Talk about self education!

I'm not sure what the Pricess is learning, but I'm self-educating about living on the road. I am totally serious about wanting to hit the road, just not sure when (or if) it would be full time. And seeing that I don't even have a trailer yet, well....

Actually, the Princess was looking at a cool book I had gotten her several years ago about the human body. It has those tabs on the side where you can slide pics in and out of the book.

It has some cool pics of the skeletal system and more.

Then we got interested in reading the labels on our vitamin bottles and the labels for wheat germ and flax seed. Then we took a look at common labels- canned goods, cereal, fast food boxed stuff. Yuck- after reading some of that stuff, I'd rather eat the box!

We had to run out to the bank, pharmacy and post office. Did all that, then ran and got Golden Child from school. Then we went to the library to hang out for a while and make some copies. Then we dropped off our school report for the second quarter.

It amazes me how much the Princess has done and learned, even when it seems like she's done nothing!

Tomorrow we have Girl Scouts. We are getting a "tech" tub from the council. It has everything needed for the girls to get a badge. And, it counts as homeschooling!

Wednesday, we are back to the science museum to interview The toothpick guy. I hope the Princess likes interviewing people- I set up another one for her :-)

Thursday, I meet with a new student. I'm a Literacy Volunteer, and have an adult student who needs help. Maybe the Princess will go help the 6 yr old homeschooler, maybe she'll hang on the computers or reading at the library.

Hopefully, Friday I can just stay home! But probably not. There's always something to do!

Oh, to hit the road!

Wow, in all of my surfing the net reading posts by homeschoolers, I've run into a whole new group of people.

I've also found more to keep me entranced for hours on the Internet.

The group is the "roadschoolers"- those that have chosen to hit the road and see the country- or even other countries. They homeschool on the road.

If you have ever read my blog- (ok ANOTHER blog) you know that I have always regretted not having a "camp" for my kids.

I am really a homebody, but I think I could see myself traveling for a month or so, then see how I feel about it. Ron wants to get an RV and travel someday, I want a houseboat ( and I mean HOUSE)! I think Ron's enthusiasm has waned since his brother recently sold his RV. He had sold his home several years ago, wanting to travel in his retirement.

I think they found it was too expensive with gas prices and such, and getting older they need to see doctors more often.

I traveled across country back in 1991 when I moved to Oregon from New York as a new bride. I saw a lot and got tons of pics, but didn't know what was what when they were developed (remember the day?) And of course, half the trip was made driving in the dark. When my dear hubby decided he no longer wanted to be married, I traveled back to New York on a train. I traveled with a 14 month old and a 12 yr old.

Both driving to Oregon and taking the train back were such awesome experiences. I wish I could share that with the Princess.

Hmmmm....maybe this summer. ...

The Princess sure does keep busy!

The Queen (of course!)
The Princess shuns the Queen!

This morning, the Princess made herself some breakfast. then she started HER OWN blog (hmph!). It is about babysitting. She has attempted a website about babysitting, but because you have to have so much content at once, I think she was overwhelmed (like I am at my site!). With a blog, you can post a sentence, paragraph, or whole story each time you post.

Great News!

The Princess is going to  be interviewing Stan, the toothpick man ( as I call him!) in early February! For those of you who didn't see the Toothpick City, check out Stan's site at: http://www.toothpickcity.com/. I think she will really enjoy it. She talked to him a few weeks ago when she was at the museum with her aunt. We also got some pics when we went Friday. My camera is being stupid, so only a few pics came out. Check it out HERE.

Later, The Princess found some OLD computer paper, the kind that where each sheet is attached with a perforated line where you can separate it. She decided to draw the solar system. She dragged out some of our science materials. One thing was the book I bought at the museum Friday.

Golden Child, the Princess' 18 yr old brother (graduating in June from PS) came out and started flipping through the book. Before you know it, we were all so interested in all the stuff in the book. We came to a page about rocks, which then had me getting the fossils.

When we bought our property, it was all woods- and BOULDERS-BIG BOULDERS! And tons of rock, stone, etc...We spent tons of time digging the boulders out so we could have a yard. In the process, we've found many fossils, mostly with small shell imprints. Others look like leaves or "ribs" of something small imbedded in the rock. Once, I'm pretty sure I found an arrowhead. I handed it to a kid I was babysitting, and told him to hang on to it. What does the kid do? Tosses it into the woods!

That was almost 12 years ago, still no arrowhead :-)

Golden Child just ran down to his school. They have regents today and he had none so he had the day off. One of our "fossils" looked like a bone. He took it to his science teacher (just got back)- the teacher thinks it's a kneecap from a dog or something like that. We do have coyotes and wolves in the area.

Bad news, he went to get it back and dropped it. It broke into a bunch of pieces.

Right now, I have a skeleton of a (?) chipmunk I found in the yard. It's in a box waiting to be put back together.

Ok, enough eeby-jeeby stuff.

Later at Girl Scouts, the girls are going to make "hope" pillows for kids in Haiti. I'm bring in all of my material, ribbon and whatever. We have to run to the craft store and get more needles and thread and a few other items.

I'll try to get pics today- providing there's anything to get a pic of and that the camera works! I figure it may take a few weeks to complete the pillows. I would like to send a number of pillows, and we only have 4 girls.

So, the Princess has done some writing, artwork,science, geography, home economics and more today..........

And it's only 12:47 p.m.!

Later!

Saturday School

The Queen:

Even though I report to NY state that we homeschool only during the normal school year, we learn every day here. Maybe I'll change my state report to year-round homeschool. I mean, most of our nature and science stuff is during the summer, and that's when we do our building projects, home repair and such.

Anyhoo, yesterday morning, I went out to feed the goats, chickens and ducks. I noticed little footprints all over the place (mice?). They ended at our picnic table, which is flipped over and covered with snow. Looking around the yard, I saw rabbit and deer prints as well. I ran in to grab the camera.

You could see Princess Ders head jerk up. When I grab the camera, there's usually something up. I mentioned seeing some prints. She just shrugged (yeah, right!)

I took some pics of the mouseprints, then started walking into the woods. I was following some deer tracks to see where they ended, when I heard the house door close. I yelled to the Princess to let her know where I was.

The Mouseprints (???)

We ended up walking all through the woods, looking for tracks, and trying to take pics of them. Unfortunately, I accidently deleted something on my computer, and can't upload the pics to it. I can't get the Princesses laptop to turn on.

Princess Der is MIA at a friends, so the pics will have to come later- if they even turned out!

(edited: I got one pic as seen above- the others were corrupted-time for a new camera, don't you think?)

After we came in, we made brunch for everyone- pancakes, eggs and sausage.

We each did our own thing for a hour or so, then the Princess and I played Scrabble, where I proceeded to whip her hiney. I'll admit, I got some "lucky letters"- high point value and able to place them on the board where I got extra points.

Later, wii played Wii............................

So we did a little science, practical living skills, math, Pys.Ed and language arts. Cool, huh?

More later......

P.S. I have a chart somewhere here (I think something from Girl Scouts) that shows different animal prints and what they are. I'll have to find it, and next time we have a fresh snowfall overnight, check out the prints!

Our field trip to the museum

Today, Princess Der and I went to the MOST (Museum of Science and Technology). The main exhibit was "Toothpick City". Here are a couple of pics of buildings made out of toothpicks- Amazing!

Lotus Temple!

Toothpick City!!

This exhibit was AMAZING! The artist, Stan Munro is a great artist. He has a website HERE

Princess Der could not wait to go to the shadow room. She had just been to the museum a few weeks ago, so she was flying around showing me stuff.

The Shadow Room.

In the shadow room, you pose against a wall- a flash goes off, and when you walk away, your shadow stays there. Really Cool!

The ferris wheel made out of k'nex!

We went in the the Egyptian Similator. You were in this thing like a train (?) and you are watching a movie and the train thingy is shaking and you feel like you are in the movie, racing through a pyrmid. It was really wild- I was surprised I didn't get ill!

We also went in the IMAX theater and saw the movie The Magic Of Flight. It was soooo coool! The movie is all around you- on the ceiling and walls. When the birds or a plane flew, you were right there flying with them.

That was so fun, that after we went to lunch, we watched ANOTHER movie, The Amazon. Holy Moley, they were flying over the Amazon, and you "were there". It was just such a neat thing.

We left the museum for lunch, and ended up going, of all places to Subway. It wasn't very good, sorry to say.

At the gift shop, I purchased a book called Planet Earth, the incredible visual guide. It has a little of everything. I could barely put it down to do this post!

There was so much more, but I should leave something for Princess Der to tell you. She put the pics up, then went & laid down. It's 7 p.m.- she's probably passed out. A lot of walking wears her out with her hip bothering her (the arthritis).

I'm sure she'll add more tomorrow.

Bye!

P.S. Just had to share- Pricess Der has a penpal now. They haven't even gotten a letter from each other yet. Anyway, the new penpal lives in Nove Scotia. Princess Der got her a postcard at the museum.

She looked up Nove Scotia on the computer when we got home- it was  -12 degrees there! Brrrrr!

Tomorrow, we're going to see how far away it is and a few other facts.

Just another day in the neighborhood

Just to catch everyone up to speed, the one goat died overnight. Unfortunately, when I went out to feed, another baby was under the mild stand, almost dead. I think it went under there and couldn't figure out how to get out. We gave it emergency treatment- fed it momma's milk all day long, kept it warm. It perked up by nightfall and was hopping everywhere! Took it out to  momma- she let it eat for a while, then kicked it away. Figured we'd be in for a few weeks of mothering.

Unfortunately, the next morning it took a turn for the worse. It hung on (barely) all day, then passed away. The Princess was heartbroken, but it's not the first time we've had a baby goat not do well or even die. I actually had a story published in a local magazine about the Princess being "mother" to one of our babies. I'll probably post it on my writings blog around Mothers Day.

The Princess had a friend (from public school and Girl Scouts) over for the weekend. They went to youth group at church on Sunday night- the friend really enjoyed it.

Today the princess checked out some websites I found in my searches. The game Geography Challenge was...well CHALLENGING! Who knew there were that many countries? I'm started to learn how much I DIDN'T learn in school.

Eclectic Homeschoolings website has TONS of cool learning games, virtual tours and more!

Here is a great blog post I found last night from a freshman who had always been "unschooled." He decided to try public school in his freshman year to see what it was like. You can read his experiences HERE. Quite interesting.

We have Girl Scouts today. We are into cookie season- yeeeee-haw!