Wednesday, November 9, 2011

A Fall Hike & other FUN activities!

Right in the middle of a SUPER busy schedule, we had the opportunity to go on a hike at Devil's Den with our homeschool group.  We went on an awesome 1 1/2 mile trek around the bat caves.  Of course the caves were closed but we still had a great time. 

My sweet hiking partner. :)

Gabriel came prepared with a bag full of bottled water.

One of the bat caves.  The older children loved getting down by the opening of the caves and taking a peek inside.  I, personally, was glad the caves were closed!

Nathan, Kaleb, Gabriel, and another teen checking out the names and pictures carved into this huge bench.

So proud of how well the boys did on their first hike!  They had so much fun!

Every hiker needs a good walking stick!

Just the day before our hike, we went on another awesome field trip to a local police station.  The police officers spent a lot of time on our tour.  We met several officers, a couple detectives, a police dog, and the 911 operators.  The children were also allowed to crawl through the back of a police car.
We also had the pleasure of touring a local veterinary clinic just a couple weeks ago.  We learned how they take care of sick animals, even toured the surgical area, met some very sick/injured dogs in ICU, looked at those dogs' x-rays (One had a broken leg and another had been shot through the heart.  Both were doing great after surgery.) and walked through the barn where they care for horses and cows.
 
 
Our latest field trip was last week to a local post office where they still hand-sort the mail.  The children were fascinated by the back end of the post office boxes when someone would pick up their mail, smiling and talking to the people from the other side of the box.  One lady cracked up a few of our kids by making faces through her box!  The boys, girls, and then parents took turns weighing as groups on the biggest scale we had ever seen.  In case you're wondering, the parent group outweighed the boys' and girls' groups (combined).  The postmaster was amazing with the children, taking time to explain everything and answer all questions.  One of the postal workers even entertained us a bit with a couple magic tricks!

I have pictures of these field trips too but there are other children in ALL of them.  I have to remember to take a few of just my kids so I can share. :)

We have an awesome field trip planned for next week.....a tour of the most historically accurate replicas of the Nina and Pinta.  Both will sail up the Arkansas river into a city near us on Thursday.  I haven't even told the boys about it yet.....they will LOVE being able to board these ships and look around!  I will definitely be sharing some pictures of this field trip!

Soccer season and co-op have ended for the fall so I'm hoping to have more time blog about our homeschool days. :)