The Cult of Apple

In an effort to further indoctrinate our children in the Apple ideology, we took our FunSchoolers on a field trip to the Apple Store. Granted, given that my children live in a home with, ahem, an Apple product or ten, there wasn't much work to be done on my crew. However, there are some in our group who have not yet drunk the Apple-flavored Kool-Aid. What better way to convince a parent that she needs to buy an iMac than to let her kids play with one for an hour and a half and let the kids fall in love with it? Who can say no to a child begging for a $1,700 computer? Sneaky, sneaky, Mr. Jobs.


We could choose from one of four projects...video, text, music or photo. We had the kids make a stop action video with props they brought from home. Very cool!

 The big kid in this next photo is Adam, an Apple mind control expert  Store employee. He had as least as much fun working on this as the kids did. He was so great with them that my neighbor suggested we hire him to entertain the children this summer.

Indoctrination aside, this was a great field trip. In addition to giving each child a DVD of their project and a certificate, they got free t-shirts (sans location tracking...I checked).  

I have tried in vain to upload one of the projects but Blogger is having trouble with video tonight. Trust me when I tell you it very cool...as long as you don't play it backwards. 

A Cool Dam Tour!

Earlier this week, the munchkins and I went on a tour of Pensacola Dam at Grand Lake with some of our awesome Otherwise Educating friends.

Or, as my homeschooling friends and I like to call it, the Dam Tour. (We spend entirely too much time around pre-adolescent and teenaged boys.) We never tired of the (bad) joke. We went on a dam tour, had a cool dam tour guide and took some good dam photos. Our collective mental age is currently somewhere around 11, I think. Ok, truth be told, we really can't blame it on the boys. We just need to get out more.

The OE Dad accompanied us on this field trip and was glad he did. He put this field trip right up there with the tour of the PAC.

The Pensacola Dam is on the National Register of Historic Places. It was built in the late 1930s so there is a lot of history there.

Cool Art Deco light:

The building used to be a fallout shelter:

There is still a gas mask and "telephone" in the original Otis elevator:

Thing 4 operating the elevator:

We did learn some more technical things about the dam, but I am more interested in history than the generation of electricity, so not a lot of that information stuck with me, but the kiddos remember. I do remember that the dam provides electricity for 24 OK counties and some counties in Missouri and Kansas.



It was definitely worth the drive.

Now That Was A Cool Field Trip!

One thing about Otherwise Educating is that there is never a shortage of things to do. For any non-homeschoolers out there, if you've ever worried about the "socialization" issue (and it's the rare "outsider looking in" who hasn't expressed that criticism, er, concern), please don't worry. I find that we have so many options for enrichment and socialization, that I have to choose carefully or we'd never be at home to work on math and grammar.

We've had the opportunity to do many things away from home this year. We've done some really great things, and there have been a couple of activities that have left me thinking, "Yeah, we probably should have stayed home and worked on math facts."

Our latest field trip was the best yet. Our co-op went to the Tulsa Performing Arts Center for a behind the scenes tour. It was so cool and we all loved it! We have been to many performances at the PAC, including several plays this year through the Young At Art Series (which happens to be the best value in homeschooling), so it was really fun and interesting for the children to see the PAC from a different perspective.

We saw all four theaters at the PAC and were able to go on stage, backstage and to the orchestra pit in the theater where we see the Young At Art plays.

On Stage, Williams Theater:

Orchestra Pit in the Williams Theater:

Backstage:

We saw dressing rooms:

We rode in the freight elevator...

...which was the highlight of the trip for Thing 3:

We even got to go all the way to the top of the PAC to the spotlight room...

...where we had a great view of the Chapman Music Hall:

Orchestra Pit In The Chapman Music Hall:

This is the glass art piece that hangs in the lobby. They say that sucker weighs 4 tons. Think about that next time you're in the lobby waiting for you show.

It was great day!

The Pumpkin Patch!

Earlier this week, a small group of Otherwise Educating friends took a very informal, last minute field trip to the Pumpkin Patch at our church.

Pastor Taud did a fun science lesson on different types of energy...

...while the children looked on.

Did the pumpkin sink or float?

Next, we had another science lesson where the children dropped different sized pumpkins in a tank and learned that all pumpkins float, regardless of size, because they are 90% water.

The kids made pumpkin snot.

Ewww...

Finally, the kiddos worked together to put a pumpkin jigsaw puzzle together. It was more difficult than we thought it would be.

The girls got a little help from Patch staff member, Ms. Corinna.


Pumpkins...ahhhh.