Philadelphia

We just got back from our 5 days in Philadelphia. It was a fantastic time! We spent the entire time seeing as many sights as we could fit in. It was wonderful to see some of the things we had been studying about. An incomplete list of the things we saw included The Constitution Center, Independence Hall, The Franklin Institute, The Museum of Natural Sciences, Fireman's Hall, Elfreth's Alley, the Liberty Bell, City Hall, the first public library, the American Philosophical Society, Franklin's grave, the US Mint, City Tavern, and a lot more! Needless to say we're all a little worn out.


Thank you, thank you, thank you to Nana for making this happen and continuing to spark more ideas. We can't tell you how grateful we are to have her support, help, and ideas! I don't think I could have even thought about homeschooling if it wasn't for my mom.

On the plane ride home I decided that we're going to start a Field Trip Scrapbook (for lack of a better term). Each child will have pages to work on explaining what we did each day and how it fit into our studies. They can include pictures we took, brochures, postcards, pictures they found from the web, or anything else they can think of adding. The key will be at least a paragraph about each place. As they get older there will be more writing assignments. Then I'm going to keep them all in a big book that we'll add to anytime we go on another field trip.

I also decided that next field trip will include some kind of scavenger hunt where they have to find some information. Aiden was notorious for not bothering to read the signs (of course he is 6), but that might help him take his time and look for the information on his own. That will mean a lot more prep work for me before we go, but I think it will help improve the trips. I have this vision of them carrying around a clipboard and writing down facts from each place we go. Don't worry, this is only for field trips, not vacations! No clipboards at Disney World.

I've also started thinking of a list of other places in America we will go over the years. So far I have Mt. Rushmore and the Indian Reservations in the Dakotas to study some Native American history, the Grand Canyon and Yellowstone for geology (let's see if I can remember any of that from college!), of course Washington D.C. for American government, Houston for NASA, maybe Boston for the American Revolution, somewhere for the Civil War and some kind of archaeological/paleological dig. The last one will take a bit of looking into, but I'm sure I can find something. If you have any other great ideas, feel free to comment. Guess I better start saving money now!