A Net in Time

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Vacation

Field Trip Inspiration to Vacation in Ontario

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Vacation season is coming up and I’d like to encourage you to take a trip to Ontario and see some of the sights!  To that end I thought it would be fun to point out some of the fun things to see and do in our lovely province of Ontario. 

reasons to vacation in Ontario

One of my favourite trips this summer was to go to Fort York in Toronto.   We had a hoot exploring the grounds and learning more about the war of 1812.   We had our international student with us and it was fun seeing the things he was interested in, and watching the two boys do things together. 

The Goderich Historic Gaol was a fascinating place to visit.  I haven’t gotten a post up yet but if you come in the summer they have actors posing as inmates, guards and what not.  It’s a fun evening adventure.  All the people who work at the gaol are nice folks who treat children like they matter so I like going here. 🙂

Here the lions roar and see elephants take a bath.  Recently my son and I learned the ostriches are really good swimmers so I’d love to see an ostrich take a bath!   But I don’t think they have that at the African Lion Safari yet.  🙂

After visiting the lions and elephants you’ll need to slide up the highway a bit and take in the Cambridge Butterfly Conservatory.   This is such a great place to visit and has so many butterflies.  Wear bright coloured clothing and they will most likely land on your for a close up.   See them hatch and have some giant bugs crawl on  your hands.  🙂

Don’t forget to stop in to visit Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Learn a part of our history.

our field trip to uncle Tom's Cabin

If you are on your way to see the Niagara Falls you aught to stop in and see the locks at Welland Canal.   You will be amazed at the size of the locks.   When we went we didn’t see the ship go through we were able to see the locks and spend time inside their very informative museum.

Then of course on to the beauty of Niagara Falls!!!  One can’t visit Ontario without seeing The Falls!

Close to Niagara Falls you will find the Bird Kingdom.  Doing both on the same day is very doable.  The birds… are just WOW…..it is just fun to sit back and watch the birds.  I loved the small bird aviary… watching those finches working hard to build nests, and in the big aviary being bombed by the toucan was just a special touch. 

There is SO much to see and do in Ontario… small museums like the Stones and Bones Museum, Joseph Schneider House , the Donnelly Museum and so much more.

Don’t forget to visit the dairy museum’s in Alymer and Ingersoll!!!!

You can learn more about field trips in Ontario by going here and here, but honestly…just come on by, it’s a great place to call home and a lovely place to visit.  🙂

Field Trip Friday: Hershey Chocolate World

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One of the field trips we took when we went to Pennsylvania was to Hershey World, lots of people suggested we go, so we went.

Ergo, I thought I’d share our trip with you.

Our initial greeting was by this great big chocolate bar with a quote on it. 

It of course, put us in the mood for Chocolate.  🙂   But hey, we were at a place that makes chocolate so what could one expect eh?
The tour brought us through a walk way with a ton of Chocolate and Hershey Factory facts.   We learned a lot and it kept us entertained as we followed the crowd through to the cars we rode on through the factory tour.
I have to admit, the tour itself was a bit tacky, but I did learn a lot about chocolate and how it’s made and the Hershey Chocolate Factory.   It was really geared to entertain young children.  BUT…they gave us a chocolate bar at the end of the tour.  I thought that was great until hubby pointed out… you know they are just priming you to want to buy chocolate right?
Ah FIDDLESTICKS!   It was chocolate and it tasted great, and I looked at the prices of all the oh so lovely chocolate and said.. ah.. can’t beat dollarama!   So we didn’t buy even a single piece.  🙂
Seriously though, even though the tour wasn’t what we had hoped for, it gave us something to do on a rainy morning.  We shook our heads, laughed and said “don’t need to do that one again”… and then moved on to other things.  
Is this free tour worth it?  OF COURSE!!!   We got a chocolate bar at the end of it!!!!  We got to see all the chocolates Hershey makes in one place (some we’d never heard about) and learned a lot about the making of chocolate.   That’s good right?  So if you are in Hershey, PA sometimes, stop in, get a free chocolate bar and oh.. smell the delicious chocolate smell.
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Field Trip: Penn’s Cave

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Penn’s Cave in Pennsylvania was a huge amount of fun for all of us to attend.  I want to tell you all about it.  🙂    I don’t know if my images are any good at all… but you’ll cope right?

Penn’s Cave is known as America’s only all water cave!   You view it by boat!   They made an exit out onto a pond and it’s stocked with fish.  🙂

The history of Penn’s Cave:  The legend of Penn’s cave has a trapper named Malachi Boyer falling in love with an Indian princess Nita-nee.   The indians would not allow them to marry so one night they ran away together.  The Nita-nee’s father was furious and ordered Boyer thrown into the water cave and guarded so he couldn’t escape.  Boyer searched in vain for an alternative exit but failed to find one, so he crawled into the farthest area of the cave from the entrance where he died.   His body was weighted with rocks and thrown into the deepest part of the cavern.

It was a fascinating trip through the cave.  I hope this slideshow lends it justice. 🙂

After we came out of the cave we needed to walk ALL the way up again.  I took my time and the boys raced on ahead.   They went exploring to where the old entrance used to be.  I walked over to where part of the wildlife park was. 

 
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©2006-2017 A Net In Time. All rights reserved. All text, photographs, artwork, and other content may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form without the written consent of the author. A Net In Time .

Field Trip: Harsco Science Center

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At the end of May the family took a trip down to Pennsylvania.   One of the places we stopped at was the Harsco Science Center in Harrisburg.

 While I won’t say that visiting the science was worth the dollars spent, we did manage to have fun here.   Many of the exhibits were old, well worn or even broken, some things worked well.  The tornado exhibit was a hoot for both of us.


We had fun making cars, even if the method of making them was fairly set.  

We then moved on to the shaker (for lack of a better word).  Build a mountain, put up your house and see how well it stands up.

 

We had fun racing against each other on a paired biking thing to see who could wear off their dinner quicker.  We did this several times, with the lad consistently beating his mother (except once when I cheated!)  (freely admitting that).  🙂  Sorry for the blurry pic, it’s hard to take a good pic while peddling a small bike.

We lifted our own body weight, which for two of the lifts was easy, but for one.. well… let’s just say we both need to work on our upper arm strength.   

Our greatest amount of time though was spent on the fan.  We changed blades, rotated spinners and just had fun playing around with it.

 If we’re in Harrisburg again we won’t go to the Harsco Science Center again, but the activities we found entertained the lad quite nicely.
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This post may contain affiliate links – using affiliate links from A Net in Time helps fuel this blog and our homeschool – thank you!

©2006-2017 A Net In Time. All rights reserved. All text, photographs, artwork, and other content may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form without the written consent of the author. A Net In Time .

Sunset

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Sunset
A trip to Pennsylvania.
Dad for a conference,
Mom and lad to go exploring.
We took a tent, some supplies, and our bikes.
We spent our days exploring.
Penn’s Cave.
Hershey’s Chocolate World.
Indian Echo Dell Caves
Gettysburg
Harrisburg Science Museum
The State Capital.
Elizabethtown.
Sore feet.
Sore backs.
Tired brains.
Simple affordable food.
and as sunset fell across the campground
Biking,
A lad and his mom.
A lad outpacing his mom.
He shouts of encouragement.
“Mom!  You can catch up to me!”
Fellow campers grinning.
The tree peepers chorusing.
The bullfrog thrumming.
“You can do it, you can do it, yes you can”.
 The Heron takes flight.
Mom stops.
These hills are hard.
A picture taken.
A boy breathing hard races to find
Where his mother stopped
to see the lake
to breath easily
And he smiles
and says
“Nice, isn’t it mom?”
and 
“I had to find where you were.”
Kind and thoughtful 
this lad of mine.
It was good to spend time with
this growing young man.
He makes my heart smile.
God has blessed me
Abundantly.
Enjoy the Sunset!
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This post is in response to a wordprompt
the homeschool review crew uses for instagram fun.
I find it relaxing and enjoyable to turn them into posts for you and me.  🙂

This post may contain affiliate links – using affiliate links from A Net in Time helps fuel this blog and our homeschool – thank you!

©2006-2017 A Net In Time. All rights reserved. All text, photographs, artwork, and other content may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form without the written consent of the author. A Net In Time .

I’m going on a visit!

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 Visit.

Did you know that next week I get to visit another country.  I’ve been there before this country.
Three and a half years of Bible College…getting a double major in Bible and Education, with a minor in social work.   I got to know Grand Rapids fairly well and drove through Michigan a lot. 

I also drove through a lot of the states when I was a teen heading off with Missions Outreach Int’l going to Haiti to help build a church.

In my married life I’ve been to Port Huron to pick up parcels. Turns into a nice day out with my sweetheart.

But this week coming…I’m going to visit Pennsylvania.  Going to do some history walking and sight seeing with my lovely 11 year old boy.  🙂  Should be a good time.  Dad will be with us part of the week, but mostly he’ll be hanging out at a conference.

AND while I am visiting the USofA, two members of the crew hope to visit with us.   Pretty cool eh?

and THAT’s all I have in me this week for .. VISIT!

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This is a five minute Friday post. the word prompt is brought to us by Miss Kate.  What is Five Minute Friday?  Well it’s a party of a group of like
minded folks who gather on Friday to do a five minute free write around a
singular word.  AND THEN (and this is the most important part) we take the time to offer up encouragement to
each other on this writing journey.  It’s fun, though it’s not always
easy, but it is always good.   Come join us won’t you?  You are always
welcome.

This post may contain affiliate links – using affiliate links from A Net in Time helps fuel this blog and our homeschool – thank you!

©2006-2017 A Net In Time. All rights reserved. All text, photographs, artwork, and other content may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form without the written consent of the author. A Net In Time/

And it was good! Our week Feb 19-25

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We planned a bit of a short week this week.   Plans to go away this weekend, a vehicle in need of repair, and knowing the learning takes place in many different ways.  🙂  School happened!   Life happened.  And it was good!  🙂

Monday 
Today was family day, so the lad did his minimal schooling that he does on days off, and off we went to first take part in a demonstration Karate Class and then to go for a walk at the Pinery.   We did some pokemon going while we are there, toured through Grand Bend and just hung out together.

Tuesday 
Ice experiment…ooh.. fun with matches!

The lad made cake!
It was his turn to cook, he saw the cake in the cupboard and his eyes…. oh my, they just lit up!   “It’s my turn to cook!    Let’s have cake!”

He was a bit downcast when I mentioned that just cake for supper was not acceptable… which led him to ask for helped in making perogies.

Dad, not being a lover of perogies opted to make himself some other dish instead.

Wednesday 
Food bank.   Regular schooling.  The lad pushed hard and was done by 1230.  🙂  
Had a lovely walk together in the afternoon the lad and I did.   New Pokemon out and running around, so we had to chase them down.  🙂

Thursday 
School, the lad’s report this week on the Caribou.
Garbage day, lovely weather, car work to do… we called it done as early as we could. 🙂

The lad helped clean the cars out and helped dad work on the rear brakes.   They also fixed the side mirror that I accidentally broke off after over correcting from someone taking a corner really wide.   (I avoided being hit but the car mirror…not so much).

Rabbit picture taking day.

Friday 
Gramma coming over since hubby and I are heading out for the weekend.   
The lad did practical schooling today making cheese buns.  🙂  He’ll also be doing animal husbandry and housework with gramma this weekend.   

Saturday-Sunday
Hubby and I just schleped around together.    We had a wonderfully relaxing weekend doing absolutely nothing but wandering around together, looking and talking and just being alone without distraction.

Faith and Word Prompts
Set your face against Mount Seir.   Devotion on Ezekiel 35
Sunday sermon.  Can you build the church for others?
A Wife‘s Understanding of God.  chapter two of excellent wife book
You Will know that I am the Lord.   Devotion on Ezekiel 36:1-15
Forgetting the Holiness of God. Devotion on Ezekiel 36:16-24
For His Name’s Sake.  Devotion on Ezekiel 36:22-37
Pajamas are Optional.   word prompt post on pajamas
Oh to be Slow.  World Prompt on the word Slow.
  
Reviews
Earth-Space Colouring Book.
Conspiracy of Silence.

Jack London and the Klondike Gold Rush. 

A Dog’s Purpose.

Homeschooling and Life
ABC Blogging.  F is for frogs.  Frogs with tails.. think on it.   🙂
Art Series: Earth-Space Colouring book. Cool resource for astronomy lessons.
Hymn Study: Have thine Own Way Lord.  
Chicken Heart Casserole. 
Books for Canada, the Canadian North (Jack London).
STEM: Building a Robotic Hand.
The Lad’s Research: The Caribou.

Linking up at the following Places:
 
Homeschool Highlights.
Family Friday Link Ups:
Weird Unsocialized homeschoolers: Weekly Wraps Up.
Homeschool blog and tell.