We love our libraries!

  Yesterday we took advantage of one of our local library's programming for a "school's out" day since Lawrence Public Schools had the day off.  They had staff from the Kansas Cosmosphere come and talk on different subjects, including the one we attended which was "Life in Space".

Our speaker's PowerPoint presentation included neat videos of astronauts in space doing their everyday thing.  He brought a variety of space foods, and other props for hands on pass arounds for the kids.  They left the talk totally thrilled!  The library also has had on display an indoor planetarium and spaceman "Steve".  We'd looked Steve over the past couple of times we've been, but got our picture taken with him this time!

I love the Lawrence Library.  They just went through a major renovation a couple of years ago and while there's parts of the new I don't appreciate they kept alot of the essence of what I always have.  They have unique books.  Interesting books that we can't find at other libraries.  Sure, they have the run of the mill, but they are eclectic in some of the things that they carry.  They have wonderful reading nooks and of course the fish and train table.  They also have walls of windows!  There is nothing more inviting than an area that seems to have no barrier to the outside...

Shorty playing puppets in the kids section

We not only utilize the Lawrence Library, but we are in the unique situation by virtue of where we live that enables us to use our small town library, Lawrence (1/2 hr. away) and also Topeka (which is also 1/2 hr. away). All have great programming for kiddos and some specifically for homeschoolers.
  Our small town library we use for everyday reading - fiction chapter books, picture books and general background for studies we are doing.  They can interlibrary loan most things which is a blessing, just takes a little planning.  We also utilize the local one a ton because it has no late fees, the other ones do.  Those are stinkers!  We try to stay on top of overdues, but there's always that one time...
  The Topeka library is a typical big city library.  We make it to Topeka and Lawrence at least once a month, so it's not too bad of a balancing act with due dates of every 3 weeks.  The Topeka library has more variety of the mainstream books, so that next Boxcar Children might be on hand there.  Or if we need a bigger variety for our Chemistry studies we can grab some extras in the regular kids section or the teacher's library (that's a neat bonus!).  Their children's section is one of a kind too.  One of my artist buddies did a fantastic job painting murals that really draw a person in.  There's a bookshelf made to look like a bus, and a dinosaur standing in the middle of one of the rooms and his upper body disappears into the ceiling!  And of course, the fish.  What kids section would be complete without them? ;)
  A library is the homeschooler's best friend.  We are still finding ways that we can better use what they offer in our schooling.  I am so pleased that the ones we have in our area are homeschool friendly and readily accessible :)

Field Trip Friday: Holton

  I wanted to sparkle today.  One of my Grandma Mauzey's cousins passed away this week and today was the funeral, which decided the location of our field trip Friday.  The ladies on that side of the family came from very modest backgrounds but always dressed with a sparkle and a flamboyant air.  When I came upon these slippers years ago, I picked them because they are EXACTLY like what my grandma or her sisters or cousins would wear.  So they carried me up North today to Holton to say goodbye.
  Grandma was meeting us at the funeral.  We got there a tad bit early so we decided to wander a bit rather than sitting in the car.  So where does a genealogist/historian take the kids to kill time???  Well, the cemetery of course!  We have all decided we need to go back when it is not quite so soggy and we have more time.  We saw burials as early as 1860, tons of Civil War veterans, and a mausoleum that was HUGE, as well as some awesome stump stones...

  The funeral was bittersweet, aren't they all?  So good to see relatives you haven't seen in ages, but so very sad.  I'm finding that with each family one that we attend these days it reminds me of how much I miss my grandparents and that makes it all the more hard.  One awesome thing was that we had a Patriot Guard leading the procession.  My cousin had seen it and wanted it for her funeral and since one of her nephews was a Patriot Guard he and his wife performed the ceremony for the graveside service.  There was a certain way they handled the flag differently than a veteran funeral. It was so cool!

  Our next stop was the Jackson County Historical Society.  It turned out to be smaller than what I was expecting, but the kids had fun and that's what mattered!
  Just to show you that the kids aren't always poseable...

  Yep, just about sums it up too... a goofy one, one we have to keep from running away and the other that is too busy pointing out the fossils in the rock...
  Back to my story...
Mookie's favorite display was the WPA  dolls, which gave me an intro to WPA, the kids know all about the CCC because it is one of Hubby's hobbies.

Bubby found an interesting display on the old wolf hunts...

I was super excited about the Civil War exhibits and Shorty liked the train (of course), but well, he didn't stand still long enough at anything to get a picture.  He really, really, really, really wanted to go to the playground we'd seen on the way to the museum.

Can you blame him?  Look at that thing!  We played and played until the kids were red faced and sweaty.

the Burger King crown fit in perfectly

When we wore them out, we dropped Grandma off and went home via the Lane Freedom Trail (Hwy 75). 

Field Trip Friday: Trailside Center

  A couple of weeks ago when we went to Mahaffie Farm, we picked up a little passport of places to visit in the Kansas City area.  At each place you need to answer a question for your booklet and you get a stamp for your passport.  This Friday we were in Kansas City to pick up Hubby from a long trip, so we grabbed the closest one to where we were going to be - the Trailside Center.  We were all a little edgy from Hubby being gone, so I am glad it wasn't much, but it thrilled the kids to no end to snag one of their passport stamps!
 

  We got to the Trailside Center in the early afternoon and we were the first "customers" of the day (they'd been open since about 10am) and the volunteer gals were thrilled we were there.  Our question for the passport was "why is the pioneer woman carrying flowers" and the gal gave an explanation of pioneer life and showed the kids some of the artifacts they had on display.
  Shorty was not interested, so he told me all about this map and drew a route for us to take.

The Trailside Center is at the confluence of the California, Oregon and Santa Fe Trails.  It is essentially a tourism center for that area.  They have some interesting local maps, and a small amount of pioneer artifacts, and an interesting Civil War display with re-enactment uniforms and equipment.

  The map that caught my eye was the one for the Battle of Westport.  I've been wanting to get to that one for a while - its free and would fit right in to what we had been learning.  The problem being - its right next to the Kansas City Zoo which is a day trip for us in itself.  I've been considering blindfolding the kids for the Battle of Westport trip...
   The older kiddos had a good time with the historical nature of this stop.  What thrilled them though was since it was a tourism center, was to pick out brochures and dream about future field trips!  That was worth the stop in itself :) 

Field Trip Friday: Emporia

   I've been wanting to try the Emporia theme for a while.  Its about an hour down the road from us and just full of wonderful Kansas history!  Not to mention tons of free things to do.  Our first stop on this cool and breezy day was the Geology and Natural History museums on the lower level of Breunkelman Hall on the Emporia State campus.  Both are about the size of a large classroom, but would be great for enhancing a science lesson.  There are hundreds of species of animals in the natural history museum.  Not just adult specimens either, some have eggs, juvenile and adults represented.  Mookie's favorites were the little guys. 

Not quite the dioramas of the KU Natural history museum, but definitely worth a look.

I loved the geology museum!  Excellent fossils, florescing rocks, Native American artifacts, an exhibit on the zinc mines of SE Kansas, but it had one problem.  It was steaming hot!  It drove Mookie and Shorty out after only a short time.  I sure would like to go back and take more time in there.  Luckily Bubby got quality time in there, most of my time at these museums is riding herd on those not so interested.  Someday that will change, so I just have fun in the running around in the meantime. :)
  Our next stop was the David Traylor zoo.  It had a bunch of native species as well a few others. 

This zoo was not fantastic because of its selection of animals, but because it was absolutely beautifully landscaped and so cozy and up close with the animals it did have.  They even have a portion that is open at times for a drive though.  The kids are ready to go back again!
  Right across the road from the zoo is the Veterans' Day memorial. Did you know that Emporia was essentially the birthplace of Veterans' Day?  They had the traditional tank and helicopter to view....

with some excellent extras...

A Braille Pledge of Allegiance

And a Rainbow footbridge over the Cottonwood River

It was a great place to get out and stretch our legs a little more!
  We also went and tracked down some statues of famous Emporia personalities.  It is located right on the corner of the Lyon County fairgrounds, so we felt a little conspicuous taking pictures by all the traffic, but not too much ;)

The people represented were William Allen White, Preston Plumb (one of the founders of Emporia), a Native American chief, and Nathaniel Lyon (Lyon county is named for him and Emporia is the county seat).
  We took our packed lunch and sat by the train tracks to watch passing trains, to Shorty's delight.
  Our last stop was the Lyon County Historical Museum.  I had been dying to see its Civil War exhibit.  We walked in and Shorty started telling the staff about the trains he saw, to which the reply was "oh, you want to see the train?", and she led us to the train room.  And not just any train room, but one with a camera on the front with a screen on the wall so you could watch as the train followed the track, went through tunnels and you could even catch a glimpse of yourself on the big screen! Um, yeah, awesome!

To heck with mommy wanting to see the GAR button of Preston Plumb's in the Civil War room and read all the interesting placards.  Luckily I could see him in the train room playing at the Thomas the Tank Engine table from the Civil War room and bought my self some time.  Preston Plumb led the 11th Kansas (of which Burlingame's Company I was a part of) and I was so excited! The Civil War exhibit was also interactive and had a basket where you could chose a real soldier's name and find an artifact or mention of him in the room and then look up his name in a book.  The two older ones loved this.  Laura was excited because she got Plumb's name - we accused her of cheating ;)

Bubby looking for his soldier

The museum right now is really small, just one other room beside the train and Civil War exhibit rooms, but that will change after the first of the year.  They are moving to a building with 40,000 sq. ft. (where they have 4,000 sq. ft. now) and they are merging the research library with them too.  They are very excited about getting more of their fun stuff out, and I am too!  I'll make a trip back down for sure, the Gazette has some of neat sounding newspaper artifacts we want to check out too, as well as possibly his house - Red Rocks.
  The only thing we paid for today was the gas to get there and happy hour drinks at Sonic.  Not a bad deal at all :)

Field Trip Friday: A Little Less Ordinary

  We didn't take a field trip today, per se.  We traveled and we didn't "do school" but it didn't involve a museum.  Today we went to Ducky and Gigi's to burn the pasture.  Something we like to do as a family every year to take out the dead and make way for the new.  So we'll just say we reviewed fire safety for that portion of the day...

The kids don't do the burning, just Daddy and Ducky, but they enjoy watching.
  Our trip part of the day took us in to my hometown of Oskaloosa to the cemetery.  We were seeking out photo requests for the Find A Grave website.  While we didn't have much luck with that, we found some awesome Civil War veteran stones...

The top pic is the coolest Civil War veteran stone I've ever seen.  The bottom one is a man who served as a Corporal in the 1st Kansas Colored (aka 79th USCT).  Oskaloosa was a free-state town and I was hoping to find some of the USCT there and was thrilled to find two 1st KS Co. among them!  By the end of our time at the cemetery I was having to pull Bubby away (the other two had given up on us long before) and tell him we had to stop taking pictures of veterans' stones.  History class for the day!
  Our last stop was to the County Seat Variety for some ice cream from their soda fountain.  My mom used to work at the library up the street when I was a kid and every once in a while we would stop in for ice cream.  It was so wonderful to be able to share that with my kiddos.
  While we didn't get to our "ordinary" trip, fun was had by all :)

Field Trip Friday - Ft. Leavenworth

  Oh, the irony!  Ever since we started our learning of Civil War veterans a few summers ago, I've been dying to go to the museum at Ft. Leavenworth.  The thing that has held us back was getting access to the fort.  I didn't want to have to go thru all the possible security.  We finally broke down, picked up Gigi, and made our trip.  It turns out that just a couple of weeks prior, the fort had changed their admittance from just showing drivers license, registration, and insurance to stopping at a visitor's center and submitting those documents as well as undergoing a background check.  It was not a big deal even with that (took less than 10 minutes), but to think that it would have been easier and I put it off - *sigh*. 
  The Frontier Army museum was right on the edge of the historic fort area (we did take advantage of our fort pass and went further into the historic part - cool!  Mookie loved looking at the old buildings).  The museum is free and well worth the trip.  They start you out with Lewis and Clark who explored the area and Fort Cavagnal which was an early French fort in the area, as well as some really cool early Ft. Leavenworth artifacts. 

Shorty with Lewis & Clark

  The main exhibit area was made up of examples of firearms, military equipment, and vehicles used during different periods.  It really reminded me of the Kansas National Guard museum in Topeka except with more finesse and just key artifacts.  The interpretation guides for these were exceptional.

  Mookie surprised me a bit with what she enjoyed.  She took a big interest in some cannons and what was inscribed on them.

  Shorty was intrigued by the large stage coach.  He kept saying that the guy inside was moving.  After a few laps and hearing that, I could almost see him move myself...

  Bubby was thrilled to see a bust of one his favorite historical characters - Frederick Funston. He portrayed Funston in a Kansas characters show and tell a few years back at our homeschool coop :)

  My biggest disappointment was not seeing anything meaty on the U.S. Colored Troops.  I had assumed that since William Matthews, of the 1st Kansas Colored, was from Leavenworth prior to the war that there would be some emphasis on them.  They did have items about the Buffalo Soldiers and we made sure to pay a visit to the Buffalo Soldier's monument while we were there.

  The kids were very intrigued with Fort life and how self contained it was.  It would be fun to go back when it wasn't so very cold outside.  I think a trip to Ft. Riley is in our near future as well!

Field Trip Friday: Of Camo & Cabooses

  Today didn't work out quite like we planned.  We had to scrap our original field trip plans, but life as a homeschooler, you roll with it!  So instead of geocaching we explored a museum that was on our wishlist & in the direction our day was taking us: The Old Depot Museum in Ottawa. Trains are Shorty's favorite, and with some upcoming study on the trans-continental railroad, it actually was pretty good timing.  After we arrived and were exploring the caboose outside (they are renovating it and will let you see inside if you ask) I noticed that all the kids were wearing camo pants!  If I attempted to coordinate this, you know someone would balk...

  I had never been to this particular museum, but had heard wonderful things about it, and rightfully so.  The cost was right: $5 for all of us together.  They had an excellent exhibit on early Ottawa since it was their 150 anniversary this year: the front room was filled with artifacts from the first 2 decades of Ottawa.  We kind of skipped the next room which had some more local history (a cool exhibit on the Pottawatomie Creek Massacre & an interesting local silk worm farm that was around in the later part of the 19th c.).  This poor room got neglected by us because in the room adjacent was...TRAINS!!!
  Almost taking up the whole room was a model train track with a recreation of Ottawa.  Not just that, but you could push certain buttons and make things on the model move & play music!

After quite a while, we had to literally drag Shorty away to see the rest of the museum upstairs.
  The upstairs was really well laid out.  The grand photo op...

And theme rooms chalked full of artifacts.  The cool thing about it was they were so full, you didn't just walk in, but they had these little sheets at the door that explained things in depth while getting you to find it.  It was the ultimate I Spy!

The General Store

They also had a classroom.  It was totally hands on and a group can even reserve it for a one-room schoolhouse day.  The best part is getting to use the rope outside the door for the schoolroom & ringing the bell! Definitely considering going back for just a school day!

This place was definitely not your ordinary county historical museum.  They found a great way to incorporate tons of history and local artifacts without the run of the mill exhibits or high dollar bells and whistles.  We'll definitely be making a return trip!

Pit Stop!

I was thinking back on today and our wild flat traveler inspired field trip (in lieu of our "field trip Friday" this week), and Guido from the movie Cars's voice came into my head "Pit Stop!!".  Yep, that's pretty much how it was:)

We were dying to see my folks after our big vacation, and when we found out they were going to be in Topeka, we planned a lunch date.  Funny thing is that all three of us adults had the same eating establishment in mind, we're weird, what can I say?

Just in case, I brought our new flat travelers with us.  Since we were close to downtown, I suggested a trip to the state capital.  Ducky had an appointment later in the afternoon he had to be at, so it would be a quick trip.  With Shorty in need of a nap, I knew that wouldn't be a problem. 

It was a super fast trip, but we got to see all the important parts that were open to the public: the murals and statues, the House and Senate chambers, the old Supreme Court, the door to the Governor's office, and most importantly a ride in the cage elevator! :)

House Chamber

Supreme Court

I had never been in any of the chambers before - so cool!  My favorite was the House chamber, it had a flyer describing different items of note. 

I totally love the John Stuart Curry mural of John Brown.  It is just so powerful, it really captures the imagination of what he must have been like and the volatility of that time period.

So, I am so glad that its free to tour the capital, because our "pit stop" lasted 1/2 hour.  It was a quick one, but since we had been there previously we didn't feel too badly, plus we got to see some new areas!  Shorty slept all the way home and then some:)

Field Trip Friday: Ward-Meade Park

   Today we had some errands to run in Topeka, so the thought became, what to do in Topeka that is low cost & something new, educational and exciting for us?  The answer: Ward-Meade Park.  It has been on my list of things to do with the kids for a while.  We called our traveling companions, Ducky and Grandma, to come along with us.  If you don't take the tour, it is free to walk the grounds.  It was supposed to be a hot day, so we got there just after it opened.  That didn't help much, so some of us "accidentally" walked into the sprinklers watering the beautiful grounds. Some really did get hammered accidentally by a rogue sprinkler stream, but that's another story.

Once Shorty discovered the sprinklers, we couldn't keep him out of them.  In fact, he was down to just his t-shirt and diaper by the time we left for lunch because his shorts were so wet.

  The cabin was open and it was so lovely!  It was a spacious 4 room log cabin with 2 fireplaces!  We snagged a picture of Flat Jerrin (Bubby's flat traveler for the month) there.

The best part of the trip was going into the restored Drug Store and having some cool refreshment.  I had a Prairie Dust sundae - yum!  Who says you can't have dessert before lunch;) ?

Mookie waiting for her ice cream

The kids have made me promise to take them back.  I think we'll try for a cooler day though;)