A Slice of Homeschooling Life

Here's my tip of the week. For more great tips on anything and everything, head on over to Shannon's blog, Rocks in my Dryer.

My family refuses to eat the heels of any loaf of bread. Truth be told, I’m not a fan myself. I don't even think bread pudding or dressing (stuffing, for you Northern folk) tastes the same made with just bread crusts.

Despite my loathing of the leftovers of the loaf, though, I absolutely can't stand waste. Instead of throwing them away, I pop them into a plastic bag I keep in the freezer. (I also do this with any leftover and/or dried-out bread, rolls, and biscuits. ) The next time the weather is pretty, we raid the freezer for all the bread and then go to the park to feed the geese and ducks. It's great, because there is always plenty of bread to go around, even with Screech throwing entire slices (or eating the occasional piece herself - ewwww). This last time, we even had to put some back into the freezer because we took so much.

Here is a pic of our latest outing when we had a gorgeous 75 degree day:


The kids love this park because they also have a small, free zoo. This particular day was so gorgeous, it would have been a crime to keep them inside doing workbooks (not that we do a lot of those anyway - blechh!). After feeding the ducks and geese, we spent the day at the zoo. I took a bagful of books, and as we visited each animal, we read a book about it. It was great, because we weren't limited to whatever information was posted by each exhibit. Being homeschoolers, we had the whole place to ourselves, and we could take as much time as we wanted.

Here's a shot of Drama Queen reading to Pete. I love the way they share books together!


Just think; if they had been on a public school field trip, they would have been herded along like cattle, having to stay on schedule. When I was a kid, I remember not getting much out of field trips because I was usually stuck in the back of the group and couldn't hear whatever the teachers or guides were saying. I never had time enough to really look at anything long enough to be meaningful. It didn't help that I was usually surrounded by the class clowns who were too busy climbing the exhibits to learn anything about them. (Yup - that there is called "socialization". Don'tcha just want MORE of that for your kids?)