Nothing says autumn in Albuquerque like seeing all the hot air balloons flying! Here is a time-lapse video from the International Balloon Fiesta:
My family, along with good friends who are coming in from Oklahoma, will be going this Friday evening for the Glowdio. And then, the beautiful fireworks after!
We went one evening last year, and it was wonderful! This year, we will not need to rent a scooter, because my husband finally was able to have his spinal surgery, so he won’t need one.
We are very much looking forward to the event, and I will have a full report for you after we’ve been! 🙂
Yesterday, I posted a review of a book about George Washington that my boys and I are using as a read-aloud. Today, I want to talk about a conversation we had when reading about the Boston Tea Party, and breaking unjust laws.
Last year, when my cousin Kathy and her boys visited us, we spent several hours walking around in the National Petroglyph Monument Park, right here in Albuquerque. You can see below some of the pictures from that day . . .
Today, because our esteemed President is deliberately attempting to make things as uncomfortable for as many people as possible, and refusing to negotiate with those who do not agree with him, we cannot go to the National Petroglyph Monument Park. It is shut down. Now, please, be aware that I have no issue with shutting down the visitor’s center, it does cost money to staff that. However, in the entire time we were there last year, that was the ONLY place we saw any government paid employees. The rest of the place is simply open area where people were walking, or sitting and quietly enjoying the scenery.
Today, they are paying people to keep us out of the park. It is likely costing more federal funds to do that, then it cost to pay the person in the visitor’s center, because there are several entrances into the park, and they have to make sure nobody enters through any of them, I guess.
We talked about this, and we talked about what the WW2 vets did in knocking down the barricades around their memorial.
All the while, the President’s federally funded golf course remains open . . . the National Mall, closed to American citizens, is being opened solely to permit a rally for illegal immigration reform, etc . . .
If nothing else, I guess I can thank the President for the fact that I had a “real world” example from current events to bring to life what we were studying from over 200 years ago . . .
Now and then, we who are members of the Schoolhouse Review Crew are given an opportunity to review something that is just for us homeschooling mamas. This is one of those times, and I feel so very fortunate to have been chosen as one of the reviewers for the KJV Homeschool Mom’s Bible, which has just recently been published to go alongside their NIV version, by Zondervan.
It was so exciting to me, that there would now be a KJV Homeschool Mom’s Bible, because, as regular readers of my blog are aware, the KJV is the only version of the Bible my family uses, or will ever use.
The Bible I received is a hard-cover, jacketed book, with 1504 pages. As you can see from the picture above, the cover is so nice looking, it almost looks like something I would do when making a scrapbook page or a card. The cool thing, for those of us who usually wind up being book jacket challenged, either losing the jacket or having it become worn and torn, is that if you DO remove the jacket, the actual cover of the book looks exactly the same as the jacket! No boring, plain cover on this one, that’s for sure! 🙂
There is a very encouraging one page foreword written by Vickie Farris, who is the wife of Homeschool Legal Defense Association founder Dr. Michael Farris. I was privileged to attend one of her sessions during the CAPE-NM convention here in Albuquerque during April of 2013. I thought her forward was well written, and spoke well to the things we, as homeschool moms, need to hear.
Along with the complete text of the Authorized King James Version of the Holy Bible, this book includes 365 daily devotions, which are short (one page) readings which are specifically targeted for homeschooling mamas, each written by Janet Tatman. Janet Tatman homeschooled her own children for over 25 years, and then joined Alpha Omega Publications as a copywriter in the company’s homeschool division. She spent much of her time there writing the Daily Focus, a daily email devotional sent to subscribers. It became so popular that it is now offered as a year-long devotional book, and has been included as part of the KJV Homeschool Mom’s Bible.
The daily devotions are spread throughout this Bible, as opposed to being all grouped together as one large section. I like that, it encourages me to read the section of the Bible that is right by whatever devotion I am looking at, even if it has nothing to do with that particular devotion. Each devotion has a scripture passage to help in directing my focus to God’s Word, and ends with a short, suggested prayer to help get me started in talking with The Lord.
The devotionals also have a “go to” format, meaning that at the bottom of each devotion’s page is a line telling me on which page in my KJV Homeschool Mom’s Bible I will need to turn to the next day when I want to read my devotional.
There is also another option that I very much like, and that is the Topical Index, which is at the end of the book. I really enjoy going through the topics, because whenever I do, I find one right away that speaks to SOMETHING I am dealing with in my life. So, not only do I have the complete text of the Authorized King James Version of the Holy Bible, but without needing to get out a second book, I also have my daily devotional, plus a topical index, telling me which devotionals go with which topics!
I feel very blessed to have been given the KJV Homeschool Mom’s Bible to review, and would encourage other ladies who are now homeschooling or who are thinking of homeschooling, to take a look at this wonderful addition to our mom toolbox! Truly, the only thing I would suggest doing differently is to have it offered in large print for those of us with tired eyes, lol!
The KJV Homeschool Mom’s Bible is available in the hard-cover edition I received for $34.99, and is also available as an e-book or in the Italian Duo-tone format.
Please click on the graphic below, if you’d like to find out what other members of the Schoolhouse Review Crew thought of the Homeschool Mom’s Bible!
As always, I would love it if you would join me on all of “My Journeys”. Just go to the “sign me up” button at the top of the page, enter your email information, and never miss an update again! 🙂
Back a little over a week ago, on September 22, 2013, we attended our first annual “Round Up Sunday” at our church. We had just started attending last year, but that was after the Round Up Sunday for 2012. So, we were really looking forward to it, especially the kids, and we were not disappointed at all!
Of course, the entire theme was western. Western décor (created by The Ministry Mama), and everyone was invited to dress in western garb.
I went to Savers, a thrift store here in Albuquerque, and found western style shirts for the boys, cowboy hats, and holsters with play western guns to put onto their belts.
As you can see, they were completely into the whole thing!
I also found a western shirt (at Sam’s Club, of all places!) for my husband, and a hat at Savers. For me, I went with a western style shirt I had gotten when I modeled for Christopher & Banks the previous day, along with a jeans skirt and the leopard print cowboy hat the kids talked me into getting at Savers. It went well with my leopard print top and purse, they said! Now, I just need to find leopard print cowgirl boots for next year!:-)
Here’s a picture of the whole family . . .
Our guest speaker was Jorgen Rundquist. He was just so good, we very much enjoyed his singing, but even more importantly, his speaking. I really think it touched so many who were there.
“The Batman” got picked to go up and help when Bro. Runquist did some rope tricks.
Bro. Runquist did some wonderful singing for us as well . . .
After the morning service, we had a great meal of BBQ beef Brisket, and then some activities outside for the kids, including a petting zoo . . .
“The Batman”
“Mr. Loquacious”
“The Puzzler”
“The Artist”
And a set up to practice roping cows!
“The Batman”
“The Artist”
“Mr. Loquacious”
“The Puzzler”
During the evening service, the Sunshine Kids Choir sang. “Mr. Loquacious” and “The Puzzler” are both in this choir.
Here is the special skit and song that they did!
As you can see, a good time was had by all, and more importantly, a BUNCH of people were reached for Christ!
As always, I would just love it if you would join me on all of “My Journeys”! Please go to the “sign me up” button at the top right of the page and put in your email information . . . never miss an update again! 🙂
Anyone who is a regular reader here at My Journeys Through Life knows that my family moved all the way from Port Huron, Michigan to Albuquerque, New Mexico a little over a year ago. Ever since then, no matter where we go, we hear the Spanish language being spoken, and have developed a real desire to learn it for ourselves. So, when I was offered the opportunity to review a curriculum called See It And Say It Flip Flop Spanish by Senora Gose from Flip Flop Learning, I grabbed at it!
is SUPER easy to use . . . all I needed to do was get a three-ring binder with the clear pockets on the outside for the cover and spine (which, by the way, were included in my package), put the curriculum in the binder, stick the first CD (also included) into the laptop, and away we went!
With the very first lesson, we learned six words/phrases, enough to begin making sentences immediately! Now, you all know my motto . . . “instant gratification takes too long”, so this was PERFECT for us! 🙂
Because of an error in shipping, we did not receive our curriculum as quickly as the company intended, but that’s OK, because it really allows me to honestly tell you that you CAN learn a lot in a short period of time, with the right materials. It was already a given that we would be taking this at our own pace, just as we do with most everything, to accommodate the various special needs of my children, but I’m telling you, this curriculum has been a very good starting point for us to move from our desire to learn Spanish, to actually being able to speak several sentences, right away!
Because of the shipping mistake, Senora Gose was very generous and sent me a copy of one of her other books, “The Key To Learning Everything” vol. 1, which I can also very highly recommend to you!
We are learning with three different styles all at once . . . audial, tactile, and visual. We hear Senora Gose give the lesson, we touch the cards with the pictures (the Spanish and English words are on the back of the cards), and we see both the pictures and the words as we go.
Here are the cards we were using by the second lesson, including two that we were instructed to make, for the words “Y” (and), and the word pero (but), which helped us make even longer, more complete sentences.
In this picture, you can see all of the boys, as we practice with the cards.
Beginning with lesson one, we were instructed to read the manual, lay out the cards called for, and then, listen to the tracks referred to in the lesson while following along. Each lesson is repeated at least three days before moving on to the next, and on the third day, we were told to do the lesson without the CD, that way my children and I are learning to interact with each other in Spanish, not just with the CD (although, Senora Gose DOES have a voice which is very pleasant, easy to listen to and understand, and a clear, smooth speaking style). That’s really all there is to it! Even the description on the back cover tells you there are just 3 easy steps to See It And Say It Spanish . . .
1. Read the manual
2. select the flash cards for the lesson (just 4 or 6 cards per week)
3. play the CD and follow along
Our lessons are taking around 15 – 20 minutes, 3 times per week. The manual says 8 – 15 minutes, but as I said, we take things slower, plus my boys are having fun, so sometimes we play around with making sentences for a longer time.
Here are some short videos of the boys after only our second lesson:
“The Puzzler”
“The Batman”
“The Artist”
“Mr. Loquacious”
And finally, even I am learning! 🙂
Once we did lesson two, we were given a speed round to do. That was harder, and not just for the boys, but I know we will get better at it as we go along! 🙂 After that, the curriculum also added in what it calls “extra fun”. To learn even more, we put the noun cards we had already learned into a brown paper bag and took turns drawing them out. Using the white paddle board and the dry erase pen that came with the curriculum, the person whose turn it was would attempt to draw a picture of the noun on the paddle for us to guess (remember Pictionary?). The first one who could correctly call out what the card was would win that card. We had fun with that, we really enjoy games, and my husband and I particularly like what HE calls “stealth” games, which are games in which you are learning without realizing it, lol!
So . . . you probably want to know what all is included in this curriculum, and whether or not you will have added expense for extra materials, don’t you? Well, this is what you will receive when you order this curriculum:
One curriculum manual, with 150 pages of four semesters of lessons
3 sets of flash cards (135 cards) which are color coded
4 CD’s of audio lessons
1 dry erase paddle
1 dry erase marker
2 card holder pages for sentence building (although we build our sentences right on the kitchen table or the floor!)
Really, the ONLY extra thing I bought was a three-ring binder with clear insert covers, and that was only because we had run out of the right sized binders!
Some included vocabulary topics are:
common household nouns
colors and opinions
animals
clothing
food and family
manners
rooms in the house
places in town
Some of the activities which are included for extra learning are:
charades
Paleta (drawing board paddle)
speed rounds
skits
crosswords
find a word
and others.
Grammar concepts included are:
Spanish phonetics
definite and indefinite articles
conjugation of ser, estar, ir, and tener
regular -ar verb conjugation
forming questions
singular vs. plural
noun/adjective agreement
command forms
numbers up to 50
possessive
adjectives
parts of speech
prepositions
Spanish syntax
According to Senora Gose, we will learn over 250 words, and thousands of possible Spanish sentences!
See It And Say It Spanish can be ordered here for the current price of $99.95, with the regular retail price being $129.95. Our family gives it a resounding “”me gusta – “I like”!
As always, I would just love it if you would join me on all of “My Journeys”, by clicking on the “sign me up” button at the top of the blog and entering your email information. Never miss an update again! 🙂
Well, I must say, before my family moved here to Albuquerque, New Mexico last year, I NEVER thought we would be having an outdoor, swimming play date on September 20th! After all, back in Michigan by that date, we were generally breaking out the hoodies and such!
But THIS year, we spent the day (on September 20th!) with another home-schooling family from our church, who had invited the boys and me to their new home. We ate lunch outdoors on the patio, and the kids spent the day swimming in their (unheated!) pool. On September 20th!
As you can see, the kids had a WONDERFUL time, and they (right along with me!) really, really like the milder weather here! 🙂
Here are “The Artist”, “The Puzzler” & “Mr. Loquacious” . . .
Here are “Mr. Loquacious”, “The Batman” & their friends having fun in the pool . . .
“The Artist”, floating around . . .
The “Artist”, drying off for lunch . . .
“The Artist” back in the water . . .
“The Puzzler” & “The Batman” & “Mr. Loquacious” with one of their friends . . .
All of the kiddos had a great time in and around the pool . . .
Here is “The Batman”, riding the whale!
“The Puzzler” . . . “in? or Out? That is the question!
Apparently the answer was “out” for a bit, but the others were all in, and having a blast!
I had planned to swim as well, but had cut my finger pretty badly the night before. We thought it best for me to stay out of the pool that day. 😦
What a great time we all had, and what a benefit of home-schooling, that once again, we get to work school in around life, instead of the other way around! 🙂
OK, so I’ll be honest, back in the beginning of August, when I requested to be chosen as a reviewer for The Presidential Game,
it was primarily because it looked so interesting to ME. I love to follow politics. I have, however, been trying over the years to teach my boys about elections, and several years ago “The Batman” and “The Artist” even did a lapbook about the presidential election (this was before we adopted “Mr. Loquacious” and “The Puzzler”, so we’ll probably do it again during the next big election”).
When the game arrived and I got a good look at it, I got a little nervous, I was at that point unsure if my boys would be able to “get” the concept during game play. I also wondered about the price, and what my husband would think of that. More about that later, however. 🙂
The Presidential Game is a board game, with an online component. The game itself is VERY sturdy and well made! I’ve seen (and had!) a number of board games which were very cheaply made, the fold up boards coming apart, the boxes coming apart. The Presidential Game is going to stand up to a LOT of wear, I think, which is a good thing, because my family is enjoying it very much!
I told you that at first, I was unsure whether my boys would be able to “get” the process of playing this game, because of their various special needs. I guess my friends who keep reassuring me about what home-schooling is doing for them are right though, because it didn’t take very long at all for all four of the boys to start strategizing to try to win the game.
The Presidential Game is intended for players age 11 and up, and for at least two players. We are a family of six, and play it in teams of three players.
This is from the back of the box:
“Think you have what it takes to be America’s next president? The Presidential is a fun and exciting game of strategy where two teams, Democrats and Republicans, battle for control of each state to ultimately gain 270 electoral votes or more. An entertaining and educational family game – it’s great for both students (11+) and adults. Enjoy the thrill of playing to win the most powerful job in the world!”
When your game arrives, it will include the following in the box:
1 20″ x 30″ game board
1 score pad
3 blue dice
3 red dice
80 politics cards (some of these are truly funny, too!)
150 Republican votes (red chips)
150 Democrat votes (blue chips)
1 electoral webmap calculator
Access code for the webmap calculator
Using the interactive webmap calculator was great fun, it helped the boys catch on very quickly to how fast and frequently the lead can change during an election campaign! 🙂
The very first time we set up for play, it took only a few minutes to get started, and the learning curve was slight, much easier than I had thought it would be, as I said above. We played as two teams. My husband, “The Batman” and “The Puzzler” were one team, with “The Artist”, “Mr. Loquacious” and myself being the other.
We got right into the game, which is played as a series of campaign “weeks”, where each team is either fundraising or campaigning. We decided to alternate. Week one (the first found) we decided both teams would fundraise, and on week two (round two) we would campaign, and so on through the game. In your fundraising round, you must choose which one of four states (California, Texas, New York or Florida) you will be going to in order to raise money. You then get to roll your three dice. Whatever your total roll, one half of that number must remain in the state where you chose to fundraise, so for example, if you roll a 12, then 6 votes (chips) in your color are stacked onto that state. You may, of course, put all 12 on your chosen fundraising state, or you can divide the other half between any other states you like. That’s when strategy begins to kick in, because sometimes you can regain a state your opponents control, or gain a new state.
During campaign rounds, your team chooses and must announce three states in which you will campaign. Your team then rolls your three dice, and must allocate your votes (chips) according to the numbers on each dice. For example, if you roll a 3, a 5 and a 2, you must put 3 votes on one of your chosen states, 5 on another, and 2 on the last of your chosen states, but you get to decide which of your chosen states get what number.
The politics cards are fun! Your team gets to draw a politics card from the deck during your fundraising turn. Most of the cards can be used right away OR held to play later, although some will say “play immediately” on them. You can use only one card during a turn, though, so it won’t help to hold a bunch in order to get extra votes! Here is a politics card that my team drew, and used. I thought it was hilarious, because we are originally from Michigan, and the topic on the card was very much in the news during a political scandal in Detroit only a few years ago. 🙂
The counts on the board change frequently, as votes (chips) are stacked on states and taken away because the other team gained or re-gained that state.
As you play, you can keep score of the electoral votes gained by each team either by using the score pad (a lot more work!) or by using the online Electoral WebMap Calculator (a lot more fun!) The online map is visual, and the boys could see immediately how quickly things change and turn around during an election, because at any time during play, states were being won and lost.
This is what the Electoral WebMap looked like when we started the game . . .
And these shots will show you how quickly things can change during a campaign!
It really didn’t take very long for any of the boys to pick up on the strategy of the game, and they got very good, very quickly, at figuring out which states to fundraise and campaign in, and how to best allocate votes (chips) in order to either take over a state or at least turn it neutral again, if the opposite team currently controlled it.
“The Batman” and “The Artist” . . .
“Mr. Loquacious” and “The Puzzler” . . .
The Presidential Game is available to purchase here for $35.00, which both my husband and I feel is a good price, especially considering the online component.
Our family is truly enjoying this game, and will absolutely put it into the family game night rotation!
As always, I would love it if you would join me on “My Journeys” by clicking on the “sign me up” button at the top of the blog. Just enter your email, and never miss an update again! 🙂
I love to read, so whenever a book comes up for review with the Schoolhouse Review Crew I am all over the request form for it!
The book “Seed Sowers: Gospel Planting Adventures” by Gwen Toliver was no different, in fact I especially wanted to read this one! I love stories about missionaries, in fact, I have cousins who have been missionaries to a closed Asian country for many years now.
Gwen Toliver, a home-schooling mother to eight children, and writes about family and ministry on her very interesting blog.
She spent two years interviewing missionaries who have spent years of their lives in the awesome task of translating the Bible into many languages for people who have no Bible, not even a little bit of it! That alone should make us all want to be involved in some way, even if the only way we can help is by giving to, and praying for missions.
Many of the people who the missionaries in Gwen’s book are trying to reach don’t even have a written language, so the Bible translator missionaries would need to spend years with them, just trying to learn their languages first, and then teaching many of the people to read their own language, while translating the Bible into each particular language. Then, generally beginning with the New Testament (and just the New Testament can take twenty or more years of faithful labor!), the missionaries would be able to provide the people with small portions at a time, as it was completed.
One story that touched me deeply was from the chapter “The Whistling Man”, which was about George and Florence Cowan’s efforts to translate the Bible for the Mazatec people. This particular story was that of a young Mazatec girl who would sneak away from her mother in the market place, so she could go listen to the “crazy gringo lady” telling Bible stories. When, in her excitement about the story she had heard, and the Bible verse she had learned, she tried to tell her mother about it, her mother became angry, took her home, and beat her. Yet, week after week, Felicitas would slip away from her mother to go learn about the Lord from the “crazy gringo lady”. Her heart was reached, and she chose to bear the consequences (being beaten by her mother) of going to learn about Jesus, eventually accepting Him as her Lord and Savior. Of course, this did not make her life here on earth any easier . . . she married young, and was widowed young, when her husband died of tuberculosis, leaving her with three young children to care for. Even so, she was hungry for the Word of God.
In her eagerness to be able to read God’s Word on her own, Felicitas eventually asked Florence Cowan to teach her to read. After that, she and her children traveled from where they lived high in the mountains to the Cowen’s hut two or three days every week, whether in nice weather or pouring rain, just so that Felicitas could learn to read God’s Word on her own.
As the Cowans translated God’s Word into the Mazatec language one book at a time, Felicitas sacrificed greatly by using portions of the tiny amount of money she had scraped together to buy corn each week, with which she would feed her family. The Cowan’s would have given the books, but the people didn’t want hand-outs. Felicitas put into practice the words of Job 23:12 “I have esteemed the words of his mouth more than my necessary food”.
The story of Felicitas hit me where I live, because we here in the USA take our Bibles for granted. How many of us have more than one complete Bible in our homes, yet, barely open them, or do our five or ten minutes of Bible reading each day (if that!), and call it done, until church service? Would we sacrifice necessary food in order to purchase a small portion of God’s Word?
There is a wealth of additional information (and pictures that go with the various missionary stories) on the Seed Sowers website, along with an excerpt from the Seed Sowers book, and a sample of how the Mazatec people of southern Mexico speak in a tonal language, and can carry on a conversation by whistling!
This is a WONDERFUL book, for anyone to read! I recommend even that it be a read-aloud, as even young children can hear and be touched for missions, and now that I have read it, and know that my kids will be able to handle it, I will be sharing it with them as a read-aloud. I especially appreciate the effort Gwen went to in making sure to have the correct pronunciations of unfamiliar words placed in parenthesis after the words were used.
Even more important to me is the fact that all of the scripture used in this book is taken from the KJV, which is the only Bible my family and my church uses. 🙂
From the Seed Sowers site, here are some tips for using this book:
1. Family Read-Aloud – Gather the kids or grandkids around and read a chapter together! All ages will enjoy these true adventure stories.
2. Geography/History – Use the book to supplement homeschool or Christian school curriculum to teach basic subjects while giving your students a heart for the lost.
3. Independent Reading Level – 6th grade and up
Seed Sowers: Gospel Planting Adventures is a soft-cover, 165 page book, which includes 21 different stories of brave men and women who labored in far-a-way places for years translating unknown languages, so that they could bring God’s Word, a little bit at a time, to every corner of the world. It also includes a foreword written by Gracia Burnham, whose story I had only learned a couple of years ago during Vacation Bible School at the church we attended back in Michigan, appendix, a bibliography, and acknowledgements to all those behind the scenes people who helped in the creation of this book.
I would love to see this book on every family’s bookshelf, in every church library, and in every church bookstore! It is available here for the current price of $12.50, with the regular price being $13.95.
Click below to read reviews of Seed Sowers by other members of the Schoolhouse Review Crew!
As always, I would love it if you would join me on “My Journeys” by clicking on the “sign me up” button at the top of the blog. Just enter your email, and never miss an update again! 🙂
You can imagine how wonderful it was upon moving here to New Mexico last year to discover that the NM State Fair was not only thriving, but is held right here in Albuquerque, where we live! No long travel! 🙂
Not only that, but the NM State fair has a great program called “School Days @ The Fair“, and home-schools are included! So, I emailed the application, choosing Friday as the day we wanted to go, and earlier last week I received our entrance packet via email. We received free admission, which, as a family of six, with everyone being 12 or older, saved us $60.00, and there was free parking.
We entered at a special gate for the School Days program, where they checked off our names, and had bunches of nice cold packages of McDonald’s Apple Slices for the kids to take, which we stashed into our cooler full of blue ice and water. That’s another cool thing, you are allowed to bring in a cooler with your own stuff, which saves even MORE money! Not that we didn’t buy lunch, we did, which I’ll talk about later, but my goodness, the least expensive bottled water I saw was (I think) around $4.00, and just a cup with ice was $2.00!
Because of the School Days Program, there were tons of booths along Main Street with educational displays, and they all had freebies for the kids. We got pencils, posters (including one of the periodic table of elements that “The Artist” especially wanted), coloring books, just all sorts of things, plus information about and from many places with educational content, like the various museums here, the Open Space Visitor’s Center, etc.
One of the first things we saw along Main Street was “The Procrastinators – Strolling Drum Troup”, which we thoroughly enjoyed. It reminded me of the group “Stomp”, which we saw perform on television many years ago.
I wish I’d been able to get a video of them, but I couldn’t remember how to get to the video function of my camera! Do check out their website though, there are some good videos there!
Next, we saw police officers mounted on horseback, something that again, we’d never seen before. Living in the southwest sure is different! They were kind enough to stop and pose for a picture for us. 🙂
Since we didn’t actually arrive at the fair until after noon, we soon decided it was time for lunch. While my husband was ordering, the kids spotted the Chick-Fil-A cow wandering around, and begged me to see if they could have their picture taken with it. So we went over, and the cow’s escort asked if I wanted to be in the picture as well, and was kind enough to take it with my camera.
At lunch, I had my first ever green chile cheeseburger (well, half of one, you all know I eat small now!), and it was SOOOO good! Now, I NEED to go buy a big thing of green chile while they are in season and the stores are doing free roasting, so I can freeze them in little batches for cooking over the next year! I will warn you, it is expensive to eat at the fair. There are six of us, and we each had a combo meal of either a cheeseburger or hot dog with frilly fries and pink lemonade, and it cost almost $70.00! To be fair, the portions were huge, the hot dogs were footlongs, with either red or green chile, and not one of us could finish the fries, the amount was so much!
After lunch, we went to one of the many (free!) shows, “Professor Gizmo’s Fun & Science Show” . . .
. . . where both “Mr. Loquacious” and “The Artist” were chosen from the audience for two different segments.
Here is Professor Gizmo . . .
Here is “Mr. Loquacious” helping the professor out!
And now, “The Artist”, along with another home-schooler, Isabelle, helping with another segment . . .
Isabelle’s mother was kind enough to give me permission to include the video with her daughter in it for this post, and I really appreciate that! 🙂
Professor Gizmo’s show was very funny, and we loved it! We do disagree with his telling the kids that we humans are animals, though, we do not believe that humans are part of the animal kingdom. We believe what the Bible says about humans having dominion over the animals . . .
“And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. Genesis 1:26 (KJV)”
We also saw the Cirque Equinox, which was about a half hour of very good performance! There were two aerial acts . . .
A clown . . .
this woman who did amazing stuff with hula hoops . . .
Here are some pictures my husband took when he and the boys went through the petting zoo . . . I waited outside because they would not let us bring in the wagon we had rented to haul all of our stuff.
I couldn’t resist taking these pictures of animals in one of the other exhibits . . . it was so cute to see the baby animals with little playground equipment!
We also saw the Yangdong Chinese Acrobats, another awesome performance!
Here are some of the things they did for us . . .
We had a wonderful time at the 2013 NM State Fair, and I strongly encourage all of you home-schoolers who live in or near NM, or who may be traveling here during next year’s State Fair, to apply for the NM State Fair School Days Program. You will not regret it! 🙂
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So, our church has a number of home-schooling families, and so we have a pretty good home-school group, too! We try to plan at least one activity per month, and this month, on Friday, September 6, 2013 we had a wonderful Birds of Prey presentation, given by the organization “On a Wing And a Prayer”, a wild bird rehabilitation educational program. The presenters were Mikal Deese, CWR and Steve McKibbin. They can be reached at:
Mikal Deese: POB 29, Corrales, NM
mikaldeese@aol.com
(505)897-0439
Steve McKibbin: smkibbin31@gmail.com
(505)867-8765
Here is most of the group waiting for them to get here . . . they were SO good, having been warned ahead of time that we needed to be in our seats and being quiet when the presenters arrived, so as not to frighten the birds.
I think they did an awesome job staying calm, too! 🙂
We did not know what kinds of birds would be brought, having been told that it would depend upon which ones were being well-behaved that day. MY kids were hoping for owls, as we have had plans to do an owl lap-book. However, I have found a nice (free!) Birds of Prey lap-book here, and since they brought both hawks and owls for the presentation, along with the fact that we’ve done other lap-books from homeschoolshare and had a good time with them, I think we’ll use this one this time around. We’ll also be dissecting owl pellets that I had purchased some time ago, even before we moved here to New Mexico, so the boys are definitely looking forward to that, now that I have also gone to the Dollar Tree for the supplies needed for doing them. Be watching for an upcoming post about the lap-book and the dissection! 🙂
Here is Mikal Deese, laying out a large tarp, just in case, lol!
The children were fascinated by the Barn Owl, which is just gorgeous! They thought it was very cool that the barn owl can fly silently, and were surprised to find out that this large bird weighed only about one and a half pounds, being mostly feathers and hollow bones.
Here we have Steve McKibbin holding the tiny Burrowing Owl, which nests in a hole in the ground.
We very much enjoyed this presentation! Ms. Deese and Mr. McKibbin were SO patient with all of the questions the children (and the parents, too, actually!) asked, and spent a lot of time answering them. I was pleased to see how many questions that our children were able to give correct answers to when the presenters asked them if they had any idea why something was so about a particular bird, and I was told afterward by the mom who organized the whole thing (thank you, Holly!) that Ms. Deese and Mr. McKibbin really complemented our children on being so well-behaved, and especially on the fact that they were willing to ask questions. 🙂
If your home-school group is local to this area, you should give them a call, it’s well worth your time, and the cost was truly negligible. All they asked us for was $5.00 per family to help cover the cost of food for the birds and transporting them. As Ms. Deese said in her presentation, this is NOT a career move, it’s a labor of love, and one does not make a living as a wild bird rehabilitator. And we could certainly tell how much they love doing this, too!
So, that’s what we did for science last week!
After the presentation, we went to a local park to have a picnic lunch and some play time . . .
We had a very good day! 🙂
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My Journeys Through Life . . . Herding Cats In New Mexico! 