Just saw this clip on You tube (although I had heard about it before)... I love that there are young people out there who aren't afraid to think outside of the box and can value education as an experience rather than a goal.

Watch it here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9M4tdMsg3ts&feature=related

Or read it here:

http://americaviaerica.blogspot.com/2010/07/coxsackie-athens-valedictorian-speech.html

Just something to think about!

Chicago Part 2

Finally getting around to finishing posting about our trip to Chicago. I apologize for the delay, but I've been sick this week whch has really slowed down my productivity.

On monday after the dance competition we went with a couple of friends of ours from France (did I mention that the kids learned a little French and about France hanging out with Maxence and Emilene?) to the Shedd Aquarium. BTW, homeschoolers, if you show proof of being a homeschooler you can get the teacher discount.. which is awesome!

First we spent several minutes staring at the hypnotic Tropical reef tank:

We also noticed that at many of the exhibits there were interactive computer displays which had little games or movies to help kids understand more about the animals they are observing. this one was about frogs which have developed special adaptations to help them survive in extreme climates.

We then went to a show ,which included information on how the rescue and train animals that we see in the aquarium. Some of the animals we saw were beluga whales, white sided dolphins, and penguins. The animals were just amazing, and the kids learned some training tips (especially after talking with some of the trainers) which they plan to use on our dogs.

After seeing the show and spending like 15 minutes watching the cutest sea otters swim around we went down to an area where they had water tales, and the chance to touch live starfish. They certainly felt differently that I expected, and came in so many more varieties than I previously thought.

Emily being afraid of Jelly Fish:

This isn't a very good picture, but we got to spend some time watching a sea lion being trained up close. He was so smart, reacted to our and his trainers praise, and definitely had a distinct personality. So cool!

We were lucky to go on a day where they were open extra late ( even though apparently, not a lot of peole knew about it), so we had alot of the museum almost to ourselves. I have a really cool video of an amazonian turtle playing with me that i will try to post later.

Here is the view of the skyline as we left and walked to dinner.

Chiiicccaaaaago! Part 1

Last week I mentioned that we were planning a trip over a long weekend to Chicago. the reason for the trip was a dance competition, that the kids and I participated in (the kids were rock stars.. one of the judges wants to be like them when he grows up!) But since we were going to be there for a few days we couldn't pass up the opportunity to see some sights, and maybe learn something new along the way.

Here are the kids at the airport waiting to board our flight.. you cant tell from this angle, but behind then there is an armored truck loading hundreds of packages of money under our plane... i think each passenger should have recieved a parting gift form the airline....

Notice Ian and his hot (really lukewarm) passion tea from starbucks... my kids are too cool to be 7.

(it was St. Patrick's Day.. hence all the green!)

When we arrived in Chicago after about 5 hours of traveling, we spotted a really cool play area near security that the Chicago Children's museum set up, to be very airport themed, complete with plane and cockpit, and air traffic control tower.. the kids were ticked off when we insisted that we had to pick up our bags or they might send them back to our house, leaving us unclothed and smelly for the remainder of our trip.

We didn't do much the first night there, other than getting setttled into our hotel, meeting up with some friends, having dinner, then going to bed early in anticipation of our day at the Field Museum.

The kids were pretty excited to ride the "L" although once we were on our way they were less excited about the amount of walking involved.. They were however pro's at figuring out the maps, and how many stops we had to our destination, and where to transfer trains.

On the walk from the train station to the museum we got some really great views of the city skyline, and tried to point out that we could see the Shedd aquarium ( which is next door to the museum) from the train station so it couldn't have been that far of a walk... the kids weren't convinced.

We passed a monument on our walk of Christopher Columbus, which sparked a lengthy conversation about who he was, and sort of a debate over the claim of discovering the America's.. leave it to our family to play devil's advocate on pretty much any topic.

Once inside and having ditched our coats at the coat check, the first order of business according to the kids was the Egyptian exhibit... seeing as how we have been talking about Egypt and watching a lot of National Geographic programs about it over the last few months, this shouldn't have been a huge surprise. What was surprising was how great the exhibit was... I went to a special (very expensive) King Tut exhibit in Philadelphia a few years ago, and in my opinion this was much much better.



The kids got a feel for how good we have it, when they laid on a replica of a bed that wealthy Egyptians would have used (less wealthy people sleeping on the floor).. basically it was strips of material stretched and woven on a frame, with a neck support that looked like one of the things you see holding corpses heads in the morgue on crime shows.. ouch!

We then found a little room, after a bathroom break (the egyptian exhibit was THAT long!) which had bug collections and examples of small animals and bugs trapped in amber. This reminded the kids of the part in Jurassic Park (the edited for TV version of course) where they extracted DNA out of a mosquito trapped in Amber.. We told them we couldn't back up any claim that that is possible, but it is pretty neat how well preserved these bugs that are millions of years old are within this hardened rock.

The Field Museum, also has a kids area, which was really neat, but also meant dragging the kids out when it was time to move on... I guess they are just too anxious to learn.. everyone should have our problems...

The kids got to play on and learn about drums from around the world...

Be scientists in a child sized lab..

Play with dinosaur themed magnetic murals, footprints and nests

And learn about agriculture and daily living in Desert cultures...

The Field Museum is also home to "Sue" the T Rex, ( which was actually our original reason for going after the kids friend Bobby declared his love for Sue. This is the most complete T-Rex skeleton ever found, and the majority of it is set up to stand in the main floor of the museum, so you get a really great look at it.. just amazing!

We also visited an exhibit on life underground, and how soil is a part of every life cycle. I dont have as many pictures of this, because the gigantic bugs, freaked Ian out, thus alot of time was spent calming him down, or chasing him as he attempted to sprint through the exhibit. However at the end was some more hands-on stuff, that they really enjoyed.

After that, before we went to our 3D movie, we went through most of an exhibit called Evolving Planet, it was really neat, basically taking you through the evolution of the Planet, and the species on it, and the major mass extinctions. They had some really amazing fossils, that brought so many species that I'd only ever read about to life.

Then just in the knick of time we made it to our 3D movie which was about the discovery of Sue, and how they think dinosaurs lived.. very very cool.. Em wanted to go see it again.

Stand by for more of our trip later!!!!