Homeschool Field Trip: St. Louis Zoo

The St. Louis Zoo will likely be the final zoo that we visit in our Year of Zoos, since it was last June that the kids and I spent a day at the Cincinnati Zoo. And as we were four hours into a ten-hour drive from Arkansas to Indiana at the time, we spent approximately three hours at the St. Louis Zoo, not the full day, but nevertheless, the adventure made both children very happy and our Will saw plenty of those animals that she loves so much.

When we've got a limited time to visit someplace, I like to let the kids check out the map, then each choose one spot for the whole family to visit. This has worked in big places, like the National Mall, in small time increments, like 90 minutes at the Children's Museum, and it worked well for one afternoon at the St. Louis Zoo (it wouldn't have if the zoo hadn't started its late summer hours just that weekend--phew!). Will got to choose first, since she'd gracefully[-ish, eventually] conceded to Syd's desire that we go to the zoo instead of the St. Louis Science Center, as Will wanted--I came out on Syd's side, since I preferred to spend the afternoon walking around in the nice weather rather than following the kids and standing around while they played inside a museum, and, since Syd's working on her Girl Scout Bugs Brownie badge and Will's working on her 4-H Entomology project, I wanted them to see the insect exhibit at the zoo--and she chose, as always, the reptile exhibit:

This kid seems to have a special connection with animals, and I am always seeing moments like these.

There was an empty habitat in which the background scene was still being painted, and both kids, old hats at scientific classification and museum signage, found much humor in the academic in-joke that was this sign:

Syd found navigating us next to Sea Lion Sound, her choice, to be a pretty big challenge--

--but we got there eventually!

The children never tap or bang on habitat walls, ever, but I do often notice them gently placing a hand against a transparent wall as they observe the animals inside:

My choice, obviously, was the insect habitat, although frankly I almost changed my mind when I saw who was sponsoring it:

Seriously?

Each summer, I toy with the idea of raising silkworms, since we have two mulberry trees in our yard.

We're not doing the intensive butterfly study that we did last year, but we still very much love them.

 We needed to buy some young chicken sitter friends some souvenirs, so Matt made his choice be the gift shop, which is conveniently by the exit, an aid to an easy transition out of the zoo:

The promise of choosing a statue to pose by also helped get them out.

 After our fact-filled animal afternoon, I looked in the rearview mirror soon after we'd gotten back on the road to find Syd entertaining herself thusly:

Hydra vs. griffin should DEFINITELY be a zoo exhibit!

Homeschool Field Trip: Spiro Mounds in Oklahoma

Spiro Mounds weren't unbearably boring as I'd thought they were as a child, but the place was calm, quiet, and peaceful, so I can see how I'd thought so at the time. Straight from Cahokia Mounds with a mind full of context, however, and in the company of my own family, they were quite pleasant to hike:

We had a self-guided tour (a single photocopied pamphlet, borrowed from the front desk, with some faulty pagination--how many decades has it been so?), several informational signs along the way, and our own prior knowledge to help us understand what we were looking at, especially as many of these mounds are vastly smaller than the giant Cahokia Mounds that we were used to. Almost a game to try to see the humps in the meadow:

I believe that this was also our first long family hike through this particular type of terrain:

The kids had mixed feelings about plains-hiking. On the one hand, it's a change of pace, with a much different view--and no hills! On the other hand, there were zero of the shady trees that always lower the temperature as we hike, and, as Will often helpfully reminded us, it was hot!

Matt invented a game with her that I'm probably going to regret the next time we go anywhere: the gist is that everyone is on a field trip (Gee, where could they have gotten that idea?), and they're all whining at their teacher, only it has to be silly whines. So Will can now hike happily enough, as long as she's also whining, "Mrs. Templeton (that's my imaginary name in this game)! My water bottle is only half full!"

"Mrs. Templeton! That squirrel is climbing on the mound!"

"Mrs. Templteton! Where's the bathroom?"

"Mrs. Templeton!"

Yeah. Thanks, Matt.

Of course, in the South, the payoff to everything being blazingly hot outside is that the air conditioning hits you with a wall of bracing cold as soon as you go back inside, so everyone had a pleasant time cooling back off in the museum, looking at antiquities, watching a documentary, and, you know, grinding a little corn:

This museum doesn't have even a fraction of the budget of Cahokia (as a matter of fact, we almost couldn't pay the admission to get in, because they didn't have a credit card reader--yikes!), so I was frankly impressed that the place was as respectable as it was--outdoor historical sites require a LOT of maintenance! I still want to visit Serpent Mound, but with this trip, I think that these two kids of mine have absorbed just about as much information about the Mound Builders as they're going to be able to absorb for a while.

And since next weekend, we have our dinosaur dig orientation with the paleontologists and other families who'll also be at our dino dig in a month and a half, I think it's about time to move our geography and history studies out West!

P.S. I heard a lot about this scandal during our visit, and I requested this book from our university library as soon as we got home:
I'm prepared to be both enthralled and horrified by it.

My Latest: Zombies and Your Old Sports Gear

a review of the Pentagon's actual Zombie Preparedness Plan

a round-up of DIY projects that upcycle old sports gear

and a tutorial to make a tennis racket butterfly net

To my delight, both kids adored their spring tennis classes. Although we're hopefully to move away from the beautiful park across the street, and its many tennis courts, soon, I'm nevertheless eagerly anticipating many, many more tennis games with the children in my imminent future. These classes that build real, useful skills, and contribute to the enjoyment of everyday life, are my favorite type of extracurricular. I hope that the kids' ability to ice skate well, ride horses safely and confidently, play softball and tennis (must add soccer and basketball to their skill set at some point), build a slab or coil pot, start a fire, turn a cartwheel, act in a play, and swim like fishes will help them to have very, very happy lives. 

Cahokia Mounds Homeschool Field Trip

As a kid, I swear I was traumatized by the MOST BORING FIELD TRIP EVER to Spiro Mounds in Oklahoma (more on that later). It was hot and buggy, I don't remember actually knowing a bit of context for what I was looking at, it seemed as if all the kids had a bad attitude, including me, and I was so little impressed by the whole experience that 25 or so years later, studying the early Native American Mound Builders with the kids, I had absolutely zero personal information to contribute to our study.

I was a bit concerned, therefore, that our field trip to Cahokia Mounds in Illinois might suck a little, but I figured that at least there are hiking trails, and our kids like to hike, and if it sucked too much we just didn't have to stay very long.

Yeah, we stayed for a LONG time. Cahokia was so awesome that we basically stayed until we either had to get back on the road or resign ourselves to arriving in Arkansas at midnight--Central time!!!

The best part of Cahokia IS definitely the hiking, since you can't climb on any but one of the giant mounds, of course:

Still, it's very fun to hike around the flat meadows, discovering mounds and other natural beauties in clearings and around wooded curves in the paths:

We hiked for quite a while, and then explored the excellent museum:

I researched extensively for our Mound Builders study, and still I didn't come close to providing the context and enrichment and detailed information that we all got here in this museum. There were exhibits on the Mound Builders, on the lives of the Native Americans who lived in Cahokia, on the archaeological excavations of the place, and on the artifacts that were discovered. Syd even found some pottery!

And we're absolutely trying this recipe in the fall:

One thing that was an annoyance throughout our entire visit was the presence of two or three unruly groups of children too old to behave that way on a school field trip. Most of their annoyance wasn't malicious, of course, but simply their failure to realize that there might be any other humans also present, trying to enjoy the mounds, who weren't on their own personal field trip. They did a lot of talking and laughing loudly, covering the entire swath of walking paths in giant herds and not noticing the approach of other pedestrians also trying to use the path, and stopping in groups to have casual conversations while blocking exhibits.

I half-heartedly attempted to justify their behavior to the kids by explaining that maybe these children didn't get to go on adventures very often and were just too excited to remember their manners, but of course what the kids mostly took away from the encounters was my unconscious body language that shouted to the heavens, I'm sure, that I was completely over it. And so, later, as we loitered at the foot of Monks Mound, waiting for Will to catch up and for perhaps that other field trip to descend before we climbed up, ourselves (this biggest mound is the one you can climb on!), Syd happened to look to the path behind us, then suddenly screamed out, "FIELD TRIP COMING!!!", for all the world as if it were a horde of zombies lurching toward us, or an army of Huns bearing down.

We laughed, but we did get our butts in gear to beat them:

Can you see the Gateway Arch in the background?

I hadn't paid too much attention to what the kids packed for this trip, other than to tell them how much of what to bring (four outfits, including underpants; comfy clothes for the car and for sleeping in; Nook/ipad stocked with library books; math book and journal; colored pencils or crayons and pencil; toothbrush and hairbrush; six very small toys; water bottle), so I didn't really notice nor care that both kids had only brought their Crocs, but let me tell you that I will not make that mistake again! While Crocs are comfy, apparently, for day-to-day wear (I don't know--I've never worn them), they are completely unsuitable as active wear. Both kids suffered in them for the entire trip, and Will took to ditching them whenever she possibly could:

Cahokia also has a treehenge, although it was too overcast to cast a shadow:

I'm pretty sure we should build our own treehenge at our new house, though.

If you're planning a road trip that takes you anywhere near St. Louis, Cahokia is an absolute must-see, especially with even a brief unit study of early American history to preface it. There are no resources that even compare to a physical visit (and yes, you could say that about any place, but it really applies even more so here, since there are no digital or video resources that even approximate the experience), and visiting it adds crucial context to any Native American or American history study, context that you're just not going to find elsewhere.

Be that as it may, here are some of the resources that we enjoyed as we studied the Native American Mound Builders and Cahokia:

• Stuff You Missed in History Class: Cahokia

Fishing with Pappa, and other Weekend Adventures

A lot of pretty great things happened this weekend:

The most awesome of all awesome kids graduated from high school. Even though I'm pretty sure that it was just a couple of weeks ago that she was the tiny little flower girl at our wedding, twirling around with sparklers while that head full of curly hair flew around her, somehow we all found ourselves on Friday night in the stands of the school's football stadium--

--watching, disbelieving (but very, very proud), as this happened:

Just look at this kid, all grown up in the space of one breath:

These kids are growing up mighty quickly, as well, I must say:

Sitting in the stands for three FREAKING HOURS for this graduation, the kids and I did some discussing of what their high school graduations might look like. We're thinking backyard party, perhaps we'll grill, some of the people who've loved them and guided them through their school years can give speeches, and they can give a speech, too. Although really, as long as their Aunt Pam also makes them Little Debbie Swiss Rolls decorated like diplomas, I don't think the kids care what else goes on.

I *think* we're definitely getting the house! We still had to ask for the second extension, but this bank gave the realtor to pass to the seller some sort of form saying that they're definitely providing our mortgage, so there's no reason why they wouldn't extend. Sometime prior to June 20, I think we'll have our new home!

Pappa taught his great-granddaughters how to fish. It's funny how I've always thought that my Pappa, who helped raise me, was the oldest guy in the world, even though when I was born he was only 57, which doesn't seem old to me now (at least *I* don't plan to be super old in 19 years, but I also don't plan to be raising any grandbabies, either). But no matter how you look at that, today, at 94 (and we'll be driving back to Arkansas to celebrate his 95th birthday in October), Pappa's a pretty old guy, and he hasn't often been up to gallivanting about with the couple of wild little hellions that I always bring with me when I travel, so it's always been a disappointment to me that my kiddos weren't having the same relationship with him that I had, weren't seeing the all-powerful guy who could do anything, could fix anything, could solve anything the way that it seemed he could when I was their age.

But Pappa's actually been seeming to feel really well lately, and my little hellions are old enough now to not absolutely drive an old guy bonkers, and this time when we came down to visit, he had crafted the plan to surprise his great-granddaughters with their very first real fishing trip (stocked pond at the State Fair excluded).

It was absolutely perfect:

Pappa taught each kiddo how to bait her own hook with the worms that he'd brought, how to adjust the bobber, how to cast, and how to wait patiently. The kids took to fishing as if they'd been born to it--as, indeed, they have been, at least on their mother's side. I was Pappa's fishing buddy before them.

But, of course, even with all the newness of hook baiting, all the fun of practicing casting, all the excitement of waiting for the bobber to dip, all the peace of being out next to the water on a lovely morning in good company, the kids' first real fishing trip would not have been quite perfect unless they caught a fish.

Thank goodness:

Pappa held each fish while I unhooked it, and then he handed it back to the kid and instructed her to throw it back in (we neglected the part where you kiss it and tell it to grow bigger. Next time!). Will tossed her fish back in pretty lightly, but when it was Syd's turn, she heard Pappa say, "Throw it back in!", channeled not her complete lack of fishing knowledge but instead Matt's extensive softball coaching, and before we could stop her, she wound back, stepped forward on her non-dominant foot, and THREW that fish across the lake with her very best softball throw! Matt swears that it was her best throw ever. I swear the poor thing bounced before it finally landed, but it didn't come back up, at least.

Kids don't have the ability to stay out fishing all dang day, but neither do seniors, fortunately, so Pappa got tired enough for us to head back at about the perfect time--after each kid had caught a fish, but before they got weary of the fishing. We spent the rest of that day out and about while he rested, met back up only for a bit at the big graduation party that night, and were headed back to Indiana less than 24 hours later, but the memories that we made certainly made it feel to me like one of our biggest, best trips, even if it wasn't the longest. 

I'm very happy for the children, of course, that they got to have this experience with their great-grandfather, to get to know him and see for themselves the kind of smart, generous, and engaging man that he is, that they got to have their first real fishing trip, so long anticipated, with him, and I hope that they've made memories for themselves about this day.

Honestly, though, I'm most happy for myself. Whether or not the kids end up remembering this adventure with their great-grandfather after they're grown, I'll remember it, and feel happy thinking about it. I think that one of my favorite memories now is always going to be this time when two generations, so far apart from each other but both so close to me, spent the morning fishing with each other.

Flat Stanley Heads to London

The other day, Syd recited to me the entire plot of a Flat Stanley book that she'd just read. When she finished, I said, "You know, some kids like to make Flat Stanley dolls and send them to people who live in exciting places. Those people take Flat Stanley around and show him the sights, then send you pictures of his adventures. Should WE do that?"

"We should!", said she.

You can draw your own Flat Stanley, or choose one of several free templates available online--Syd liked this particular Flat Stanley best. I printed him out onto cardstock for her, then she colored him masterfully, using a combination of crayons, colored pencils, and our people-color crayons.

Although we've got loads of friends who live in super cool places, for this inaugural Flat Stanley, who I really want to be a smash hit for Syd's sake, I chose my friend, Trey, and his husband, Philip, who live in London. Philip is the UK Parliament guy that Will's going to Skype interview this summer [hopefully--must get butt in gear on that project], so I thought it would be nice for Syd to do something fun with them, too, so she wouldn't feel left out.

Also, they're amiable fellows who won't be too fussed about holding up a child's drawing next to Big Ben and snapping a photo.

Syd dictated a letter to our friends while I typed it into our Startwrite program, then I printed it out for her in cursive, to her horror. However, she surprised herself at how able she now is to write in cursive!

It took her a long time, with a couple of breaks for playdates and tennis lessons, but her handwriting is excellent.

Mind you, she put a period everywhere there should have been a comma, but her handwriting really is excellent. She colored her Flat Stanley really cute, too.

Flat Stanley is now off and away, and hopefully he'll soon be having adventures that he'll want to show off to Syd. And hopefully that will inspire Syd to want to make and send out some more Flat Stanley guys--maybe to you?

In other news, trying to buy a house sucks. How does anyone ever actually manage to do this? Since I've previously had a newborn in the NICU for three weeks, this is only the second most stressful experience of my life, but it's still really, really, REALLY darn stressful! The thing that I hate most is anticipating decisions that are totally out of our hands and not on our own timetable. Matt has found a bank that says that they'll absolutely offer us a mortgage, but first they have to check with the bank that declined our mortgage to see if that bank will let them use the appraisal that they had done. If so, yay! If not, this new bank will have to schedule its own appraisal, which means that we will not be able to close before the extension that the seller agreed to give us runs out, which means that our realtor will have to ask the seller for a second extension. Will the seller agree to this, especially since they probably don't really know what kinds of hell we've already had to go through to find a bank willing to provide a mortgage for this specific property, or will they tell us to shove off because we're taking too damn long? And if they tell us to shove off because we're taking too damn long, what on earth am I going to do with all of these books that I've organized and packed?!?

Because yeah, the possibility of losing out on our dream house, our future fruit trees and chicken flock and big dog and king-sized bed and woods and creek and spacious family room, and still all I can think about are my books.

Work "Guide" for the Week of May 19, 2014: Entomology and the Mississippian Mound Builders

Instead of divided work plans for each child, this week I gave them both this one-page "guide" to the week:



I organized it into the tasks that I expect them to work at daily, the tasks that I expect them to do once (these can be marked off when completed), a schedule of extracurriculars for the week, and some things to be thinking about.

We're still in the middle of Buying a New House Misery; the bank that was going to fund our mortgage actually changed its mind a couple of days before our closing last week after receiving the updated appraisal (turns out that not everyone thinks that buying a house next door to a drive-in movie theater is the best idea ever. Hello, External Obsolescence!), and although we've got another bank that *says* they'll be happy to fund it, they strangely didn't feel like working day and night over the weekend to figure it out, so we're still waiting and waiting and waiting with no new house yet, sigh. Because of that, I'm not in the mood to make and mentor detailed daily work plans, and yet our past weeks without work plans, although they have still contained regular daily work and fun, spontaneous enrichment--

Cookie Bake-off!

Obsession with Eastern Tent Caterpillars!

--have also contained children "surprised" at finding math still needing to be completed at bedtime, children who just don't understand where their aerial silks uniforms could be five minutes before it's time to leave the house for silks class, and--and this one resulted in lots of yelling and actual angry, frustrated tears on my part--a child who could find neither her sneakers nor her flipping TENNIS RACKET that she had just used TWO DAYS EARLIER, as we were literally on our way out the door to tennis class.

I tore open a packed box to unearth a second pair of sneakers, gave her my tennis racket to use, and drank a frozen margarita with dinner that night.

Clearly, in the midst of this chaos, we do need some sort of schedule that the children can refer to and be held accountable to, hence the guide. Other than math, journal, and cursive, our two major academic emphases this week are entomology (some friends are working on their Brownie Bugs badges, so this is a good week to join them and get Will really started on her long-desired insect collection) and ancient Native Americans (we're SUPER excited to be taking a field trip to see Cahokia Mounds later this week). In the three school days that we've got before our long-weekend road trip to Arkansas to see my baby cousin graduate high school, we're going to watch a documentary on preshistoric Native Americans and listen to a podcast expressly about Cahokia. We read about Cahokia in History of US, so the kids can tell you all about the stinkards and how noble women had to marry them, but I can't wait to see their faces when they actually see that huge mound for the first time!

Most of the kids' work requirements for their Girl Scout and 4-H entomology projects are hands-on and practical in nature, and we'll pretty well have those covered with two insect observation hikes and a trip to the St. Louis Zoo all by this Sunday, but by now they know well that Momma ALWAYS has additional requirements to complete, and mine are mostly academic--reading list, insect anatomy worksheets, insect identification flash cards, documentary, etc. I imagine it will take them a couple more weeks to finish those.

To those plans, add a movie theater field trip that I organized for one of our homeschool groups (last time we did this trip, the manager let the kids cut up the filmstrip of a Spider-man trailer and take the pieces home!), and the children's scripting, costuming, and filming of a "special effects" movie, one that will be heavily informed by the short films of Méliès that the kids and I watched yesterday while Matt mowed the lawn.

And then sometime before tomorrow afternoon I've got to replace the kids' crappy Target tennis rackets that are unstringing themselves. Grrr!

So it's a short week that we've got of out and about, studying math and bugs, making movies and watching them, while poor Matt manages our mortgage mess during his work breaks and finds someone to lend us money. Later this week, will we leave our cats and chickens and chicken sitter behind and drive away happy in the knowledge of a mortgage offered and closing date planned, for real this time?

Good freaking grief, I hope so!

P.S. The sneakers were later found in the washing machine--she'd decided they were dirty, put them in the laundry, then forgot. The tennis racket? That one was found IN THE BOOKSHELF WITH THE LIBRARY BOOKS. Just thinking about that one kind of makes me wonder if Matt will make us another pitcher of margaritas tonight...