Tag Archives: Field Trip

Father’s Day Weekend

I hope you and your family had a wonderful Father’s Day. Seems dad’s just don’t get enough special days though out the year. I heard recently some folks are trying to do away with calling it Father’s Day and have put forth legislation to change the name to “Parents Day” so it is more “inclusive”. Such a shame though to take the focus away from Father’s.

We spent the whole weekend celebrating Father’s Day. Why not? He works so hard to care for the needs of our family. Dedicating this entire weekend just to him pales in comparison.

Father God is also a good father and He spends our entire lifetime caring for our needs. He is amazing! He can do anything! I want to encourage you to not forget him. Don’t forget to thank him. Don’t forget to celebrate him. He is good and his mercy endures forever.

On Saturday, Daddy opened a couple of gifts we had picked out and some that were made for him. One of the special gifts this year we have been focusing on has been learning “skills” from outdoor survivalist Creek Stewart. For Dad’s birthday a few months ago, we got him a bimonthly subscription to Apocabox, and he will get six of these boxes during the year. So for Father’s Day, we stayed with that theme and we ordered him a bow drill from Creek Stewart, so he can learn to make friction fire, also a folding saw for cutting tree limbs, and a Special Edition Apocabox. However, the Apocabox had not yet arrived before he opened his gifts Saturday morning so I figured the box might be here by Monday. We told him it would be coming, and we gave him his other gifts and he was quite pleased. We gave him the Creek Stewart bow drill, a collection of some fire tinders that were hand collected by one our boys including homemade charcloth he made, an extra large coffee cup that says “make it happen”, a swiss army military style clipper set, and his favorite chocolate pecan turtles. One of our sons is working on a special paracord bracelet that is still in progress, but not finished yet. Another one of our son’s made him a beautiful leather bag. I will post a story soon about him creating the bag.

We got ready to leave to take Dad to lunch. We had a few plans including taking him to lunch at a Mexican restaurant and then take him to Cabela’s to get a new fishing pole. To round out the special weekend, we planned to take him fishing on Sunday afternoon.

Just as we were planning to leave the house Saturday, the mailman brought a package. My husband met the mailman in the driveway and he was beaming ear to ear when he got back in the house with his box. It was the Special Edition Apocabox from Creek Stewart, and he (and our boys) couldn’t wait to open it. I will post a story soon about this box.

After looking through his Father’s Day gifts and spending the morning together, we went to lunch. We ate at a place we have eaten at a few times for special occasions such as birthdays. We had actually been there two weeks earlier to celebrate our oldest son’s eighteenth birthday. They make delicious tasting Mexican food and our whole family enjoys it.

After lunch we took Daddy to Cabela’s to look around and see if he would like a new fishing pole and gear. Our family has some fishing gear, but with eight people in the family, and with little ones, some things get broke and we all share what we have, and sometimes Dad is so busy fixing the poles, lost gear, tangled gear, or re-baiting them etc, that he doesn’t even get to fish. We thought it would be nice to get a new pole just for him.

Cabela’s is a very interesting sporting goods store. On this day, they had set up a pool in the parking lot and were giving Kayak lessons.

Another cool feature inside the store are the wildlife animal displays and the huge aquarium.

But at the end of our time at the store, the only thing he really wanted was a tee shirt and a flashlight. So we came home without a fishing pole, but we enjoyed spending time with him anyway.

After we got back home Saturday, we ate some Father’s Day cake our daughter made. Then we spent time in our back yard trying to make a fire by hand with Dad’s bow drill.

My husband had our 13 year old son assemble the Creek Stewart Take Down Bow Drill. He was thrilled to get to assemble it. These bow drills are custom made by hand. They are made so you can disassemble “take down” the bow and put it into your backpack to carry with you on camping trips.

My son had also made a tinder “nest” for this special occasion. He is learning so many skills and I am very proud of his efforts.

After it was assembled, they headed to the back yard to practice.

The two of them worked together to run the bow drill.

They had smoke coming from the friction several times.

But each time they would check for a “coal” from the smoke, there was not a coal.

But they did have lots of ground up and smoking wood dust, created by the friction of the two sticks, that could become a coal in the right conditions.

I don’t know if you have ever tried to make a fire by rubbing sticks together, but it is not easy. They tried for a long time. They tried up on a table so it was easier on my husband’s 50 year old back. But when that wasn’t successful, they moved it to the ground. They also tried making it on a flat rock. But it proved to be too difficult this evening to get a friction fire going. We plan to re-watch Creek Stewart’s video about how to use the bow drill to create a fire and then “make it happen”.

Later after dark, the family all went back outside and played with flashlights. Dad got out his new flashlight, and the boys got out their flashlights and they all played around seeing who’s light could shine the brightest out into the yard and go the farthest down the driveway. As they get bigger and older, it seems Dad might be feeling a bit challenged. But Dad’s new light won the “farthest” competition with the flashlights and he felt very proud to still be the top dog!

Sunday morning, we got up and made coffee and pancakes. Knowing we had plans to take Dad fishing later, we played around the house for a bit, and we watched a few videos together. There are some really good weekly videos on youtube that show current events each week. There are also some wonderful bible teachings. When we have time, if we are home on a Saturday or Sunday, we watch some of these bible teachings, and videos that show current events worldwide, including world wide weather events (hurricanes, floods, volcanoes, earthquakes, mudslides, etc), and some that focus on events in the USA. It is a good way to catch up on the news from a Christian worldview, something you don’t get on regular TV. It helps to see what is happening in current events, and understand from a Christian worldview what is happening and how it lines up with bible prophesy. We are told in the scriptures to watch and to understand. We are living in the end times, and though we don’t know the day or hour it will all take place, I would encourage everyone to try to keep a watchful eye however they can and learn as much as they can.

Then we headed outside to load our fishing gear and cooler into the van and headed out to find a fishing spot and to enjoy the rest of the day with Dad. We stopped along the way to get a bag of ice, bread, lunch meat, chips, bottled waters and Gatorade. We planned to have a lunch picnic. It was 95 degrees out today and we wanted everyone to stay hydrated. We drove around for about two hours looking for just the right fishing spot.

Finally we found a nice little spot along the water that faced away from the sun, and it had some shade trees. This seemed like a good spot to put our fishing lines in. Shade trees can be a blessing, but you can also get your lines tangled in them when casting.

But it was so hot outside, we were sweating while just standing still, and having that little bit of shade from the trees was important. Eventually we realized the fish don’t like the heat either and we were not catching anything. After several hours of trying on our part, the fish were just not biting on our lines, other than an occasional nibble. Then, not long before dark, we had a Father’s Day miracle.

We didn’t get home until very late, and we were all tired, but it was a great day. Despite the heat, we had fun just spending time together as a family and we enjoyed each other’s company and enjoyed the special day and our special Father’s Day Weekend with Dad.

Be sure to read the next post for an amazing outcome to our Father’s Day weekend: A Father’s Day Miracle.

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Learning To Draw By The Sea

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The ocean is an amazing thing. Did you know water covers over 70% of the earth’s surface? Scientists claim they have only explored 5% of the ocean so far. That leaves a whole lot of mystery about this beautiful habitat that is so vital to the world in so many ways. I would encourage everyone to visit the ocean at least once if they get the opportunity. Your senses will be overwhelmed and rejuvenated by the experience.

It is amazing to listening to the roar of the waves, get your feet wet or go for a swim, wait and watch for fish or dolphins to breach the surface, to observe birds swooping down to catch a fish, or sighting an occasional fishing boat out to sea. The ocean is always changing and you could spend hours watching it.

Our family loves to visit the ocean! We are usually blessed to take a day drive and visit the sea a couple of times a year. Sometimes we drive several hours just to get out and walk the beach and splash in the waves for two hours and then get back in the vehicle and drive several more hours back home. Depending on which beach we visit, it takes us about 4 hours to get to the closest one. It is a long ways to drive, but it is free to use the public beaches. If we pack a cooler with food and water, then the only cost involved is the fuel to drive there. With a large family, getting to do something fun for FREE is a big deal.

On a few occasions, we have been blessed with the opportunity to spend the night instead of driving there and back all in one day. Those overnight experiences by the sea have been exceptional. It is hard to describe the amazing way you feel when you wake up to the ocean, and get up with the sun rise, spend the day in the salty air, then get to observe the sunset, and listen to the waves in the dark of night as the stars twinkle overhead. It is wonderful!

Learning To Draw By The Sea.

We recently had the opportunity to stay overnight on a visit to the ocean. We spent the morning and evening playing on the beach, but in the heat of the day, we needed something else to do to avoid getting a serious sunburn. We did not bring electronic games or computers that are part of our normal homeschooling day. Instead, we played board games like chess, put together fun puzzles, and spent part of our time learning to draw with the art kits we recently made.

It was so nice to have our portable DIY Art Kits. Be sure to check the story with information on how to make one for your family.

The kits were small enough to go just about anywhere with us, yet they were big enough to hold just about everything we needed.

For some reason that I can’t remember, I didn’t get pictures of the kids drawing. I guess I must have been so excited about the view, and the opportunity to sit there and draw, that I failed to get up and take pictures of what the others were making too.

For this project, I used the watercolor pencils. I had hoped to make a project with paints too, but I didn’t have time to accomplish both on this trip. My older son chose to use charcoal pencils from his kit, and the younger kids used crayons. I pulled out a small table onto the porch to hold my drawing pad and pencils.

It was a bit windy on this day. I separated the pencils colors that I wanted to use from the case holding the pencils. I set them beside my drawing pad, however the wind kept blowing them off and I was constantly having to get up and down to catch a pencil before it rolled off the porch. I realized the next time I take this art kit on a trip, I will need to bring something better to hold the colors I am using. Perhaps something as simple as a rubber band or a small tray with sides would have solved my problem.

From the porch where I sat, I could see a long ways in the distance across the ocean and the beach up and down the coast. To the front of me was ocean as far as I could see, and to the left was a small fishing vessel that soon disappeared while I was drawing. I tried to capture both in my drawing. The waves were the most difficult part to draw because they kept moving. Drawing the ocean wasn’t easy because even though it appears the same, in reality each and every moment it keeps changing.

Learning to draw by the sea was fun and it is an experience our family will never forget.

“And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that it was good.” Genesis 1:10

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Sunset At The Beach

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Have you ever watched the setting of the sun at the beach?

It is such a beautiful site.

We spent a November evening on a North Carolina beach watching the sun go down.

The Fall air was cool and crisp, but we didn’t let that hinder our joy.

There is something very special and exciting about being at the water’s edge.

The colors in the sky were beautiful!

The smell of the ocean and the sensation of breathing in the salty air is a completely different experience than our day to day experience. If feels energizing, like it is renewing something inside the body and the mind.

I could watch the ocean and sky for hours and never get tired of the view.

The sand feels amazing and was cool to the touch. We collected some seashells along the beach.

We saw a flock of pelicans flying above us.

Even though it was chilly, we decided to get our feet wet.

We tried to catch the waves coming into the shore.

The waves and the pull of the under tow current were quite powerful and knocked us off our feet several times.

One fella didn’t want to get wet. He said it was too cold.

But the rest of the group was eager to get wet from head to toe even though we only agreed to get our “feet” wet.

Even though the water was cold and the current was strong, I enjoyed getting my feet in the water too. The waves kept a constant rhythm with perfect timing.

It felt so peaceful.

We enjoyed an evening walk on the beach and walked to a fishing peer not far from where we played.

The sun set was stunning behind the peer.

It gave the appearance of a glowing fire off in the distance.

The fishing peer went out so far and then was blocked at the end. It seemed as if the peer would have gone further, but perhaps had been lost in a storm.

Even though a major hurricane, Hurricane Matthew, had come through days earlier, the rest of the peer was still in good standing and many folks were using it for fishing and enjoying the evening.

I loved the contrast of the peer and the evening sky and ocean waves.

You could sense the determination of this peer to withstand whatever the elements of nature could beat it with.

The structure seemed to rebel against the constant waves, the salty air, and the gusts of wind.

The setting sun was gorgeous! It peered through the dark clouds sandwiched between the sky and the water.

This experience reminds us of what it might of been like at the beginning. The bible talks about the beginning.

“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.

And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. God called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day.

And God said, “Let there be a vault between the waters to separate water from water.” So God made the vault and separated the water under the vault from the water above it. And it was so. God called the vault “sky.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the second day.

And God said, “Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear.” And it was so. God called the dry ground “land,” and the gathered waters he called “seas.” And God saw that it was good.”

Genesis 1:1-10

Looking away from the sun, in the opposite direction, the sky and the water seemed to be a reflection of each other, a matching blue that seemed to go on forever.

But looking towards the sunset, the colors were vibrant and seemed layered like a rainbow that had been deconstructed.

Sitting above the waves, felts as if we were sitting on them. Resting on the benches of the peer was a special experience.

The peer puts you out on the water, away from the shore.

Though you are sitting still, everything around you is in motion and has a rhythm of it’s own. Everything is moving with a beat, the water, the sky, the salty air on your face, and the sound it all makes has a nourishing rhythm that feeds the soul.

All your senses are enhanced and focused on the beat, the soothing sound of the moving water and the amazing colors of the sky.

After we watched the sun set, we walked up the beach a little bit further for some food. Later we came back outside to watch the beach in the darkness.

We sat on the steps of a small gazebo looking out over the water. It was so peaceful.

A long way out, there was a small twinkle of light from ships on the water.

We could also see the lights of the fishing peer reflect on the water.

But otherwise, we could no longer depend on our eyes to understand our environment. We could not see the sky, and we could not see the water, we could only sense they were still there in the darkness.

Instead of using our eyes, we tuned our ears to the sounds of the night. All we could hear was the familiar sound of the waves hitting the beach in a soothing rhythm. It was peaceful.

The older kids and I wanted to stay outside all night, but the younger kids and daddy were getting sleepy, so it was time to head inside. Bedtime seemed to come too quickly, yet we welcomed the end of this day feeling relaxed and renewed.

We definitely want to experience the sun setting on the beach again soon.

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Creation Museum, A Visit Back In Time

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My family had a great time when we took a trip back in time and visited the Creation Museum in Kentucky.

The Creation Museum experience is like walking through biblical history. It is a great experience for both kids and adults. It covers the 6 days of creation, plus many more historical people’s lives from the bible like Noah, Paul, Jesus, etc. and the history comes to life in a hands on way at the museum. There are life size exhibits and a planetarium too. Visiting the museum was one of the best decisions we have made for teaching our family about who God is and his amazing creation called earth and the animals and people. Seeing the bible come to life right before your eyes is an amazing experience and it strengthened our faith.

To plan our trip, we watched for a discounted ticket opportunity and went when they ran a special for children ages 12 and under to get in free with the paid admission ticket of an adult. It was a great savings. So we loaded up the family and took a road trip to Kentucky. The museum is about an hour and a half drive South from where we used to live in Richmond, IN (and only 7 hours north of where we used to live in NC). The drive through Indiana’s mini-mountains in South-eastern Indiana is absolutely beautiful! It was even more beautiful as we sang praise songs and listened to Nest Family Audio Bible stories all the way there and was a great way to travel as it keeps the kids attention and they learn so much.

Besides the beautiful scenery, there are some fun places to stop and visit along the way including two reservoir lakes and several historical towns. There is the Whitewater Reservoir, and also a much larger reservoir called Brookville Lake. The towns of Brookville and Liberty Indiana remind me so much of the historical town of Hendersonville, NC and are set up beautifully for tourists. There are lots of little shops to see and great history to explore in these small towns with beautiful historic courthouses too. We also crossed the huge Ohio river, that borders three states and with breath taking views. The river is huge and divides southern Indiana from southern Ohio and northern Kentucky. You can clearly see God’s handiwork in creation when you look at the changing landscape and the river. It is all designed beautifully.

The kids were so excited to get there. You know how it goes: “Are we there yet? When will be there? I got to go to the bathroom! I wish we were there! Do you know how to get there? How much longer? Are we there yet?” Ha! Ha! You just got to love traveling with kids!

At the museum, there is a large 70,000 square foot building with a huge bronze dinosaur outside, surrounded by beautiful gardens and landscape, ponds, wooden bridges, wrought iron and stone fences, and a tall fort with a zip line that crosses the entire museum grounds. It is a very family friendly place. The zip line costs extra and we did not buy a ticket for it on this day. But someday we hope to be able to take the zip-line and explore the museum gardens from the tree tops as it looks like a lot of fun.

The first thing we did was snap a picture with the dinosaur outside. It had just rained and suddenly the sun was shinning really bright and we couldn’t hardly see at all. It is funny how sometimes light can get so bright that your eyes cannot focus your eyes. But once we got inside the museum, the lighting was perfect and there was so much to see.

Archaeology is just one of their specialties at the museum, and they have lots of artifacts from biblical times. They have lots of fossils and a life size example of just about every kind of dinosaur.

They have a replica of earth from the beginning, separating layers of the heavens, creating the stars, day and night, the Garden of Eden, the creation of Adam, and animals, and Eve.

There is so much detail put into this museum that I bet you could go a hundred times and see something new each time that you didn’t notice before. Actually they expect that you will need more time to see it all, and when you buy a ticket it is good for admission for two days in a row. Many visitors stay overnight nearby and come back the following day to explore some more.

The museum is a combination of exhibits about science, history, astronomy, engineering, chemistry, Hebrew culture, our Christian roots, and so much more all rolled into one experience.

Each room of exploration leads you into the next phase of creation and history designed by an amazing God who loves us and his handiwork is so obvious. Nothing is by chance! Everything was authored by our creator.

This is such a fun way to walk through history!

If you remember the story of creation, there is a tree that Adam was instructed to never eat from called the Tree Of Knowledge of Good and Evil.

There is a deceptive serpent hiding in the garden who convinces Eve to eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil.

Eve tells Adam and he also believes the serpent’s lies and eats of the fruit, even though God had specifically told them not to eat of the fruit of this tree.

Evil becomes the ruler of the earth through Adam and Eve’s sin against God.

They disobeyed God, and once they realized what they had done, they tried to hide their sin from God. But God called them out on what they had done, and he forced them to leave the Garden of Eden. From that point forward mankind must make a blood sacrifice to ask God for forgiveness of sin in their life.

From this point forward, life becomes a struggle to survive. Later in the museum we return to the issue of man’s separation from God, and that he sent his son Jesus to reconcile us back to God through his own sacrifice. From that point forward, man no longer needs to offer a blood sacrifice for his sin because God sent his son Jesus who paid the price for us all who will believe in him and ask for forgiveness.

As the world becomes populated, people and fallen angels do evil and wicked things. God tells one righteous man, a prophet named Noah, his plan to flood the earth and wipe out wickedness. He instructs Noah to build a large boat called an ark and preach to the thousands of people who will listen to board this boat to survive. But everyone mocks Noah and won’t listen to him. God instructs Noah to bring his family (including his wife, three sons and their three wives) and also 2 of every unclean animal, and 7 of every clean animal, plus supplies, and to board the boat.

Noah obeyed God and does all that he was instructed to do.

After the ark is completed, Noah and his family board the boat with the animals and God shuts the door. It rains for 40 days and 40 nights and floods the whole earth. It takes almost a year for the water to recede. Eventually the boat comes to rest on Mount Ararat. Later one of the birds Noah sends out brings back a branch with a leaf and Noah knows that is safe to release the animals and his family from the ark.

The museum has a lifesize interactive display of Noah and the ark. You can hear the men talking and see them working as they build the ark. The museum also owns a bible based theme park about an hour down the road from the museum. They are building several life size recreations from the bible for the theme park. One of those is called The Ark Encounter and it includes a life size ark, another museum and restaurant inside the ark, and a zoo. We went to see it while it was under construction, and we plan to make trip soon now that it is open to the public.

Check out this short video we made of the awesome dinosaurs we saw! The kids really enjoyed this entire trip and the highlight for them was seeing the dinosaurs.

And if you get hungry during your visit, the museum offers a jungle cafe to eat in and there are many picnic spots outside around the gardens and ponds.

I encourage every family I meet to put this wonderful adventure on their to do list. It is definitely worth the trip!

Be blessed!

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Field Trip To Jimmy Johns

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Jimmy John’s Field Trip

We set out to find out if Jimmy Johns was as good or better than Subway or other sandwich shops we have tried. Was it as good as everyone says? How does a restaurant like this become so successful?

Our stop at Jimmy Johns was a new experience for us. The shop has a fun atmosphere and special names for every submarine sandwich.

For example, one sandwich is called The Gut Buster. The sandwiches have a fixed description, and that is what is in the sandwich. You don’t really customize them, but you can add additional meat. This is the real secret to how fast you are served, no one is standing around deciding what fixings are going in their sandwich. Instead you choose the sandwich design from the menu that best fits your taste buds.

We let the children choose their sandwich, and choice of chips, and we all had waters to drink. The bread is very soft and fresh.

The room is decorated with signs on the walls with words of wisdom for life. My older boys laughed all the way through the meal while reading these signs.

For example, one sign was titled Rules of Life I have learned, and here are two of them “Under any circumstance, never take a sleeping pill and a laxative before going to bed” and many more that my kids laughed the whole way through the meal reading. They had funny signs and there was probably about 20 different signs posted around the room.

Field Trip: New restrurant experience. We took a trip to Ohio and stopped at a Jimmy Johns sandwich shop because we had never been before.

There were pamphlets on the wall encouraging those who would like to open a franchise to fill it out and contact Jimmy Johns. The kids decided we would pretend to open our own Jimmy Johns shop when we got back home. I will share more about this in a future post.

This field trip was a fun learning experience and the food tasted delicious. The kids got to figure out what all the hype was about and connected the dots from the funny videos they watched on youtube.

Once we got home, we looked up more information about opening a sandwich shop and the kids learned about opening a franchise, customer service, creating the ultimate sandwich, etc. We made our own versions of sub sandwiches. We researched Jimmy Johns specifically and found out lots of interesting facts. He has his own race team. The first Jimmy Johns was started in 1985 with a $25,000 loan. Now he own restaurants in 49 states across the country.

We are thankful we live in America where people can work hard and reach their goals. The kids are even more excited about what the future hold and are looking forward to our next great adventure!

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Field Trip Journal Review

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Our family has always made field trips a priority in educating our kids. We want to take them on adventures to inspire, explore, inquire, and gain knowledge from first hand experience and hands on explorations. Apologia Educational Ministries has a new resource to help your kids capture their field trip experiences, thoughts, and fun memories in the Exploring Creation Field Trip Journal. We were sent one for review a few weeks ago. We were excited about trying out this scrapbook-journal method for creating a memory book of our fun learning adventures.

Apologia is one of our favorite homeschool curriculum companies. They have a wonderful variety of high quality products, and we were pleased with this new addition to our homeschool.

Field Trip Journal

For Kids of all ages.
Spiral Bound
Heavy duty
64 colorful pages printed on card stock
Retails for $22

Encourages kids to write about their field trip experience in creative ways.

Table of Contents

Prepare a field trip (with helpful tips like check lists for planning, before, during, and after).
Over 100 Field Trip Ideas
Places I have explored maps (for your state, country, and world).
How to use Specific Trip Pages
Field Trip Pages (for 10 field trips)
How to use My Special Spot pages
My Special Spot Pages (a special spot is a 20 x 20 spot you sit and draw what you see 4 times a year, 1 time during each season, and notice how things change with the seasons).
How to use As I See It pages
As I See It (pages at the back of the journal can be used for illustrating what you see).

How We Used This In Our Home

I was really excited to receive the Field Trip Journal from Apologia for review and I was hopeful this would give us motivation to start creating a memory book of our fun learning adventures. I take hundreds of pictures of everything we do, daily, but seldom print them off my computer other than to create a yearbook page or mail to family because printer ink is expensive. Most of the time, pictures just stay in digital format and get posted on social media or on this website. But I realize that isn’t always the best thing. Kids like to look over pictures too, and I hope this Field Trip Journal will get us int the habit of printing a few of our pictures, and writing down what we learned.

Working in his Exploring Creation Field Trip Journal.

For each field trip, my son included a small map to show the location, and one picture (we tried to use two to three pictures per page) as well as a description of the field trip and any books you read, and what he did and what he wants to remember about it. I was thrilled that he was motivated to use the journal. He plans to use every section of the journal from cover to cover. He did say he wished there was room to record more than 10 field trips, because we do so many, but I told him if we need to, we can convert other pages at the back of the book.

Here are four of our recent field trips completed during this reivew and recorded in his journal:

Nature Study Field Trip

: Field trip to explore nature and small waterfall along the creek.

Hueston Woods State Park Field Trip

The way I see it, kids need to experience life hands on, and they can’t experience much in an 8am-3pm classroom sitting at a desk. Kids were made to move, explore, touch, run, laugh, and learn through play and hands on explorations.

We have dumbed kids down both mentally and physically in the USA, by locking them into an 8 hour a day public education system that restricts physical movement. This can causes childrens growing spines to become disfigured and grown in an S shape instead of a J shape. Sitting in classrooms all day leads to week core muscles from a lack of activity, even though some kids play sports, the majority of kids have weak bones, week muscles, and a week spine.

Observing wild geese at the lake at Hueston Woods State Park.

Many kids are medicated to force them to sit still and be quiet in class. Besides making them more prone to to back pain, joint pains, and serious health concerns, many children end up with a life long battle with meditations to try and fix the lack of physical freedom they experienced in childhood.

Field trip to the Lake. It was such a beautiful day.

I would encourage families to explore the option of taking family field trips, and homeschooling and all the wonderful learning opportunities and physically freeing opportunities homeschooling offers for developing bodies and minds.

Investigating the water’s edge at the lake.

I remember school days being so boring growing up. I enjoyed after school activities, and a few electives like music and track, but classroom time was usually a snooze! I would literally stare at the clock watching the seconds and minutes pass by in most of my classes. It was torture to have to sit still all day! We only took a school field trip once or twice a year and had a field day once a year. What kind of life is that for a kid? Forget that! I am forging ahead and excited about the next adventure.

Jimmy John’s Field Trip

We set out to find out if Jimmy Johns was as good or better than Subway. Was it as good as everyone says? How does a restruant like this become so successful?

Our stop at Jimmy Johns was a new experience for us. The shop has a fun atmosphere and special names for every submarine sandwich.

The sandwiches have a fixed description, and that is what is in the sandwich. This is the real secret to how fast you are served, no one is standing around deciding what fixings are going in their sandwich. Instead you choose the sandwich design from the menu that best fist your tastebuds.

We let the children choose their sandwich, and choice of chips, and we all had waters to drink. The bread is very soft and fresh.

Field Trip: New restrurant experience. We took a trip to Ohio and stopped at a Jimmy Johns sandwich shop because we had never been before.

I have another post for you to read more about this fun field trip to Jimmy John’s and all we learned.

Loveland Ohio Castle Chatue Laroche Field Trip

Field Trip to Loveland Ohio to see the Castle.

My kids go on field trips at least 3 to 4 times a month! It is a regular part of our school learning. They know they can look forward to going somewhere each week. So they work hard on their school work and projects early in the week and prepare to go on some kind of adventure towards the end. Sometimes we go on Fridays, but most of the time, we go on the weekend so we can include Dad in our learning adventures too.

Overlooking the river from the castle balcony.

The Exploring Creation Field Trip Journal has helped us keep up with a scrapbook style journal of our recent outings. We usually keep what they want from our trips (brochures, pictures, postcards, etc) in their portfolio. But now with this journal, they have a fun place to record their memories too.

Castle Field Trip: standing beside a knight inside the castle.

The way I see it, kids need to experience life hands on, and they can’t experience much in an 8-3pm classroom.

Castle Field Trip: playing old fashion games.

Check back soon to read the post about our field trip to the castle.

I would recommend school aged kids everywhere keep a fun journal of their learning adventures. This will be a great way to look back on your year and be reminded of the wonderful time you had and all you learned about.

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Be sure to check out what other homeschool families on the TOS Review Crew had to say about using the Field Trip Journal in their home.

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Homeschool and Family Life Adventures

Tag Archives: Field Trip

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