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Woodstock Museum and Art Gallery

11/27/2014

We have some friends who live out in Woodstock which is a bit of a drive forus. So about a week back we headed out their to go to the Museum and their art Gallery... A way to do some schooling and visit friends at the same time. :)

They are both fairly small and don't take a long time to go through, and I forgot my good camera so we'll have to make do with cell phone pictures this day. :)

Despite the size of the gallery the children had fun, and we had a nice visit.

They had a nice collection of old organs. Woodstock used to be a major center for organ makers. I recognized some of the names but others were new to me.

This museum is very is very hands on which makes it an excellent place to bring children. From the working pump (don't drink the water) to the scales and other artifacts. An elevator makes it easy to navigate for those unable to take the stairs.

They had a bit of a Christmas display up on the second floor with an area to pretend you were in a train (great for story telling) as well as a "Let's be Santa" chair. Neither of us as families "do Santa" but the children had a lot of run with it none the less. :)

The art gallery had a really nice gift shop that had many items the children were interested. A couple of the paintings attracted out attention as well. All the children seemed to like this painting.

My son was intrigued by this painting. "Mom, why would they make it so small and put this big white thing around it?" "It's kinda a neat drawing mom".

I found myself drawn in by this painting. From a distance it looked like muddy splashes on the ground, but as you looked more carefully... can you see the chickens?

The exhibits change all the time in the Art Gallery, so we may stop in again another time to see what they have to offer us. :) They apparently offer free art classes for children as well. So if you are in the area, it might be worth checking out.

Field Trip: Royal Canadian Regiment Museum

10/26/2014

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Our field trip this past Wednesday was to the Royal Canadian Regiment Museum. You can also find them Facebook.

From the website:

The RCR Museum is located in beautiful London, Ontario, near the intersection of Oxford St and Adelaide St in London. The Museum occupies the west wing of historic Wolseley Hall, the first building built by a Canadian government especially for the new standing Army in the late 19th century.

Walk through the timeline galleries, following the path of Canadian history since 1883 as you learn about The Royal Canadian Regiment in service to Canada. View the silver Regimental Memorials, honouring the Regiment's actions in conflicts in Canada and abroad. See medals awarded to soldiers of the Regiment, and a variety of weapons and equipment used by Canadian soldiers for over a century
Discover one of London's best-kept secrets and explore one of Canada's finest regimental museums!

I have to admit, this was an interesting museum. It was good to go and remember the cost of our freedom and to learn a bit more about our military.

A mother had this window done in honour of I think it was her son who died in battle.

My Son was disappointed when he climbed up into this military vehicle to discover that they has removed all the things that made it run.
"MOM! Why would they do that? Why couldn't they just take out the motor and leave all the rest in?" was his plaintive cry.

Some of the pictures from the museum, I forgot my new camera at home so you'll need to make do with pictures from my cell phone.

It was a good museum to visit. The lad got antsy part of the way through, but they had a variety of dioramas to maintain his interest. And the UN section thoroughly intrigued him. He also enjoyed trying on the helmets. One of the dioramas showed the progression of a battle which was interesting to see. I appreciated seeing what trench life was really like... after reading some of O Canada books, and learning that so many soldiers were lost due to the conditions in the trenches, it was good to have that in the back of my mind as I went through the display. An older fellow there mentioned it was hard work building the trenches and having to live in them.

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Huron County Historic Museum

10/22/2014

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I've been making a point lately of taking my lad off to visit some of the different museums around the area. Gives us a chance to explore some of the history around us, and to do some learning away from books and the houses and various other distractions. :) Does the lad always appreciate the experience? No... sometimes he still has his mind on playing Minecraft, but it gives me a break from the conversation in the house and a chance to encourage conversation in other directions. :)

One of the trips we took was to the Huron Country Historic Museum up in Goderich. We took this trip last week right after going to the Gaol. Doing two museums in one day was too much for the lad but he did find things that intrigued him. Below is one of them. :)

checking to see if the two-headed calf had two butts as well. This calf had two digestive systems, two hearts, two brains, two spines, but only one butt hole.

he also found it fun to climb up on these rocks. "MOM! See me!! Take a picture mom!"

One of the shows that we enjoy watching has a character named Ton in it. It's called "Auction Hunters". Anyways, in one of the storage units they found a music box type thing that was rather cool to see. They had one at this museum as well and one of the restorers managed to rig up a motor to make it work. And SHOOT, I thought I had gotten a picture of it but apparently missed it. :( it was something that intrigued all of us, I'll have to see if hubby got a picture taken of it. AH!!! i found the picture of the motor at least! it was apparently quite a challenge for them to take a 3 HP down to a 1/2 HP to work it at the right speed. See that happy visage?

Some more of what you can see in this museum. Enjoy! :)

It was quite an interesting museum to walk through. I would like to do this again sometime, perhaps with a tour guide to give us more background information to some of the exhibits. The audio tours are nice but very quiet players, makes it hard to hear when minding a boy child.

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Goderich Historic Gaol

10/16/2014

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Yesterday I had a burning desire to get out of the house, my headache was gone though my body was feeling a bit rough yet so off we went to the historic gaol in Goderich.   We were impressed enough I'll be planning a field trip with our homeschool group in the spring. :)   Should be fun.

Anyways, while we were there we met this delightful lady who kept coming over and helping our lad better understand what he was seeing. She was one of the tour guides but was off-duty as they generally don't do tours unless they are booked.   You could tell she loved her work and enjoyed helping children learn history.    She kept challenging the lad to think it through, why might there be different things that children would have to deal with in the past.

One of the things we learned was the children could be sentenced to jail for four days for using bad language.   That was surprising to all of us. Anyways, pictures are always worth a 1000 words... so allow me to be wordy. :)

What would a picture to a jail be without a vision of someone behind bars?

They had a audio tour along with, so we were able to listen to various points as we went along. One lady was sent to jail who couldn't walk and died in jail. The doctor's report was that she should never have been sent to jail. But there wasn't at the time a lot of options for helping people who needed care. If a single parent went to jail, all their children would share their cell with them until they were adults.

One child was sent to gaol for using bad language and was sentenced to four days of hard labour. He would have to clean the toilets, carry water, move coal and more. The work was hard.

It was a great visit. One I would happily do again as part of a guided tour.

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Tree Trunk Tour London

8/24/2014

We had a student from France staying with us for three weeks this summer.

We didn't get out and show him around Ontario that much, but he enjoyed his stay. One day I sent him to Niagara Falls and he thoroughly enjoyed his time away. Another day I sent him out with a friend for the day as we were otherwise occupied. He mostly hung out with us and relaxed, did some walking, some shopping, some language learning so it all worked.

ANYWAYS, enough of that. One day I said.. We have GOT to go see the tree trunks in London. Let's go see what those artists did. So.. off we went. :)

We started off the tour here:

A collective favourite was the fine fellow

I made the fellows pose by one I thought my lad would like. I was right, this picture caused one nine year old to say "I want to do this too!"

Below is a slideshow of some of the others we saw. We cut the tour short as my bum ankle thought that being a bum was an excellent idea. My disagreeing didn't make a difference in it's opinion though.....

Essentials in Schooling at home: Getting OUT of the home

8/14/2014

Yes, when you homeschool you don't always want to be at home. You really don't. Getting out is important as well. Change can cement learning, add a new dimension, switch things up to keep yourself out of a rut (or the children for that matter), provide needed exercise, calm the emotions and stimulate different ways of thinking and much more. Get out. Experience the world!

I firmly believe that getting out of the house is an essential part of schooling at home. Being behind four walls all day long isn't good for you. Children (and adults) need fresh air. They need to experience the ground under the feet, bark under their hands, they need to see and explore and learn and grow inside and out. It's good for bodies and brains and nutrients and .. well I could ramble on but I think you get the jist of it eh? :)

So do some field trips if you. (some are quite affordable as well).
Our most recent field trip happened on vacation. We went to Science North up in Sudbury, Ontario. There we saw bugs, flying squirrels, explored the human body, space, craters and a whole lot more. it was a good day for two boys and two adults. :)

You don't need to wait for vacation to go on field trips. Take in the local museum, find a dentist office you can tour, see the firehall and much much more. :)

And if you can't do that.. go for walk. you'll be surprised at what you can find.

you might find a caterpillar or two...

or birds, or animals, or non-critter things like plants, lichens, mosses, touch them, feel them, pop them, draw them. You'll learn a lot. :) One time we discovered a lichen/moss with bubbles with seeds in it that popped when touched. We helped it reproduce and it spawned a whole new set of questions in one boy child. :)

And then on over to the park and do you math while running back and forth. Spell words as you swing from bar to bar. Cement that learning using that kinetic energy. Just go out and learn. Break the routine of books and desks.

It'll be good for you. Really. :)

A bunch of us over at the homeschool crew are taking part in a five day blog hop on "back to school" check us out won't you? Here's a list will get you started.

Amy @ Counting Change... Again
Shawna @ Tenacity Divine
Adena @ AdenaF
Jenn @ Simblissity Cottage
Emilee @ Pea of Sweetness
Kathy @ Kathys Cluttered Mind
Sara @ Embracing Destiny

Marineland - Rides and Animals

6/6/2014

This past Monday our family joined several others from our homeschool group in a trip toMarineland. We had a good time, come on in and let me tell you a bit more about it. We gathered at 1000 a.m. to enter the park. it was a quiet day.. we almost had the park to ourselves.

We stopped off first at the killer whales and seals.

Rides are always fun and the boys enjoyed a variety of them (and one the lad most definitely did NOT).

Interspersed with the rides where a variety of animal attractions.

it's been years since I was at Marineland, I looked forward to the show they had. They've taken the Orca out of the show and replaced with belugas. The seals are out completely. Not sure why that is....

it was a good day out with the family. :) We didn't see much of the other families who went, the lads were all walk and lets see it all right away type of attitude and go. :)

We left around 230, stopped by to see the Falls since we were so close anyways. We plan to go back sometime to see more of the Falls. A good day to go. :)

Chestnut Grove Academy Field Trip Friday Blog Hop

Field Trip: Shipwrecked

4/2/2014

The other day a friend and I took our children to go see the Shipwrecked exhibit at the Waterloo Region Museum. We had fun. :)

We learned about various shipwrecks, observed lots of materials that have been brought up from the bottom, my son saw the Titanic (we have just finished reading her story), had fun on a scavenger hunt and braved a wind tunnel. :)

The children enjoyed various hands-on activities from helping ships avoid the pirates playing a navigation game.

To finding pirates and other ships on the high seas! For one of the children, this was the favourite exhibit.

I found it interesting to observe the children, seeing what they were interested in. It was neat to have the freedom to just browse as well, to stop and answer questions, but to more or less let the children see what they could see.

I found this exhibit interesting, where they pointed out some of the unique things of the period. Everything from the Tonics to to games to bathroom routines.

We stayed in the Shipwrecked section for most of our time there, but we also took the time to learn abit more about the history of Waterloo Region as well.

I can't recall the name of this fellow but he apparently used this contraption to cross Niagara falls and got booed for it. So the next time he crossed he made pancakes for the canoeists below. :)

My son and his friend having fun with the baby sister.

I have to admit, I enjoy browsing museums. I know it's not everyone's cup of tea, but I find it interesting to see what has been preserved and to wonder what hasn't been, what the stories are behind the pieces kept and what not.

We finished our time when the children started to get really rowdy, figuring it was best to eat and run while we still had them under control. :) Frozen orange juice was a huge hit. :)

Our day finished with going to the Farmer's Market and Costco for various needs. It was all in all an excellent day and I'd have no issues doing it again sometime. :)

Field Trip: Orchestra London

10/27/2013

The other day Orchestra London was doing an educational program. Could the audience figure out where in the world the music they played came from.

Two pieces were played from every continent. The children had fun guessing from where they came. Some where easy, some were a little harder. The conductor had fun with the children. Most were homeschooled children, some were public school. Overall it went over really well.

As you can see, the children were fascinated. My son said "I liked it mom". :)

We had an added bonus as we left the school that hosted us. We found a Golden-crowned kinglet. This wee bitten birdie was stunned by the windows of the school. We picked him up, showed him to a few children and then set him up high in a tree to recuperate.

These wee birds tend to hang out further north, they like to be in a group and hide in coniferous trees and eat insects. What an excellent learning adventure that was. We got to see the shape of his feet, the size of him, check out his wings (to make sure the weren't broken) and see just how light he was. Isn't he a pretty thing?

International Plowing Match

9/25/2013

Together with another friend (homeschooling family) we took in the International Plowing Match on Sept. 18. By pre-arranging our visit it only cost us $30 to get in. That's over 50% off the normal price of admission.

learning our balance on the wagon.

seeing various farm critters. They had a well made up model farm.

Lots of fun playing with soybeans. :) My friend made the comment that people from third world countries would be horrified at the waste of food here. It's just so easy here to see the fun and not just the food....

The lad was impressed with the differences in the hides of beaver with and without their guard hairs.

having lunch with others is always more fun... especially if you can show off your drawings. (the lad is, you just can't see him.) :)

The bees were fascinating. They were drawn to the light so we got to watch the caretakers put up a heavy curtain to encourage them to move around in the enclosure more.

Friends having fun. :) Dinosaurs are rather cool you know. :)

watching the snow birds go through their paces was just an added bonus. The children were quite impressed at how close they could get to each other without crashing.

It was a great day at the IPM. So glad it was close this year. :) It was great to go along with someone else as well. Just added to the enjoyment of the day.