Links of Learning

The past two days have been great.  We've been busy.  I took the kids (Dancer and friend) out to Rock Springs yesterday.  They had a great time playing in the kids center, watching the birds at the *watching window*, checking out all of the live animals, and looking at all the interactive exhibits.  I bought a *Birds of Illinois* field book for Dancer and she bought herself a *make your own volcano* kit.  I picked her up some free star and planet charts.

Yesterday evening we had GHE registration.  I found some awesome books amongst all of the curriculum... about woodworking for kids, fun experiments to do at home with stuff from around the house, a cool art book that shows the basics for drawing construction, a few field books about the weather and shells of the world, and a fun brain game.  We even got a rock tumbler and an ant farm!

Dancer had a great time playing and chatting with a few friends.  They spent most of the evening in front of this huge map of the world, looking for places they had heard of (Dancer was looking for some of the places she had read about in her volcano kit and at one point asked me to help her find Puerto Vallarta, Mexico because that's where my dad went for his honeymoon in June... he brought me back this gorgeous wrap and matching poncho... well it wasn't on the map so we'll look that up here at home).

I had a great time talking to everyone that I knew and even saw some faces that I wasn't expecting to see... new homeschoolers :)

Last night we went through the books on her bookshelves and picked out all of the books she didn't want to keep (pretty much all fiction... like me, she's not a big fiction fan) to make room for new things.  We came across a book about fish, their habitat, and life cycles... so, we spent part of the evening reading that.  She LOVES nature!  I'm so thrilled, she picked up that love from my side of the family... her dad doesn't get out much.  :/

Today we went to the Children's Museum again.  I got a family membership so we can get free admission and discounts on all of the extra events they host there.  Even if we only went to the museum once a month... the membership still pays for itself in admission fees.  Dancer bought a few science kits: *build your own glow-in-the-dark solar system planetarium model* and *mystic Egyptian tomb dig & play: digging adventure and board game*.

 All of this fun is learning!  All of the living and exposure and fun just brings about more of the same.  Life is the catalyst for learning and learning brings excitement to life.  You can't fake that and you can't force it... it's as they say, organic.