Shelburne Museum Field Trip

Our homeschool group really was busy this month! A week after Billings Farm, some of our families took another field trip to the Shelburne Museum. It is one of my favorite museums because there is so much to do and see there. They regularly have homeschool days, where they offer special workshops for the kids at different locations. The kids really enjoy the extra activities while still seeing the museum. It was a really pretty day for the trip, too!

We started our day at the covered bridge, a fun place to run the length.

The old jailhouse is always a hit. We don't mind locking the kids inside! :)

We spent a lot of time on the ship, a model of one that used to travel across Lake Champlain from Vermont to New York. The workshop taught us about pulleys used to load goods onto the ship.

And of course the ship is a great spot for photo ops!

The kids always love the carousel. We saved it for the end and they wanted to ride over and over again.

This was the girls' last outing together before the two on the outside edges of this picture move to SC, so it was a little bittersweet for Leah. They had a great time together!

Billings Farm Field Trip

Our little homeschool group this year was such a fun bunch! I got to teach the older kids a World Geography class. We were doing this at home for our history & geography this year so I thought it would be fun to have a group to do crafts and activities with each week. We studied a different country each week. It was often difficult to prepare an activity for a group of such a variety of ages (they range from 2nd to 6th grade) and interests but I think we managed to accomplish some things. Our last day of class, everyone pulled 3-4 cards with pictures of famous landmarks on them from a cup and had to tape them to our large wall map in their correct location. I took a photo to commemorate:

As another of our homeschool group's last celebrations, we took a trip together to Billings Farm Homeschool Day. They do a pretty good program for the kids, with 5-6 different rotating activities throughout the day. First they learned about what life would have been like for a kid in 1850. They did "chores" like beating a rug, buttoning their shoes, ironing, and writing on slates like they would have used in school.

Then we got to see the baby cows and learn a little about how they name them and take care of them.

We also got to see baby chickens and learn about the anatomy of a chicken and how they are raised for meat.

After lunch we got to pet a sheep and learn how their wool is used. (As you can see, it is May but still cold and wet outside!)

Abi and Paisley found a worm that was far more interesting than what the man was telling them about the sheep. Thankfully we have kids that don't mind getting their hands a little dirty!