History Park

Yesterday we went on a field trip to History Park in San Jose, California. I had never heard of it before but my friend who is always doing research found a website for it and thought it would be a fun place to visit. Since we homeschool we do a history co-op together. We use a certain set of books written by Genevieve Foster and they were written in the 40's and 50's. I love them so much and history makes sense and is interesting now. I was so bored in school during history class and I still don't understand why they don't teach history chronologically, it makes so much more sense that way. We finished our recent book so we thought it would be fun to go on some historical field trips on our normal co-op days, Tuesdays. Originally we were going to go to Columbia, a gold rush town in Northern California. Supposedly you can pan for gold and visit old time buildings like a candle making shop and the old candy shop. It's closed on Tuesdays so we decided to go to San Jose instead. History Park is a little town where historical buildings and houses have all been moved into one area. They had an old post office, fire house, gas station, dentist, blacksmith shop and lots of houses. Unfortunately we didn't arrange to have a docent ahead of time so all the buildings were locked and we couldn't go inside but we could still walk around and enjoy the town. The ice cream and candy shop were open so the kids were happy. After we walked around the little town we headed to Happy Hollow Zoo which is right next door. It's an old zoo but it's been completely redone. The kids loved it even if they were a little old for it. I used to take my boys to the zoo every year but once we had Breanna we stopped doing it so I didn't feel bad that the boys had to go to the zoo with their little sister. After the zoo we walked back to our car and had to walk through the Japanese Friendship Garden. That was awesome. It was so beautiful and we definitely want to go back so the boys can film there. Marcus has a movie making co-op and he's always looking for great filming locations. We decided the moms would have a picnic and knit while the boys film. Sounds good to me. Overall, a lovely day with friends exploring just some of the great things this area has to offer.