So this year I began to search from something I thought was a more "pure" form of Grammar for a Classical school and we found Memoria Press' English Grammar Recitation. We are thoroughly enjoying our English Grammar Recitation  by Cheryl Lowe which we are doing during our family gathering time. Additionally, it is helping me to organize the rules of grammar that I have rolling around in my head into neat little categories. This little book is composed of 5 smaller books and has around 140 grammar recitations. It is set up like a catechism.


How do you use it?
First I review the questions they have already learned. Then we go on to the next question and ask that question and practice the answer. If necessary I will give them an example. But for right now my desire is that they learn the definitions and application will occur while they work through their I.E.W. and after age 10 when they start another Grammar Program such as Winston Grammar.Right now they are learning the grammar of grammar. So here is a sample question from English Grammar Recitation:

"Question 1: What is a sentence?
Answer: A sentence is a group of words expressing a complete thought." (pa 7)

I ask the question they learn/repeat the answer. The questions range from simple questions like this one to much more complex questions like...

Reciting Poetry from IEW Linguistic Development in Language Arts Notebook

"What are the four kinds of sentences classified by purpose with definitions?" (pa 7)

Then we add each new rule to our English Language Spiral (we use spirals for notebooking). Sometimes I give them a single simple sentence and I diagram it to illustrate the point of the rule.

Is that it?

Yes, that is it and it takes less then 15 minutes for us to complete our Grammar/Language. Now Memoria Press also has workbooks that go along with English Grammar Recitation, but I am not going to be using them. We will simple continue reciting and adding the information to our English Language Notebooks.

Finally, we now actually discuss grammar as we read it and hear it spoken, I may ask them if they know what the subject of this sentence is. Or they have announced while rewriting an I.E.W. paper that "This is an interrogative sentence and clearly needs a question mark!". I gave them the tool and they are applying it to their work. <smile>

I'd love to hear how you have found simple ways to  implement Classical Style Grammar in your home, especially for the next two stages!

Linked to: Trivium Tuesdays,weekly wrap up

The Homeschool Mother's Journal(week 1): Ideas for Organizing your Homeschool Part 1

       

Hopefully helpful homeschooling tips or advice to share… 

As our family grew and more children entered homeschool it was both exciting and scary. As we have gone along we instituted more family friendly homeschooling methods. It is my hope that these are a blessing to you:

1. Purchase curriculum that allow children to work independently. For instance we use Christian Light Math  which is a self teaching program. The children complete their work and check it themselves and continue advancing forward. I review their work and grade their tests thus keeping abreast of  progress. When there is a problem we return to the page with the original explanation. If they still don't get then Mama/Tutor sits with them to explain. We have experienced wonderful success with this method in our independent studies. 
2. For those of us that tend toward the Charlotte Mason, Classical or literature based eclectic you may want to purchase curriculum that allow you to teach appropriate subjects to multiple children simultaneously. Programs such as the following: Mystery of History, My Father's World, Tapestry of Grace, Apologia Science, AIG Science etc... This could help keep you sane.
3. Buy any CD's that allow you print as many copies for your family. At first I thought this was a waste of money but now I gladly use my printer ink to avoid trips to the copy store or trying to bend a book to fit onto our printers copier. 
4. . I always feel like I am in a time crunch so I look for things that help me teach well but cut corners. Buy any CD's where the curriculum is read aloud. We use Mystery of History and I have purchased the CD's so we listen to them as we cruise around town. We are able to stay on schedule because we rarely  miss hearing or reading a chapter, because of the CD's. Additionally, I am more prepared to teach our history lessons because I am already familiar with the information, having already listened to it. 
5. Print out all of the papers on your handy dandy copier or buy your pre-printed worksheets if you can you will need for the entire year. Buy worksheets  and/or make copies of anything you need prior to the start of the year.Yes you read that correctly print it all out or copy it and then file it according to weeks or group it together in one file. For example you could make folders for each week 1,2,3... or by groups of weeks such as 1-3, 4-6 etc.or you could have all maps in a file, all science etc... I like to have my files by groups of weeks so I can keep them at the desk with me.When I did not do this I would invariably run out of ink at the most inconvenient times and wouldn't be able to print the needed documents. If you do not have enough funds to print everything at once then print your first semester/quarter/trimester etc... and print the next one at the half way mark.

What suggestion do you have that have helped your family's homeschool....

 In our homeschool this week…

Week 1 Re-cap

We started school on Thursday with a simple introduction to our curriculum for the kiddos. I had individual meetings with all the children to discuss the upcoming year. So they had fun looking at their books, supplies and cubbies. Then on Friday we headed to our Back to School Co-op Party, we ate lunch, played with friends and each child completed an 'All About Me' book.

My kiddos favorite thing this week was… 
Our favoirte thing this week is a toss up between the Co-op's Back to school party and watching our friends kids for a half day. A friend of mine and I swap out 1/2 day of babysitting each month. Our families are close and our kiddos have a great time together.

What I'm cooking...
I'm cooking Lime Chicken Tacos  from Gwen's Nest and eating Trim Healthy Mama Style! 

Things I'm working on...
We are getting our home ready to go on the market so I am weeding and mulching garden beds this week. I am also fixing any glitches on assignment sheets and making missing ones for homeschool. 

What I'm Reading ...
Isaac Newton by Allan Corduner...I became interested in Issac newton after reviewing one of my children's basic biography book. I found this book at the library and yes, it is an audio book. There may be better books on the subject regardless I've really enjoyed learning more about Newton. Plus since it's an audio book I don't have to stop washing the dishes to learn more about one of the worlds most incredible scientists. 

This week we are also linked to: 

 & So You Call Yourself a Homeschooler

Weekly Wrap Up

An overview of our homeschool Curriculum

Before our family gathering and before breakfast we read the Proverb of the day and a couple of Psalms.

In the Morning we have a family gathering during which time we cover some subjects together:

• We are using Mystery of History Volume 2 along with History in the Woods Middle Ages projects.
• For Science we use Answers in Genesis God's Design for Heaven and Earth. We absolutely loved doing this series last year and I expect we will enjoy it again this year!
• Baptist Catechism we use Truth & Grace Books this covers memory verses, hymns & catechism questions based on the an adjusted Westminster Confession. 
• We also do IEW Linguistic Development in the morning and even our 3 year old twins have gotten in on the act memorizing poems. 
• Read Alouds- this is the time we have family read Alouds , we will start the Bronze Bow and Trial & Triumph next week. 
• US State Study Notebook 
• In the Spring (MOH Vol 2 is 28 weeks long) we will do Soli Gloria Deo Map Skills. 

After the Family Gathering we start on our individualized  lessons I try to meet the individual needs of our children without killing the teacher in the process. We basically have the curriculums that have worked well for us in the past and then if a child is struggling with that curriculum we look for something that is a better fit. For instance our 7th grader has mild autism and the repetitive, predictable nature of ACE is a great fit for her so she does several of their wonderful curriculums while our other children do other things.

Math

• Our 3rd & 5th grader are doing Christian Light Education Math along with Life of Fred Math for added depth.
• Our 7th grader is doing ACE Math she also does a consumer math. 
• All of them are doing Xtra Math  an online drill

Grammar 

• ACE English (7th)
• Our Mother Tongue (5th)
• Climbing to Good Grammar for (3rd)
• Daily Paragraph Editing grades 3rd & 5th

Writing

• IEW Writing SWI-A
• The Paragraph Book 

Spelling

ACE Word Building

Building Spelling Skills (3rd & 5th)

Handwriting

• Classically Cursive (3rd & 5th)

Home Economics

• Pearables Home Economics
• CLE Home  Economics

Foreign Language

• Hey Andrew! Teach Me Some Greek.
• Latin - Might be added for the 5th grader who has decided she wants to be a vet and thus she informed me she needs to know Latin. 

Well, I hope you are all having wonderful start to the new year! 

For a peek at other homeschools check out Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers