Facing My Snake Fears

First and foremost here is a disclaimer.  There will be pictures of snakes in this post.  So if you are my sister Shannon, or any other person who is afraid of pictures of snakes, you might want to skip this one!

Maybe I shouldn't tell you this, but my husband doesn't like bears much.  I don't know if I would say he is frightened of them but he isn't really comfortable with them.  Maybe it is because there aren't a lot of bears in West Texas where he grew up?  I am a big believer in the fact that many times what creates fear in people is what the don't understand or aren't familiar with.  This is the case I believe with me and snakes.  Growing up in the mountains of Colorado we had no rattlesnakes around for sure and I believe maybe twice in all my time growing up I saw a small harmless snake there.  Needless to say, I have had zero experience with snakes which might not be a good thing living in Texas.

When we moved to Texas a year and a half ago we moved to a place in town so we never saw a snake.  Then we moved out in the country a year ago but as of yet have not seen one.  I know that day will come though and I don't look forward to it.  In an effort to keep my fear at bay though, I decided when my husband told me about a large snake event near us, that I needed to learn what I could.  So, we packed up the truck and traveled 4 hours to Sweetwater, TX for the annual Rattlesnake Round-up.  We decided to make a fun trip out of it and stayed in a hotel overnight and headed to the place early in the morning.  Boy am I glad we got there early.  By lunch time it was so crowded we couldn't even move which worked out fine as we were ready to go get some food and head home.  While we were there though, it was actually quite educational and really very interesting.

There were two pit areas where they did presentations.  There was one where they were milking the venom from the snakes and while it looked very interesting we actually didn't get a chance to learn a lot there as it was pretty crowded.  The other pit area though was where we learned the most.  They did a presentation on the snakes talking all about them from how many babies they have to how big they get, etc.  The man who did it had about 8 snakes on the ground in the pit with him but had protective boots on and they basically left him alone as long as he left them alone.  He did pick up one with a pole though and showed us the teeth and talked all about it.  He put it on the table and showed us how it would strike by getting it to strike at a balloon.  It didn't actually pop the balloon but it was still cool.  The kids got to ask him questions and we learned a lot.  They also got to pet a different kind of snake that wasn't poisonous.

There was another area where they were skinning the snakes and then they had a place where they cooked and sold the fried meat.  It was way crowded there though so we didn't get to do that this time.  We did get to watch them skin them though.  The last area was a pit where there were hundreds of rattlesnakes all in it just rattling non-stop.  While I was so glad I went and learned about the snakes I decided that was a bit much for me so I let Joe and the kids look at it and I just glanced, took a picture of the kids and moved back.  Overall, though, I am so glad we went and when the boys are bigger we may do one of the hunts that they do along with the round-up.  Our boys are in the bright orange hats in these pictures.

Pirates and Whales

When we decided to take this journey into home schooling this year we did it with lots of concern about if doing this would make the kids miss out on social opportunities and having friends.  This is what you always hear as an argument against home schooling so of course we weren't going to take that lightly.  As we researched over the summer and made our decision, we heard more and more from families who do home school that social opportunities were not only possible while home schooling but in fact, with so much extra time, could become too much if not kept in check because there were countless opportunities out there.  It took awhile for us to find a group of people to do activities with but we have found one and we are so thrilled!

I wrote about our Valentine's Day party back in February.  With that same group of people, we went on our first group field trip this month and it was a huge hit!  We went to the Science Spectrum Museum in Lubbock for a day of pirates and whales.  All in all, about 70 people came with kids ranging in age from 1 year old to 17 years old and it was amazing.  We started out the day seeing a movie about Humpback Whales in the theater there.  The theater was unlike anything I have ever been too.  It was a dome shape which meant that not only could you see what was happening in front of you, it happened above you too which made it seem like you were actually there in some ways.  The kids loved it and we learned so much about whales which fit in perfectly with our study of the oceans.

After the movie we all ate lunch together which gave us an opportunity to meet some of the other families.  After lunch we had a private tour of the new exhibit at the Science Spectrum which is centered around buried treasure and pirates.  It was great to get some information from the tour and then we were able to walk around the exhibit and learn all about the treasures they had on display and about pirates.  There was a pirate ship for the kids to dress up and play on, a puppet show area for them, live animals to look at and all sorts of things.  It was so much fun!

 
After the pirate exhibit we were able to explore the rest of the museum which was awesome and it is definitely a place we will be going back to!

I Need Water!

Maybe living in Texas leaves me thirsty and missing all the beautiful waters of Colorado but there has been no short supply of water in our school lessons lately so that is a plus.  We are almost finished with our unit on water and famine.  I know that sounds depressing at first but hear me out.  In order for the kids to really understand the importance of water, they must first understand what happens without water.

This then, is where our unit started, with education about what a famine was.  We read about famine in the Bible and discussed major famines that have happened in history and why famines happen, what can be done to help prevent famine and the importance of conserving water.  It is easy to forget how privileged we are here in the United States.  Back at the beginning of the year we had well problems where our well froze.  We were without water in the house for a week or so while we first waited for it to thaw and then fixed the parts that had been damaged in the freeze.  Of course it was a major pain to have to either go to the rec center to shower or to do a sponge bath with water we purchased in town.  Taking all of our laundry to the laundromat in town was expensive and time consuming.  Heating water on the stove to hand wash dishes took awhile.  Purchasing water in town to put in a huge tank to bring home to fill the horse troughs took planning and effort.  Overall, we were so glad to have water back when the well was fixed.  Here is the thing though.  We still had plenty of access to water.  We may have had to go to town for it and it may have been inconvenient, but it was still available for us.  To teach on famines and help them understand that during a famine, water just plain isn't available is so eye opening for them.  I think this is important for all of us to remember and to realize not only how blessed we are living in the United States but also how there are still many people today living in harsh conditions.  With Lent always having a theme of going into the desert, these lessons fit right in.

While learning about the lack of water was important, of course we needed to learn about water in all forms as well, which was a lot more fun!  We started out with the water cycle and clouds which was fun to talk about and learn about.  Then we moved on to study in depth ponds, oceans, lakes and rivers.  It was so much fun to learn about all the different life in each and how each is so important to our survival.  We checked out close to 30 books from the library and two very cool movies about the Oceans.   The kids loved this unit of study as did I.  We are 2 days away from being finished with the unit and our biggest project for it is yet to be finished so I will have to share pictures of our Ocean mural later.  Fun, fun, fun!  Here are pictures of the water cycle.