Perot Museum

We had the opportunity to join up with a homeschool group and visit the Perot Museum in Dallas yesterday. It was a lot of fun! If you live in the Dallas area, or are visiting, I would put it on my list of recommendations. It is a nature and science museum that lives in a really neat building. Bill Nye has visited it, so it has to be cool, right?

Even the landscaping is quite awesome. The kids had a lot of fun playing on the giant frogs while we waited for the museum to open.

The museum houses 11 permanant exhibit halls devoted to a different field of science or nature. The Texas Instruments Engineering and Innovation Hall contained a lot of neat robotics, among other things. Me, Brady, and the kids had fun with a machine that measured your brain waves. If you could get your brain waves into the correct waves, either by relaxing or thinking of math problems, a ping pong ball would shoot into a basket.

The Being Human Hall was all about the human body. Want to use a machine that can show your veins, control a prosthetic limb, or look at yourself using an infrared camera? This was the area for that. 

We spent about five hours at the museum, and there were parts that we skipped. By the end of the day, our entire crew had achy feet. We experienced an earthquake, watched a tornado, saw all sorts of taxidermy native Texas wildlife, and ogled at gems. 

On the bottom floor of the museum, there is a fun children's museum so that the smaller members of your crew can get some wiggles out. 

If you want more information on visiting the Perot Museum, just look here. I am sure you would enjoy it as much as we did. 

This is the Place Heritage Park

This past week we went on a field trip to This is the Place Heritage Park, which is a replicated village from the mid 1800s. Many of the buildings are authentic, and have just been re-located to the park, while others are replicas. There are many fun things to do, and we were very glad to meet up with two of the homeschooling families we know when we arrived, so the kids got to enjoy the park with their friends.We had a blast, even though the weather was particularly cold.

The first building that we went to was a small log cabin that was relocated to the park. The people working at the park act out the part of people actually from that time period. The woman in this first house had a baby and a toddler with her (both decked out in historical garments!). She told us that 13 people lived there. It was amazing how many people could fit into such a small one-room home. The older boys of the family slept in the attic space, which was only accessible by a ladder on the outside of the home. While we stayed there, the kids all got to try out there hand at some old time chores and games. Princess loved pretending to do the laundry, Gizmo had a fun time trying to walk on stilts, and I could barely get Spike to leave the plow. As for Squirt...since it was so cold he stayed bundled up in the stroller for most of our time at the park.

This building once housed a family of 13!

The ladder leading to the attic.

 

We were there a long time, and all of us had favorite things that we saw. Spike was enamored with the blacksmith shop, and watched with wonder as the blacksmith showed his skills. I loved the home that was devoted to wool. The woman inside showed the kids how to prepare wool for spinning (the sheep the wool was from were in the backyard!). In the back room of the home there was a large loom that she demonstrated using. Princess very sweetly whispered to me that she wished I had a sewing machine like that. All the kids in the group loved the school building. The school marm showed them what discipline would exist in the time period, and helped them write their names in the deseret alphabet.  The barbershop was very interesting with talk of leaches and bloodletting. The friendly barber explained the colors of the barbershop pole to the kids, which I thought was very interesting (red-blood, blue-veins, white-cleanliness).

Blacksmith shop.

Gizmo volunteered to get a shave.

Gizmo the dunce.

 Spike being punished for not having the correct answer.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 The entire area was beautiful to walk through. It was just too cold for us to do everything, so we might go back in the future when it is warmer out.

A playgroup area with small homes and stores. We practically had to tear the kids away from here. That little guy in the middle is Squirt.

Black Island Farms

Yesterday we went to our annual field trip to Black Island Farms. Black Island Farms is a local vegetable farm. In the fall, they have a huge corn maze along with giant slides made of hay bales, a petting zoo, and all sorts of fun stuff. The kids' school arranges the field trip, and we have now been homeschooling long enough for them to start asking when we are going as soon as the cold weather kicks in. We spent several hours there, and I took many, many pictures. My apologizes if you are on dial-up....

The first thing we did for the day was wait for a big tractor to come and take us to the fields. The girls found a cozy spot to sit and wait.

On our first stop, our unconventional tattooed and ear-gauged farmer/guide, N8 (Nate), popped some carrots out of the ground to show the kids. Here he was showing them a carrot that had gotten confused and started going to seed. He did an awesome job of making it fun for the kids and parents. He said if we ever wanted to give the kids some truly hard work, to send them to the farm to work for a day.

And then we were off to the pumpkin field. Squirt found a pumpkin he liked. He even tried to bite it.

Princess found her perfect pumpkin. She specified that she wanted a small one, because she is small.

Gizmo and her friend.

The whole crew. This was seriously the best I could do at getting all four of them to look at me and smile.

Princess heading down a big slide.

The big kids and a homeschool friend heading down a big slide. I love Gizmo's face in this one.

While the bigger kids were going down slides, Squirt enjoyed one of the carrots that Farmer N8 had dug up. I don't remember the name of the variety, but whatever it was...he loved it.

One of the fun attractions at Black Island Farms is a big sandbox filled with corn....a corn box. It is amazing how something so simple can be so much fun.

Squirt could have played in it all day long.

Princess on the little train.

The boys on the train. Squirt was a little unsure, but Spike was in absolute big brother heaven.

Spike always pulls weird faces at me. :)