Week 9- Field Trip!

Not All Classrooms Have Four Walls

 If you have been reading J's president reports, you might have noticed we skipped ahead and studied Theodore Roosevelt. There was rhyme and reason to this, and it's found right here at Mount Rushmore!

The ability to travel is one of the best things about homeschooling and we've been planning this trip since 2020, yes that 2020.

First, we visited a hands-on dinosaur museum. (Science!)

They even had a random exhibit on earthquakes.

Then we got in our PE.

In the morning, A and the rest of the family got in more PE at a bike park.

While J and I set out across the United States to study our geography.

Somewhere along this dirt road we crossed the Continental Divide.  Why a dirt road?  Google was certain it was the "fastest route".  Hm...

But we made it to the right state!

And to Mount Rushmore! It's been on my bucket list for decades and we promised J we'd take a trip to any western National Park/monument she wanted in 4th grade with the Every Kid Outdoors program.  Her and her dad made it to the Grand Canyon then, but, due to various reasons like a pandemic, this trip was delayed until now. So glad we made it!  

Exploring Technology- old technology on how they made Mount Rushmore. 

Hungry little chipmunks were not afraid of people

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After leaving Mount Rushmore, we took Google Maps "fastest route" on another, even more sketchy, backwoods dirt road. (Here's before we ended up on the sharp curves and steep grades.)

 

Nonetheless, J was an excellent navigator and we made it to Spearfish Canyon!  The fall leaves were gorgeous!

And our favorite waterfall, Spearfish Falls.

 Identified this as a Spotted Tussock Moth capitellar. Watch out, they sting!

After more driving, it was time for another class of PE in the form of a ninja course/trampoline park!  We had the entire place to ourselves so of course I took the opportunity to be a ninja for an hour, too.

J was able to level up her navigation skills as we stayed to long playing ninja it got too dark to read signs clearly. We got to our hotel safely and efficiently thanks to J. 

We did plenty of swimming at the hotels too.

The next day geology, PE, and science continued with another walk to Garden Creek Falls.

Then it was on to ice-skating. Once again, we had the entire rink to ourselves! Unfortunately, we couldn't do much more than skate in circles, but we still had fun anyway.  And froze, too.

After freezing at the ice arena, we headed back to the hotel to do math in the form of card games and more history in the form of watching How the State Got Their Shapes while we huddled under blankets.

The next day we were on the road again. There was plenty more language arts in the form of reading, and more math in the form of calculating "how much longer". 

There was also more cold as we stopped at a few historical sites.  

This big guy greeted us at Independence Rock

Just a short drive down the road was Martin's cove. When Mormon pioneers, who were members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, immigrated west, two companies who were traveling by handcart, got a late start and ended up getting caught in an early winter storm. Our ancestor Eliza Cusworth was one of those in the ill-fated company. Her and her husband joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saint in England. Shortly after, he ended up dying from a work injury. His dying wish was that she and their two children join the saints in Utah. After his death, she and the children sailed across the Atlantic. She was horribly seasick the entire time. They took a train to Council Bluff, Iowa where they discovered all the wagon teams had already gone west and the only option left to get to Salt Lake City was to take a handcart. She ended up leaving most of her belongings behind and pulled a handcart by herself, with some help from her seven-year-old son all the way to Wyoming, where they ran out of food. Between blizzards, the pioneers who had been huddling outside the Devil's Gate Trading Fort, took refuge in a small cove, where they hoped to be protected from the wind. The wind still blew, and the snow still fell. Because of this, many tents collapse. But as the snow fell on the fallen tents, those inside, usually because they were too weak to escape, found it created warmth for the night. After huddling in the cove for nine days, the Martin Handcart Company was rescued. They reached the Salt Lake Valley on November 30th, 1856. 

The two stories the Eliza would recount again and again was the night nine people froze to death while they waited for a rescue team and the time she crossed the Sweet Water River, back and forth, three times. First, she carried her seven year old boy across. When he tried to follow her back to the other side, she tied him to a tree to keep him from reentering the freezing water. She then carried her four-year-old across, and lastly, she went back for the handcart. She then spent half the night drying her clothed over a fire made of buffalo chip so she would not freeze to death.

After getting soaked by cold rain at Independence Rock, we were preparing for a cold hike around the cove. I was pulling out what warm things I had for J to wear when a senior couple serving a mission for the church at Martin's Cove pulled up beside us. The sister missionary was insistent we take some of her warm clothing with us on the hike. Thanks to their kindness, we were warm and dry while we walked along the trail thinking about the brave pioneers who suffered in the cold.

 

By the end, the sun came out and warmed us up.

Here's a question for you:

If an antelope and a rattlesnake were on the same rock, who would jump off first?

Answer: The antelope. Rattlesnakes don't jump.  😁

We saw plenty of jumping antelope and, thankfully, no rattlesnakes.

After a long day, driving through intense rainstorms and plenty of construction, we finally made it home.

During the week, Teacher Dad stayed with A and the rest of the crew.  I think they have more fun when he's the teacher. :)

For math, A created a zoo and sold animals to Dad and his siblings.

They also experimented with mirrors and made a kaleidoscope. (Exploring Tech)

Lastly- Stay Curious

Why are some roads in Wyoming red?  The asphalt used to make the roads have high concentrations on scoria (lava rock) in it, giving it a red color. 

What happens if two winds of the same temperature collide into each other? Answer: Convergence. According to How Stuff Works, "when two air masses of the same temperature collide and neither is willing to go back down, the only way to go is up. As the name implies, the two winds converge and rise together in an updraft that often leads to cloud formation." 

Speaking of wind- J has been studying Greek mythology and she ended up creating her own myth of how gusts of wind are formed. Whenever you feel a sudden strong gust of wind, it is caused by easily angered Zeus using deep belly breathing to try to calm himself down.