Vacation is Part of Schooling

Our first family vacation turned into a great educational experience!

For the first time in 10 years and 3 kids of marriage, we went on a family vacation. Do not get me wrong, we have had many vacations, but they have always involved various family reunions or traveling to see a family member. This was our first by-ourselves vacation.

We decided to go about 2 hours away, from Texas into Oklahoma, to visit the Turner Falls area. It was just as hot there as here (over 100), but the really wonderful part - many rivers, creeks, and waterfalls fed from cold water springs! Ahhhh!

All I had planned was fun and celebrating my birthday. No school. But how could I help it? Wildlife everywhere, water, the rocky Arbuckle Mountains! Learning surrounded us.

We did a unit on pond life this past spring. So my children were thrilled to discover countless tadpoles in one creek. Cooler were the tadpoles already halfway through their change into frogs. There were also many fish, frogs, turtles, squirrels galore, countless birds (I actually saw a hummingbird), and 2 deer one morning while driving into Chickasaw National Park.

The trip to the Chickasaw Nature Center was fun, as well. The boys loved learning about all the animals they might see (mom was less than thrilled with all the information concerning the Four Most Common Poisonous Snakes People See While In The Park!). We also learned a little about the Native American Forced settlement in Oklahoma, and I was able to share with them that their great-grandmother had been born on one of those Indian Reservations before Oklahoma was a state.

Then, there were the maps. Everything was easy to get to, but we were new, so we had maps. The 8 year old was happy to use his growing navigation skills to guide us around the area.

All in all, a fun time. Best of all, our learning went hand in hand with our trip. Fun for our bodies and our minds!

All this reminded me of the article on Homeschooling With Maps.

Have fun!