Traveling in a Home School World

Well, I'm up waiting for one of our sons to return from a night of Basketball, so thought I might as well do something fun!!!

I know...How about I share some of our recent travels - they are fabulous! Last week we spent the week in China...

And for the last couple of days we've been visiting Egypt, we plan to spend another day or so, and then we'll be on our way to Kenya!

How can a family our size possibly afford to get to these incredible destinations??? Well, it's easy! After looking at the globe and wall maps, we decided we couldn't walk there, we couldn't drive, we didn't have a boat that would probably make it the whole way, the only airplanes we have don't actually fly (except for the paper airplanes we make), so it looked like the only possible way to get there was to get out our MAGIC CARPETS and hang on tight!

What a ride - as we were flying over the United States we waved at those below us, we saw the Statue of Liberty and asked her how she was doing that day, then came the ocean...wow, the excitement came - there were sharks and dolphins, a killer whale and my personal favorite, the girls saw mermaids, that's right, they are real, very, very real! And if you don't believe it, I'm quite sure they could convince you! Finally, after waving at everything possible on our ride, we made it to China. Our first stop was to see the Giant Panda Bears. What a treat - we saw tiny little babies, we saw momma's eating bamboo and we looked at all the hiding spots they would have to live in. We were lucky enough to see The Chinese New Year Celebrations and even made our very own Chinese New Year Lanterns! We learned about how special dragons are and saw a Dragon Parade! The Great Wall was an amazing site and we talked and talked about how some of us were just sure they could climb right over the top - no problem (yep, it was the boys!) The fields of rice were so beautiful - an incredible thing to imagine - what hard workers the Chinese people have been. We saw lots of Chinese Children and we learned to write their letters, numbers and even a few words ~ their writing is actually a form of art called Calligraphy (so beautiful, but we all decided it's much easier to write the ABC's & 123's). We read lots of books and imagined ourselves on a boat in the middle of the Yangtze River. Just before we traveled back home we all enjoyed a feast of Chinese food using our chop sticks! Dad and a couple of the boys didn't love the Chinese food we made - but the girls all loved it! And the fortune cookies were a hit for all!

Our favorite books about China: The Story about Ping, We Live in China, Dragon Parade, and The Secret World of Pandas.

You'd think we'd be tired after our travels to China, but we were all ready for the next adventure...this time off to Egypt! Our magic carpets kicked up a storm of sand as were landing next to the Pyramids and The Sphinx, but what a site we saw! We decided we ought to try our hand at building our very own pyramids - we made them from building blocks, those were great fun and then ended with ones that couldn't be destroyed at the hands of an awnry brother just waiting to torment another -- so origami pyramids were last. Shortly after that we saw a Pharaoh or two, maybe even three, and then tried our hand at mummifying them...guess I don't need to tell you that we'll be using toilet paper from the sacks filled with mummy wrap for the next month!

But they sure had fun!

OH, how could I have forgotten to tell you about the incredible and somewhat terrifying animals that we found in Egypt. Well, we all know that the Nile River flows through Egypt and it is the largest river in all the world. In the Nile are a couple of animals we want to stay far, far away from...We learned that we probably don't really want a Hippo for Christmas - they are a touch crabby, not near as cute as we had thought beforehand! And watch out for those crocodiles and snakes. We did love looking at those camels though and wondered how it might feel to ride a top one of them! Tomorrow will be a papyrus making day and then we'll be ending our trip and coming back home on our Magic carpets just after we enjoy a tasty meal of Falafels, fresh fruit and a handful of other Mediterranean dishes.

What a ride Homeschooling is! So glad we don't have to just hang around a classroom all day long! Oh, the fun you can have with just a little imagination and a crazy mom!