Writings and ramblings of a country living, Jesus loving OT turned homeschooling mom of 4 boys. My husband and I are raising our family in very rural Missouri and trying to navigate IN this crazy world without becoming OF this crazy world.
We have been trying to soak up as much sun and summer as we can this past week. We enjoyed a class on pollinators the MDC hosted and enjoyed building our own bee houses
After the class, we met some friends at the lake and enjoyed what was likely the last [outdoor] swim of the year.
We also spent some time at our "campsite" which is a property owned by my uncle not far from our house. We could certainly camp on our property, but the dogs would not leave us alone and his property has more fun places to explore!
We've been doing a lot of nature studies recently while the weather is nice. We're learning about plant identification, tree identification, animal tracks, animal habitats, and animal habits (behaviors/what they do/etc). Learning does not need to take place in a classroom or building. Learning can happen anywhere on any day.
Since this is our first year homeschooling, we decided to do something fun the first week of public school. So, we decided to a family trip to the Lake of the Ozarks and Springfield were in order. We are SO GLAD WE DID! We quickly fell in love with the beauty of homeschooling freedom and the "sweet spot" for scheduling vacations. We were, quite literally, the ONLY people at many of the locations.
Day One we drove to Camdenton to HaHa Tonka State Park and saw the castle ruins, the natural bridge, and took in the exquisite scenery. It was HOT that day (nearly 97*) so hiking was a tad bit miserable, but we fully intend to return this fall after the leaves change and the weather cools.
The next day included a drive down to Springfield to eat at Lamberts (home of the throwed rolls!), go to fantastic caverns, and the animal safari. We had an absolute BLAST! No wait at Lamberts (which we were told is unheard of), no other families on the safari (we had the entire bus to ourselves) and only a few other visitors to the cave on our tour.
Abel was a bit uncertain about all these animals putting their heads into the bus windows begging for food so he clung pretty tight to mommy and daddy.
We also explored Bass Pro.
Noah has always been my most adventurous eater. He loves sushi, spicy food, and trying new things. He ordered frog legs. He said they were good and they tasted like chicken.
We took advantage of our time in car by listening to audiobooks (The Adventures of Tom Sawyer this trip) and playing trivia and working on our dry erase handwriting books (cursive for Noah and Eli and simple words for Isaac and beginning writing for Abel). We really enjoyed the sports trivia and the nature trivia (Dollar Tree for the win!)
Our last day consisted of putt putt golf, go kart riding, playing and wadding in The Lake, and sky zone.
Here we are showing off our miniature golf skills....
No pictures of go karts, but here are a few of my favorite part-- an impromptu stop at Lake of the Ozarks national park that resulted in wadding/swimming/playing in the water in our clothes (like I said, impromptu!) It was an absolute blast! We found a little trail after we swam and changed out of our wet clothes that was fun with gorgeous scenery and Eli and Noah fished with Dad's supervision and Isaac and Abel looked for animal tracks, feathers, and rocks.
We ended the day with surprise for the boys. We didn't tell them we were stopping anywhere else on the way home so they were VERY EXCITED when they saw we were pulling into sky zone! (Mom and Dad jumped too and had a blast, but learned that we are also too old and chubby to jump into the foam pit-- I thought I might die trying to get out of the foam pit)
We had SO MUCH FUN! We're already planning out next getaway for this fall. We love that learning can take play anywhere and everywhere and we now have the freedom to pick up and go on daddy's off weeks from work without missing school. We bring school with us and learn everyday and everywhere.
