Thriving Not Just Surviving….

Last Tuesday evening, we had a “Thriving Through High School and College” seminar for our group.  One of our moms, Therese, was gracious enough to share her wealth of knowledge with our moms.  She is a mother to seven whom she has homeschooled all the way through high school and still homeschooling some.  Two of her children have graduated from college, two are currently in college and should be finishing in May 2013, and she has three still at home that she is teaching.  She gave us info on what is required in our state for homeschoolers and what the local colleges are looking for or expecting in order to enroll.  Also, she shared how they can receive high school credits along with college credits by taking classes at the local colleges during high school.

It was a very informative night.  Everyone shared other info and asked questions.  There were moms there who were just starting out all the way to season moms who have been doing this for awhile.  One of our moms had just graduated a child from high school and he will be starting college in the fall.  She was able to share her experience as well.

We started out with some goodies:

 

Gathering for our meeting with our goodies.

Therese leading our discussions.  She had print outs for us so we could follow along with her and take notes while we listened.

Thank you Therese for giving up one of your evenings to share and encourage the other moms!  Thank you Candi for opening your home for our meeting.  Also, thank you Tiany and Candi for helping out with the goodies.  I appreciate all of you.

LIGO Science Center

On Tuesday, May 22nd we had a fieldtrip with Bayou Cajun Homeschoolers to LIGO which stands for LASER INTERFEROMETER GRAVITATIONAL-WAVE OBSERVATORY. They had lots of hands-on science activities for the kids. After lunch, there was a tour of the actual observatory for the older children.

Bernoulli blowers

Screaming balloon

Hinged mirror reflections - the angle of the mirror determines the number of reflections that you see - the bigger the angle, the less reflections; the smaller the angle, the more reflections

3-d glasses and a geyser

Fun with photo booth

The video on the right was from a heat camera.

OscylinderScope

Wave machine and Resonant rings

Resonant Rods and Gaussian Melody

Giant slinky waves

Image relay

Drawing table

 

After about an hour and a half, we gathered in the auditorium for a video that talked about what they do at LIGO.  Then, we took a break for lunch.  They had a large covered picnic area for us to eat lunch before touring the observatory.

After lunch, our group (They broke us up into 2 different groups.) went for a tour of the observatory.  Candi stayed back at the education center with our younger children while I took our older children. One of the scientist lead the tour.  She said she is the one they let talk to people because she can talk to groups more normal;)

She took us through the building where you could see boards along the wall with drawings and measurements of different things.  Then, we went into the actual observatory where there is always someone there 24/7.  We didn’t get to see as much since they were in the process of upgrading all of their equipment.  You can go to their website to learn more about what they do.  There is only two of these observatories in the United States.  One in our area and one in Washington state.

Outside of the observatory they have two concrete arms that stretch 2 miles each.  This is where a lot of there testing takes place.  The 1st picture is a picture from a camera inside one of the arms.  The 2nd picture is a view of the arm from an outside camera.

After our tour, we went back to the educational center to pick up the rest of our children before heading home.  It was a fun day and the kids enjoyed getting to touch/do the different science experiments.