Fire Station Field Trip 2013

We did this field trip last year and they loved it so much we did it again- plus the younger boys enjoyed it more this time. 

 They had a cool video for the kids to watch- really awesome, then they toured the station, and got to sit on the trucks. It was really fun, and we had a HUGE turn out! To many for me to even get a group picture.

 Ryan was upset in the top pic but he was really happy in the bottom one. My camera was not working so a firend took the bottom one :)

Going on a Nature Hikes!

We really enjoy Nature, well except for cockroaches :) This summer we were visited by lots of pretty butterflies on our Zinnia flowers, and I love butterflies! 

We got this camera for the boys to start taking pictures more, they really love it. Here is Ryan taking pictures.

One of the boys took this picture we have TONS of these spiders around here they are very popular, and they are HUGE this is a great shot, look at the deatils of that web!

One of the boys took this picture of a butterfly

Ryan look these of this butterfly

We found this pretty bush it is called a

Callicarpa - Beautyberry bush

we also found this yellow daisy type flowers we found these as we were hiking as a family at swayback trails, it is one of our faves around here and it is close.

Will and the boys on our hike.

We all thought these trees with the twisty vines up the trees were cool

Here was a tunnel of trees twisting together, it was a beautiful day for a hike! we did about 3 miles, and even little Dallin held his own, what a trooper!

We also Took A field Trip to swayback trails in October, we had a lot of fun kicking and us mom visiting - love my home school support here!

Down Town Montgomery Tour Field Trip!

We took a tour of Down Town Montgomery there are a lot of really cook museums and historic places there you can get on and off this Trolley all day and enjoy the stops. We just decided to do the tour. 

There is a lot of really cool civil rights movement history here, although my boys are still a little to young to really understand all of that. After this we played at the park with Friends. It was a fun day!

Art foundry Field Trip fall of 2012

While we were in Utah, (almost a year ago) we got to Tour Beare Bronze Sculpture 

This is where my Dad works, and just recently my mom as well. My dad has been doing this kind of work, Bronze sculpture all his life, and I remember as a child going to the foundry, so it was pretty amazing to watch my kids learn about this kind of Art from my dad just as I did.

When you want to have a bronze sculpture made you start with your original piece, then they make a mold of it. Then from that mold they make a Wax version of the sculpture.

Once you have a wax version of the piece from that they made a casting. This is what will hold the liquid bronze. Your max piece is dipped over half a dozen times into the slurry, then into a white sand like power until the casting is finished. Then it is heated up, and the wax comes dripped out.

After that they heat up the bronze and heat up the casting and once it is just right temp they pour the bronze into that casting.

When bronze is heating up it has a green flam- pretty cool!

This is my Dad and his boss doing a bronze pour it was pretty cool that my kids could watch him do this.

After the bronze cools about 12 hours or so. Then break off that outer casting and then sand blast it to get all the finishing touches done on the piece. After that a patina is done, which is a process of heat (from a torch) and different chemicals to create different colors and patters on the bronze. Here my dad is teaching them that - the frog picture is a piece after it has gotten the patina.

After the patina, the piece is rubbed out with a protective wax then boxed and shipped. When I was in High school, I had a job at the foundry where I would help in the office, and I would also rub out piece, once that patina is finished. 

Now you all know where I get my creative genes :) 

HERE is a link to a cool video of the process

field Trip 2012-2013

We are part of a wonderful home school group- I am not sure how I am going to make it with out them! 

I am the one who plans and sets up the Field Trips and Park days in our group. 

These happened in Jan-Feb of 2013

One of the field trips we did was to Publix Grocery Store. It is actually pretty cool They take the kids to each department, and tell them what they do there, and give them a sample, bakery a cookie, in the Deli it was cheese or chicken, and in produce fruit and for the other grocery area they have then a package of crackers. They also gave the a goodie bag with a pencil, orange and some stickers. 

 Here they let the kids hold the lobster (if they wanted to) They also took them into the back room, and let them go in the HUGE fridge. After they were all done they let them get some items and scan them for fun

 It's  a great fun trip especially for young kids.

 Another Field Trip we did was to WFSA News Station. We got a tour of the station and how everything works. The Meteorologist was the most interesting thing, the kids loved the HUGE map green screen. Aaron here is in the white trying to tell you about today's weather.

 Here you can see a couple of the boys on the map screen.

 Here are all the kids on the new desk where they broadcast the local news everyday. All the kids got to be on the News and wave off at the end of the update. I learned a lot about how a news station works, it was very interesting.

Another fun Trip we did was we went to the Local Fire department. I took pictures, but they got deleted. :( I got some from a friend - but for some reason I had problems getting them on my computer. I am still working on that. But we are going to do that trip again, the loved it so much. They watched a movie about Fire Safety and got to go on a Fire Truck and tour the Fire Station.

Pickin' Cotton

This year we are mostly focused on learning about Animals in home school but along with that we are doing a Nature/Science study too. Last week we learned about Cotton and what a useful plant it was. Doing home school with the Internet makes life sooo great, you can look videos for just about anything! Anyway- On our way home from our home school PE class at the Y we saw this combine tractor working in the cotton field. We pulled over to watch it, and to watch how what we learned about was happening right in front of us!

well; the impromptu field trip was just getting started....

one of the workers came up to us, and said the boys could pick cotton, he had grown up working with cotton all his life and picked cotton by hand as a young boy. As we were heading back to the van we stopped and talked to the owners of the cotton farm, the lady of the house talked to the boys, and let them pick cotton too. Then a different worker who was driving the combine stopped and asked if they wanted a ride. (if it was ok with me) I said yes, as the boys were supper excited.
Here are the boys on the Combine after picking cotton - bellow is a picture of the Cotton farm
Here is the boys ridding the combine.
The combine picks the cotton, and it rolls it up into these HUGE 500lb bales of cotton. Then they place it and another tractor comes and picked it up. The farmer then takes these to another location where there is a cotton gin- where it is cleaned and then shipped over seas to make the things we use today. They said hardly any cotton stays here in the us anymore.
The boys got to watch this whole process right from inside the combine. They also told the kids how to find the seeds, in the cotton they picked, and how to plant them, and take care of them so they could grow there own cotton. We will be doing that in the spring.

the boys will be talking about this for months.

what a great experience- a little boys Dream come true.

I love love love being able to have opportunities to make my children's education come to life...

*note: I did not have my camera, a son of the farmer took these picture on his iphone and then emailed them to me, the south is sure full of lots of friendly people :)