This is an old post, that I never got finished, until now.
You know I’m a homeschool mom, because I turn everything into a school project. I wonder sometimes if my kids get weary of my turning everything into learning opportunities, but they’re stuck with me and my ways. (Sorry guys!)
We’ve had company off and on over the last few months and we wanted to do some fun things with them, so we headed out to some local museums. The first adventure was to visit the Future of Flight museum. I didn’t get to go, because they don’t allow preschool aged children, (not that I’m a preschooler, but I have one…) so I stayed home and cooked up a big meal for everybody. Which, I thorougly enjoyed, and so did they, by the way. My older two kids along with their cousins, uncles, grandparents and dad went there though for a tour. They came back all talking at once. They had seen a 787. They had seen the largest building in the world by volume. They had seen the assembly line for the 747. They had all kinds of things to tell me. Unfortunately, they were not allowed to take pictures, but they did their best to describe everything they had seen. Then I did my homeschool mom act and made an assignment to each of my kids to write a report on their trip. They enjoyed the project enough, that they not only decided to write, but to design a page for their report. I gave them some help. They spent quite a bit of time searching online for pictures for their reports.
The next trip we went on was to the Museum of Flight. Sound like we have a theme going? It’s not because we have been studying about airplanes or anything it’s just that these are what struck our fancy, but being that I’m a homeschool mom, I’m wondering if it’s time to do a lapbook on airplanes or the Wright Brothers or something! I don’t know though. Sometimes, I realize that I can’t make a full blown unit out of everything we do. There’s just not enough time. However, since my previous writing assignment turned out so well, I definitely have a theme going on that, and assigned another writing assignment. We were allowed to take pictures on this trip, and being that JD Boy has a new camera, he had his along, so he took lots of pictures and was able to use that for his page.
The notebook pages.
Some fun pictures of the day. 1. Moon Rover replica, 2. Blue Angels, 3. WWII plane, 4. Future Astronaught
Our third museum visit was to the Pacific Science Center. We actually have made several trips to the Science Center and I have to confess that I haven’t required writing assignments every single time. I should have, because there is so much to see there, that each time, they could write about something different. But you know, even homeschool moms, slack up once in awhile. This time even my preschooler decided that he wanted to make a report. Our pass still hasn’t expired, so I’m hoping to still get in one more set of reports out of them on the Science Center in the next few weeks. They each chose their own pictures again. JD Boy took all of his pictures. The other two, hunted down pictures on Flickr that were Creative Commons license.
The notebook pages.
Some shots from the Butterfly House at the science center. Links to the full size pictures. 1. Butterfly, 2. Butterfly, 3. Butterfly, 4. Butterfly
A very important shot–one of the Space Needle from the Pacific Science Center. All photos from both museums were taken by my 8 yo son, JD Boy.
So there you have it — three museums and three reports and I was able to count three days, that would have otherwise been discounted, as school days! After all, I have written reports to prove it now.
If you are visiting the Seattle area and are planning visits to any of these museums and would like copies of these notebook pages, feel free to email and ask.