Field Trip: Badlands National Park, South Dakota

In August 2009 we took a trip out west, which I never finished blogging about. (You'll find my five Western Adventure posts here.)

It was a wonderful vacation/field trip filled with history, science, and fun family memories that I want to preserve here on my blog, so over the summer you'll see a sprinkling of backposts retelling our Western Adventure.

First let's head out to the Badlands of beautiful South Dakota.

Just after checking out from our little cabin in Wall, SD. From here we headed out to drive through Badlands National Park. You might be able to tell that the kids are shivering in this photo. It was unexpectedly chilly and windy that morning.

This is what our first glimpse of the Badlands looked like.These pictures do not do justice to the beautiful bands of color that make up the rugged spires and pinnacles. We noticed that the muted colors changed hues as we drove through the park.

The Badlands are the largest protected mixed grass prairie in the United States. For the entire two-hour drive through the park we were surrounded by these beautifully rugged hills alternating with vast, flat praire-land. We made several stops to get out of the car and take in the scenery. (No, we did not see any rattlesnakes - very thankful for that!)

Extremely high winds are common year round, and it was indeed windy on this particular day. (Our jackets were in the car, and I can't remember why we weren't wearing them!)

This picture gives a little bit better idea of the multitude of colors found there. These geologic deposits contain one of the world's richest fossil beds. We did not have time to participate in one of the Junior Ranger programs here, but we did at other National Parks later in our trip, and I do recommend them. Be aware that during many of these programs the park rangers will allude to an old earth and evolutionary theory. We simply used these opportunities to discuss the truths of Creation found in the Bible.

Our first wildlife encounter...prairie dogs! These little fellows are difficult to see in the photo, but they were hilarious to watch in real life. They darted quickly from hole to hole in their "town", and when we rolled down our windows we could hear their calls. The Badlands' 244,000 acres are also home to bison, bighorn sheep, deer, pronghorn, and black-footed ferrets. We did see some bighorn sheep, but I couldn't get a decent photo. I imagine if we had been able to spend more time in the park we would have also seen some of the other wildlife.

A few more interesting facts:

• The Badlands National Park was first established as a National Monument in 1939 and became a National Park in 1978.
• Of the 244,000 acres, 64,144 is designated as Wilderness Area.
• The Park is co-managed with the Oglala Lakota Nation.
• Located in southwestern South Dakota, the park is a mixed grass ecosystem that is unlike any other on earth.
• For more information, check out the National Park Service website.

 Well that's it for this installment of our Western Adventure. Thanks for joining me!

Making Time for Hubby

Homeschooling moms everywhere know that we’ve got more than a full-time job. Teaching our children, caring for our family, managing our household, and doing everything else that life requires can make it easy to overlook a very important person in our life…our husband!

All too often I am guilty of falling into the trap of putting the kids (and other stuff) ahead of him. He doesn’t complain, but I know that he feels respected and loved when I make an effort to set aside time for him. And by time, I don’t mean a quick conversation as we pass each other in the hall or a few hasty thoughts shared over the cell phone as he drives home from work. I’m talking about intentionally carving out real, in person, sit-down-and-be-together kind of time.

Not only does this strengthen our marriage, but I am a better wife, mother, and overall person when I stay connected to my husband. We are both healthier parents for our children when we are regularly taking time out for each other. Bottom line…the whole family benefits when Mom and Dad are making their marriage a priority.

I am most definitely not a marriage expert, and believe me, my marriage is far from perfect, but I do want to share a few ideas for making time for your husband. These are things that have worked for our lifestyle and routine. Maybe some of these will work for yours too, but if not, hopefully they will at least be a springboard for you to come up with some ideas of your own.

I invite you to join me at The Homeschool Post if you would like to read the rest of my article. (Just click on the little button below.)

I pray that you find it helpful in some way!

Solar System Printables and Resources

Here are the online resources I used to pull our unit together....enjoy!

Preschool Printables

Homeschool Share unit and lapbook for Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star

Man on the Moon: A Space Unit for preschoolers from Musings of Me.

A is for Astronaut Tot Pack from Totally Tots

Astronaut Preschool Pack from Homeschool Creations

Astronaut Letter Writing Practice and Poem from Spell Outloud - I printed out this poem and accompanying graphics, cut out, laminated, and glued felt to the back to use these as flannelgraph pieces.

Elementary Printables

Coloring page of the planets from Coloring Castle - This is my favorite planet coloring page because it is so versatile. I printed this out, let the girls color the planets, and then we made mobiles by taping them to fishing line and hanging them from plastic coat hangers to make mobiles. You could also have your kids color these, cut them out, and then affix to their correct orbit paths.

Homeschool Share's Outer Space resources - tons of great stuff here!

Jimmie's Squidoo Lens has tons of printables for a space lapbook.

Learning Pages A-Z - This is a great site with some really nice resources, and it's free to join. Check out their space theme for lots of printables. We used their Planet Cut-outs. The kids colored these, cut them out and attached them to a large piece of black butcher paper to make a space mural. Throughout the unit the kids will add things of their choosing to the mural - asteroids, comets, meteorites, rocketships, etc.

Cool Websites

Planet 10 - Choose the 1.0 Solar System option. It's a virtual fly-through of our solar system, complete with rotating planets revolving around the sun on their orbit paths. Fascinating site. (We haven't tried the 2.0 World Builder option but will eventually.)

NASA for Kids

• Main Kids Page 

• Picture Dictionary

• NASA Kids Club 

Fun and informative online Solar System game with Mrs. Frizzle from the Magic School Bus.

Spacesounds - very cool Solar System site (a must see)

Experiments, Crafts, Recipes

Scholastic: Ideas for Different Kinds of Solar System Models

The Relative Distance of Planets from the Sun

The Relative Size of Planets

Solar System Song

Make A Stargazer

Universe in A Jar

How to Make A Model of Saturn (using an old CD)

Build A Bubble-Powered Rocket

Taste of Outer Space

Make an Edible Spacecraft

If you have any Solar System resources that your family has used and enjoyed, please feel free to tell me about them in the comments. We'll be doing this study for quite awhile and would like to check them out!

Backyard Solar System

We are currently learning about the Solar System, and this was a fun and easy activity I wanted to share with you.

It was quick to pull together, cost nothing, and gave us a tangible idea of the relative size of the planets and their relative distances from the sun and each other. (FYI, I am including Pluto as a planet in all of our Solar System activities. Some scientists still go back and forth on whether or not it's a planet, so I've decided that we're going to be old school and consider it one.)

What you need:

• 9 round objects with the following diameters. (You can use balls, marbles, fruit, whatever you have on hand. If you don't have things with these exact diameters, just ball-park it. That's what we had to do for Uranus and Neptune. For Saturn we made a super-quick model out of butcher paper because I nothing else even close to that size. I had used our only large ball for Jupiter.)

Mercury: 1½"
Venus: 3¾"
Earth: 3 7/8"
Mars: 2"
Jupiter: 44¼" 
Saturn: 37 1/8"
Uranus: 16"
Neptune: 15¼"
Pluto: ¾"

• A large space approximately 100 ft. long

What You Do:

• Explain to your children that your planet models are not accurate in terms of colors and markings, but that the purpose of this activity is to give them a general idea of how big and small the planets are compared to each other and an idea of how far apart they are from each other. (The concept of "relative" was a hard one for my 5 and 7 year old to grasp. I also made sure they understood that the planets are not really the size of these objects but are bigger than we can even imagine.)

• Line the planets up in their order from the sun. Place them right next to each other so that your child can really see how they compare to each other in size. (See above photo.)

• Now pick up the planets, distribute them among you and your children and get ready to walk with them! Laundry baskets are helpful for toting all of those balls and pieces of fruit. :) 

• Choose something (or someone) to be the sun. I wanted us to really get a grasp of how large the sun was compared to the earth, so I chose our house to be the sun.

• Start at your designated sun and take one step away from it. Lay down Mercury.

• From Mercury, take 1 more step. Lay down Venus.

• From Venus, take 1/2 step. Lay down Earth.

• From Earth, take 1 1/2 steps. Lay down Mars.

• From Mars, take 9 steps. Lay down Jupiter.

• From Jupiter, take 11 steps. Lay down Saturn.

• From Saturn, take 25 steps. Lay down Uranus.

• From Uranus, take 27 steps. Lay down Neptune.

• From Neptune, take 24 steps. Lay down Pluto.

• Now go back to the sun and "walk the planets", having your child name them as you go. Have them take a look at the distances and talk about how close together some planets are and how far apart others are. 

• You can also point out the inner planets (Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars) and outer planets (Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto). You can also lay down several rocks to represent the asteroid belt that lies between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter.

Stepping off the distance between the planets

Sweet Pea and Neptune

It's a long way from Jupiter to Uranus.

This Solar System activity is not to scale, although it did give us somewhat of a feel for planet sizes and distances from the sun. 

However this activity is to scale. I hope to do it at some point during our unit after we find a large enough area for it. I'll let you know when we do!

I will be sharing more Solar System fun in the coming weeks.

Have a great week!

Arithmetic Village Review and Giveaway

I am excited to tell you about a delightful series of living math books that I came across a few months ago.

The author, Kimberly Moore, has given me the opportunity to review and give away a set of her Arithmetic Village series.

Please join me over at The Curriculum Choice to read all about these wonderful books and to enter the giveaway!

My family has really enjoyed these, and I think yours will too.

Blessings,