Field Trip Friday: Hershey Chocolate World

One of the field trips we took when we went to Pennsylvania was to Hershey World, lots of people suggested we go, so we went.

Ergo, I thought I'd share our trip with you.

Field Trip: Western Fair

Well okay.. do I call this a field trip or just a day out having fun??   I'll let you decide eh?

Almost every year we attend the Western Fair in London.  There was one year we missed but normally we go.  ANYWAYS, enough preamble eh?

Field Trip: Gettysburg National Military Park Museum

 know I know!  It's been a while since we did our trip to Pennsylvania...but I finally  have found the time to talk about our trip to the Gettysburg National Military Park Museum.

Field Trip: Penn's Cave

Penn's Cave in Pennsylvania was a huge amount of fun for all of us to attend.  I want to tell you all about it.  :)    I don't know if my images are any good at all... but you'll cope right?

Penn's Cave is known as America's only all water cave!   You view it by boat!   They made an exit out onto a pond and it's stocked with fish.  :)

The history of Penn's Cave:  The legend of Penn's cave has a trapper named Malachi Boyer falling in love with an Indian princess Nita-nee.   The indians would not allow them to marry so one night they ran away together.  The Nita-nee's father was furious and ordered Boyer thrown into the water cave and guarded so he couldn't escape.  Boyer searched in vain for an alternative exit but failed to find one, so he crawled into the farthest area of the cave from the entrance where he died.   His body was weighted with rocks and thrown into the deepest part of the cavern.

It was a fascinating trip through the cave.  I hope this slideshow lends it justice. :)

After we came out of the cave we needed to walk ALL the way up again.  I took my time and the boys raced on ahead.   They went exploring to where the old entrance used to be.  I walked over to where part of the wildlife park was. 

 
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Field Trip: Harsco Science Center

At the end of May the family took a trip down to Pennsylvania.   One of the places we stopped at was the Harsco Science Center in Harrisburg.

 While I won't say that visiting the science was worth the dollars spent, we did manage to have fun here.   Many of the exhibits were old, well worn or even broken, some things worked well.  The tornado exhibit was a hoot for both of us.

We had fun making cars, even if the method of making them was fairly set.  

We then moved on to the shaker (for lack of a better word).  Build a mountain, put up your house and see how well it stands up.

 

We had fun racing against each other on a paired biking thing to see who could wear off their dinner quicker.  We did this several times, with the lad consistently beating his mother (except once when I cheated!)  (freely admitting that).  :)  Sorry for the blurry pic, it's hard to take a good pic while peddling a small bike.

We lifted our own body weight, which for two of the lifts was easy, but for one.. well... let's just say we both need to work on our upper arm strength.   

Our greatest amount of time though was spent on the fan.  We changed blades, rotated spinners and just had fun playing around with it.

 If we're in Harrisburg again we won't go to the Harsco Science Center again, but the activities we found entertained the lad quite nicely.
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Cactus and A Play

 It's been a pretty good week with some up and downs.... but when I reflect back.. mostly up!   AND THAT is a very good thing.  :)

Monday: 
Started out like a typical day though everyone was act
ing tired and math was a frustration, and then English grammar was a frustration and... well let's just say that we tossed English out the window and planned things out a bit differently to make the rest of the day a success.    We ran out to Gramma's where the lad finished his schooling and then indulged his latest love.. CACTI!!!

Check out what he picked up with Gramma: 

If you see that little red nub on the side of the cactus...he's already trying to graft it on to another cactus.  He's been reading, researching and sussing out all the things he wants to try with his cacti and apparently next week we are going to go cacti hunting in Kitchener.  :)

I have to admit... I love hearing his enthusiasm for his cacti... it gives one a break from minecraft and pokemon talk I must say.  :)

Tuesday:
A stay at home day... we had plans to go out Wednesday to a play so stayed home to get some work done at home.   One of the things we worked on was our Art Achieve Lesson.  We are working on making a totem pole.   You'll have to wait for the review though... coming up in a couple of weeks.

The lad also worked on his Digital Savvy course (also a review coming up).   

OH!!!   And we made a brain!  I know that sounds weird, but the lad and I have been learning about the central nervous system and I thought it would be good to make a plasticine model of the brain and then we'd label it another day.

I can't say today was the easiest day... I actually disappeared for a needed few hours in afternoon to take a break from the angst of the morning.  We did some good things together, but it took working through angst to get there.  :)   I managed to power through three reviews though, had a couple of conversations with friends, and got my mind back in order again.   Good to do that eh?

Wednesday we did minimal schooling.. writing a story, working on math, Canada history and Veritas Press lessons... then off to London.   We went to see the Musical "Little Women".  I enjoyed myself!

Thursday:
A good day today.   Working through schooling, having fun relaxing in the afternoon, and at night...the success of Bridge Busting night at Cadets!  The lad came in first for best looking bridge, and came in fourth of the boys for bridge weight holding.  His bridge held 150 lbs.

Friday: 
We had co-op in the morning with lots of YAY!!   The children like the class I am teaching, and woot woot.. they love how Hubby is teaching gym.   AND I brought a bunch of books down with me and ended up selling some of it.  Would have loved to have sold more but hey.. a wee bit here and there .. it all works eh?  I'll slowly winnow it down.  

I came home completely tired so I napped off and on in the afternoon sitting in my comfy chair.  So here it is 1030 and I'm feeling tiredly awake.  :)   

Saturday:
I'm supposed to go to a rabbit club meeting but currently am feeling like I don't wanna go.   We'll see what happens in the morning. 

Reviews: 
God's Easter Miracles.  Miracles about Easter, a picture book.
Shepherd, Potter, Spy--And Star Namer.  Biblical history in creative story telling


Homeschooling and everything else:  
Art Book Series: 1-2-3 Draw: 5 in 1 how to draw books. 
Sacred Moments:  Prayer as a unit is a good thing to plan.
Tuna Noodle Salad: A recipe. :)
The Temple's Chambers: Devotion Ezekiel 42
God will dwell in Their Midst Forever: Devotion on Ezekiel 43:1-12
God Alone is enough: word prompt post
Books Read in March.  Word prompt. book list

Loonies and Toonies, an alphabet blogging post.

Linking up at the following places:

Homeschool Highlights.

Weird Unsocialized homeschoolers.

Homeschool Nook.

Homeschool blog and Tell.

Family Friday linkUp,

This post may contain affiliate links - using affiliate links from A Net in Time helps fuel this blog and our homeschool - thank you! ©2006-2017 A Net In Time. All rights reserved. All text, photographs, artwork, and other content may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form without the written consent of the author. A Net In Time/

Field Trip: Bird Kingdom

On January 5, the lads and I took in the Bird Kingdom.   I managed to find a fantastic deal through groupon plus had an additional 10$ off coupon which.... WOOT WOOT  saved us the price of parking (which by the by.. tad expensive).

BUT the Bird Kingdom was a lovely place to visit and I am so glad we were able to go.

The Bird Kingdom is divided into different sections. Each area with it's own speciality.

The first area was devoted to the daredevils of the Niagara Falls.   We had fun posing in a barrel.

We had a chance to read various exploits, and learned about one lady who went over the falls in a barrel with her pet toy dog.   The dog survived, the lady sadly did not.

The reptile area.

My son was able to have a bird sit on his arm.  A nice big parrot.   We weren't allowed to take pictures of him with the bird.  It was a money grab, but what the lad wanted was to hold the bird and he could.  He said it was neat!

The finch room (or at least what I call the finch room... better name probably the small bird room)....oh my... the fun we had watching the finches!   They move so fast and they made us laugh.



We moved from here past the talking bird (none of the pictures good enough to show).
Through the noctural area.

Off this took us to the main aviary... WOW... the birds we saw.  It was rather interesting to see.  The room was divided into multiple levels, starting us at the top so we could work our way down.  Feeding stations were placed throughout the room.   It was great to just take one's time and slowly walk through, checking for hidden spots where birds might be hiding.

  

I hope you enjoyed the tour through the Bird Kingdom.  It was an excellent place to see a variety of different birds and other critters too.  :)

The Bird Kingdom!
Open 9:30AM - 5:00PM Daily
 5651 River Road
Niagara Falls, Ontario
L2E 7M7

Field Trip: Ontario Science Centre

One of our favourite places to go is the Ontario Science Centre.  We don't go as often as we'd like, but we do go and have fun.   Our most recent trip we brought along our International Student.

Highlights of our Time

Our competitions against each other with the row boats.   We all competed against each other in different formations.   It was a hoot.  :)   I had video, but it turned out blurry.

We discovered this beautiful picnic spot.   AND while we were picnicing and relaxing in this green spot we were able to listen to "the maple leaf forever". 

the music area:

We saw a variety of wildlife.

Two joys.

One: seeing two boys take sheer delight in creating music with touch panels.   This area is a basically a large box with white panels with colour sections.  As you touch the colours different noises at different levels and tones would play.   The boys laugh and bounced around like a couple of young fiends   Good to see them having fun.

Two:
This quiet, unsure of himself yet lad, wasn't sure about doing much anything else.   I caught him though, playing this drum.  Checking out the different sounds depending on where he tapped it.
This is taken just after I caught a first glimpse of his marvellous smile. :)  I regretted moving so that I could get a better picture of what he was doing.

Let's see what else can I pull out from this trip to the Science Centre.....
I thought this was neat:  Seeing this image of multiple babies in the womb...  :)

Anyways, we saw and did so many things, I can't list it all.  
Suffice it to say, we had a great day.

Field Trip: Cantarra Park

Canatara Park is located in Sarnia, Ontario.   The lad and I went there in the spring after going to the Stones and Bones Museum.   

This is a park of trails and beaches and an animal park.  We spent the bulk of our time at the Animal Park.  We also drove along some of the roads around the park.

 We met another lady there with her family from the group of homeschoolers we went to the museum with.  There was supposed to be a whole group of us, but most of them didn't make it to where we were which was just odd.   But hey, the lad and I and the other family had a nice time while we were there.

What did we see?

Chickens (my fav) but they were locked up in pens.   I did manage to get a nice picture of this pretty lady though.

  We saw a variety of other animals as well.   

 We followed our trip to the Animal Park with a drive around the park before heading home again.  It's a nice park and worth a visit again another time.  I would like to take the bikes and bike around the paths for a while. 

Field Trip: Welland Canal

When we had our trip to Niagara Falls we prefaced in it with a camping trip and a stop at the Welland Canal.   I couldn't make it work to see a boat go through, but we did see the Canal and had a chance to go through the Museum they have at lock 7.

We had a good time at this museum, learning a lot, enjoying the air conditioning provided, and just moseying around together.

Here are some of the things we saw:

We had a good time and were glad that we went.   It was too bad I couldn't coordinate the trip with a boat passing through, but perhaps next year.  :)

Field Trip: Children's Messiah

It was recently our delight to attend the Children's Messiah at St. Paul's Cathedral in London, Ontario.

We thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.

One of the singers directed her solos at the children, holding out her hands, bringing out scarves for them to twirl around, smiling at them.   It was such a pleasure to see her delight in them.

The program was about an hour,  and was a joint social outreach programme of St Paul's Cathedral Music Department and Magisterra Soloists.   They did not perform the whole Messiah, but rather select portions with the conductor explaining different pieces to the children.  

They also had some congregational singing: Joy to the World and Silent Night.

The video below taken with my cell phone, so excuse the quality.

We had a nice sized crowd and they served hot chocolate and cookies afterwards

They will be doing this again next year, so if interested book Dec 2 to hear the Children's Messiah.

Field Trip: Niagara Falls

In the Summer we took our international student to see Niagara Falls.  It was one of those sites that he mentioned that he wanted to see while in Canada.  He was from France and was a nice young man.  We were quite pleased to host him.

We walked up and down and took quite a few pictures, I'll have to show you a few of them.  Here's one where I made the boys line up for a photo to show that YES we were there.  :)

As promised, our view of the falls

The day was hot, and we had seen the Hornblower go up and down a few times, one 16 year smiled and nodded yes please, and one 11 year begged to on the boat.  I wasn't keen on it, but hey... if you are there you might as well right?   It was a long walk up but off we went.

It was so much fun watching the boys.  They both went to the front of the boat and leaned over and got splashed and just filled with grins.  SO WORTH IT!!!   :)

I suspect we'll go again next summer with a student if the Lord so wills.  Depends on where we are and what we'll be doing at that time.   Perhaps we'll do the zipline (at least the boys and dad) when we go.  :)

Field Trip: Kitchener Symphony

In October my son and I went to Kitchener, they were doing a children's symphony event there.  We went with our homeschool group.

BOY, did the lad and I have fun.

It was a rather neat program, they sent us the music before the program so we knew what music to expect.

No cameras were allowed during the program so I only have this so-so shot while they were warming up.

The conductor did a really good job as introducing each piece and telling the children what to expect from it.

In the hall of the mountain King , oh my how my lad liked this song, and has asked for me to play it again for him more than once.  :)

The conductor explained that you could hear the fellow creeping into the mountain and having some goblins or something start to sneak up behind them, and then a huge race at the end... would they catch him or would he escape.    My lad LOVES the imagery and the music..ah.. it makes him smile.

They did 10 pieces in all, each time the conductor gave some explanation of the piece and gave the students something to listen for.   Sometimes he provided imagery, other times he asked what emotion the piece asked or demanded of them, and so forth.  All the different ways the music tells a story were explained and demonstrated.

If you ever have a chance to go to a Children's lesson time at the orchestra, do so.  You'll learn much and be able to watch your children's faces light up with joy.

Fanfare, Royalty, Combat... A King's Delight

Recently my family was treated to the King's package at Medieval Times.   My son brought along a friend as we took the time for the royal fanfare courtesy of Medieval Times.  This is our review.  :)

 Medieval Times graciously offered us the King's Package.   This comes with: 

 Gramma, son, friend of son, myself and my husband attended.   We made sure we got there in plenty of time so that we could see and hear all they had to offer in the preshow arena.   When one is in the greeting area, you are surrounded by various shields and crests.

You are handed a card, which will signify your hat colour, and part of the Royal Package you get to have your picture taken with the king.

Your hat colour also signifies your table colour and whereabouts you will be seated.   Being at green table three means we were sitting ring side, closest to the action, with the knight who.. as it turned out.. was the King's Champion of the day.

Before we actually got into the show though, they have an area set up with shops and people wandering around dressed in period clothing.   The boys were able to meet the King's Falconer where they learned she was hooded, not because she wouldn't stay with him, but because there were a couple of service dogs roaming around and she was not fond of dogs at all.

And there were shops.  All manned by people dressed in period clothing.  There was a bar set up in the middle of the floor and town crier who called out birthday greetings, and announced which tables would get to go in next. 

 The lad was mightily tempted to by a sword for himself and his friend but found them simply out of his price range.   Eventually the temptation subsided as we found ourselves going into our sitting area.  And here we all are.  :)   Ready for an evening of food and fun.

 And it was GOOD food.  Soup, bread, chicken, corn, potato, limitless drinks (pop etc).   The only thing I didn't like was the tea post meal which was MUCH too strong for my taste.

Before the main show there were smaller shows, the falcon flew and caught her lure, the horses strutted their stuff.. Gramma just LOVED this part.

Then the main show began with the knights performing their skills.   I have to tell you this.. there were a group of eight year old boys celebrating a birthday.. and my.. they hooted and hollered and had SO MUCH fun.   YEAH!!!!   Green Knight YOU ROCK!     And booing and hissing when the bad guy appeared.   "YOU SUCK!!!   YOU ARE THE BAD MAN!!!!"    They were so totally into the show it added that extra bit of enjoyment to the show.   Though I have to admit, the mom with them looked a bit shell shocked!  :)

The show was a lot of fun, even though we had seen it last year, the joy and the wonder and the fun were still there for my lad with plans for next year!   MOM!!!   Do you think next year I should wear my knights costume?    Wouldn't that be fun?

I said "Sure Lad, but let's see if they invite us back next year too!"

Here are some pics of the fun we had.

And action.   Men were called upon.  Will you defend the honour of the realm?   Fight to protect the throne and the Princess?   Jousting, combat, sparks flew as weapons hit.

Currently we are listening to a series of books called "The Ranger's Apprentice". (Excellent series by the by.. get your boys to listen to it.. your girls too!)  :)   It is set during this time period, when we saw the flail at work against the sword, it brought to life the danger one of the characters was in when he was faced up against the flail.  The reach it gives to the person bearing it and the thud it made against a shield.   Made it all more real you know?   Even though we know the show is carefully choreographed so no one gets hurt, it still brings the thrill and the danger immediately to bear.

And so, the kingdom was protected.

And all was good in the land.

By the end of the show my son's friend said "I am so tired, but I am so glad that I came."

Did you know that you too can go to see Medieval Times?

You can.  

The prices in Canada are as follows:

You can pick up these additional packages: 

Did you know that Medieval Times, Toronto received an award last year?

If you want to have a great meal (using your fingers), great service and excellent entertainment, do check Medieval Times.   It is well worth your time to attend.     HAVE FUN!