OUR FIRST HOMESCHOOL FIELD TRIP!!!!!!! And an update on school!

First Field Trip!!  Houston Museum of Natural Science

In case you couldn't tell from the title of this post, I'm a little bit excited about our first field trip!  When we started our dinosaur unit, I KNEW it was time to take a field trip.  I just knew Grayson would looooove to see some massive dinosaur skeletons and it would be a perfect first field trip for him.  However, it's worth saying that although I thought it would be the perfect first field trip for Grayson, I was not sure if Harrison would put up with this outing or allow us to enjoy it!  I set aside a day for us to travel to Houston and visit the Houston Museum of Natural Science.  Expecting that this was not going to be the most toddler-friendly museum and I had to of course keep up with both kids, I figured Harrison would be spending most the outing in the stroller (not his fave thing!), which meant our time was limited.  My goal was just to make it through the dinosaur bones before Harrison was totally fed up with being in his stroller!  After that, we were just winging it - maybe we'd see more of the museum or maybe we'd just leave, depending on the kids' moods (in particular, Harrison's!!).

We arrived a little after opening, and although it was supposed to be a light crowd day at the museum, there were still several school field trip groups in the museum that day.  We headed straight to the paleontology exhibit, as planned, and lo & behold, we were the only people in the whole exhibit, except for the slightly bored security guards making laps around the dinosaur bones.  We spent nearly an hour inspecting the skeletons, marveling at their size and variety, and me doing my best to avoid any displays including evolution theories (was reminded of how much I dislike the term "prehistoric"!).  Towards the end of that hour, all of sudden several school groups showed up in the exhibit, and boy did that make me appreciate the peace & quiet my boys had had while they were marveling at giant dinosaur skeletons for the first time!  I was pleasantly surprised that Harrison did not complain too much about the stroller initially.  He asked "Me walk?!" a few times, but several large pictures of animals throughout the exhibit kept distracting him, and Mommy might have also been slipping him contraband fruit snacks to help keep him happy!

I love how Grayson is staring up at the dinosaurs in half my pictures!!

The triceratops was Grayson's favorite, by far, even though this pic doesn't necessarily show that!

            Nothing like visiting a T-rex skeleton to make your almost 5 year old baby look itty-bitty again!

Different view of the T-rex... yikes!!

         

My tiny babies, taking in the dinosaurs...

When we left the paleontology exhibit, Harrison was still hanging in there so I asked Grayson if he wanted to see the exhibit on gems.  That was next on my priority list, because we have a gem unit coming up too!  Glad we made it to this exhibit, because Grayson actually liked this even better than the dinosaurs.  At lunch I asked him what his favorite part of the museum was, and he said "the gems!".  I guess that shouldn't be a surprise, because he's always loved rocks.  Since he's been big enough to walk, he's collected rocks wherever we go - stuffs them in his pockets and takes them home.  He loved the variety of colors, sizes, and shapes in the gem exhibit, and went through the whole exhibit counting how many different colors there were.

Curious boys!  We made it through a few more exhibits after the gems... one on mollusks, one on Texas wildlife, one on African wildlife, and one on Egypt, which was also well-timed, since he just learned all about the 10 plagues in Awana!  Here's a little bit of the other exhibits...

        

Harrison & a zebra

Grayson & a wildebeest

    I gave Harrison a wiggle break & he was sooooo excited!  Perfect opportunity to capture them in their dinosaur shirts!  I usually try to match their wardrobe to the day's activity, if they have something appropriate... wear Elmo to Sesame Street Live, animal shirt to the zoo, etc... I was pulling clothes out of Grayson's closet that morning before the museum, and I said "How about your monster truck shirt?" not even thinking about his dinosaur shirt.  Grayson replied "Yeah, monster trucks!  Wait, NOOO!  I want to wear my dinosaur shirt to see the dinosaurs!"  I had already dressed Harrison and had forgotten his dinosaur shirt too, so I changed him... That's Grayson, keeping me on my toes when I forget their dinosaur shirts!!!

    

This one made me laugh... Harrison & his fries wearing his shirt with a dinosaur eating fries...

They were really excited to tell Daddy about their adventures when he got home, complete with show-and-tell.  Grayson proved he meant it when he said the gems were the best part, because he picked a bag of colored, polished quartz to take home instead of a dinosaur.  Harrison picked a triceratops snuggly.

It was a great first field trip!  I loved seeing Grayson's curiosity and how thoroughly he enjoyed everything.  Love watching him learn!

Another fun thing we've done while learning about dinosaurs was to build our own using modeling clay.  I was pretty impressed with Grayson's triceratops and stegosaurus.

Readin' and Writin'! 

Besides our field trip, it's been an exciting 6 weeks since my first homeschooling post.  At a rate of 3 school days a week, we haven't exactly been speeding through this curriculum, but we finally covered enough phonics to get to the letter blending part, and Grayson is BEYOND excited to be reading and writing short words now!

Projects that made Mommy nervous!

We've also taken on a few projects that made me very nervous when I first read about them in the teacher's book.  Here's a sampling...

Anything involving paint always makes me cringe, but Grayson did a great job keeping the paint where it belonged - there was no mess to speak of after making this turtle!

This experiment using the sense of hearing could have gone very badly, but he was gentle with the spoon and no glasses were harmed in the completion of this experiment!

This next one I just knew was going to end in a big mess!  He was fingerpainting on a cookie sheet, using pudding, while listening to classical music.  He was supposed to use his sense of hearing to listen to the music then use his sense of touch to fingerpaint what he thought the music sounded like.  His picture totally blew me away!  I was expecting a bunch of swirls & pudding everywhere, but he painted an actual scene!

He said it's a person walking under the stars at night.  

We replayed the song after he finished his picture, and that's exactly what it sounded like. 

Harrison's picture was a bit more abstract...

And then he realized this stuff was not only edible, but quite yummy.  

"Why does Mommy have me painting with this yummy stuff???"

Other Fun Projects/Activities

We've also had lots of less-nerve-wracking projects and activities too!

Nest Unit

Nest Unit

Nest Unit

Nest Unit

Turtle Unit Snack

Turtle Unit Snack

Turtle Unit - being turtles!  

Turtles persevere!!

Hard at Work! 

And of course, there's been lots of normal ol' schoolwork!  I LOVE Grayson's adorable focused expression when he's trying hard on his schoolwork!  And his proud "I did it!" grin when he finished something!

"Hey Mommy, I think you forgot to take my picture!  I'll just stand here 'til you remember!"

Who's the teacher here, anyway?

One day, when I got up to snap a picture of Grayson doing something, Harrison hopped out of his chair and climbed into mine.  When I asked him "Harrison, what are you doing in Mommy's chair??" he replied "Me da teacher!!"

Grayson likes to be the teacher sometimes too, teaching Harrison his ABCs...

Recess!

We've had a few warm days and both boys were glad to start getting their winter-wiggles out!

This one doesn't really have anything to do with school, but it is soooo stinkin' cute I just wanted to put it in here.  Otherwise it might not make it's way onto the blog at all, because spring-crazy-schedule is officially here...  Love these sweet boys and love how they love each other!

School Uniforms

Last but not least... their latest twist on school attire!  What can I say?!  It's March and rodeo-fever has taken over the little boys in our house!!