Kayla MathieuDriving to Table Rock State Park was a complete surprise. We decided to make Table Rock our next destination because my parents were taking a bus trip to Branson around the same time we were going to be near the area. I am so glad we made the detour to Table Rock! We have never been to Branson, and it ended up being our favorite stop so far. The campground is beautiful, and the park rangers were all very friendly. The bathrooms were nice, the showers were hot, and there was even a laundry room! Unfortunately, I didn’t take a single picture of our campsite because we spent so much time in Branson. There were so many things to do and we took full advantage of it! The park ranger told us Branson was like Las Vegas minus the casinos. He also said, if you go hungry or get bored, that’s on you. I would agree.
This post will mostly be a photo dump of the adventures we had in Branson. We did get a chance to meet my parents during our stay, but only briefly as they had a busy schedule with the bus group. They went to shows mostly, while we toured different attractions. We didn’t even get around to checking out Silver Dollar City. This will definitely be a spot we come back to in the future!
Our first tourist attraction we visited was the Titanic Museum. The kids watched parts of the movie Titanic before we went to the museum, so they had a little background knowledge beforehand. The museum was interactive, had many artifacts recovered from the ship on display, and props from the Titanic movie as well.
The next day we went to the Castle of Chaos, which had a house of mirrors and a 5D video game. My kids are too smart and followed the floor edges to find their way out of the maze. It only took us maybe 3 minutes to complete the maze. The 5D game was a team shooter game where we battled monsters on a rollercoaster. There was no one else there so they let us play the game twice for free! After that, we went next door to the Hollywood Wax Museum. I think it’s fair to say after seeing the pictures, everyone understood the assignment. Pro tip: Branson on a weekday in the winter is great for avoiding crowds. We had free reign of many of the attractions.
Q&A – What lesson plan do you use to homeschool?
I am asked this question quite a bit. South Dakota doesn’t have a standardize homeschooling curriculum, so for the first half of the school year we used Shell Education workbooks. They are okay, but there is not a lot of explanation or direction to solve problems. I can handle first grade fine, but sixth grade math…. yikes. I can solve the problems, but I struggled knowing how exactly to explain how I solved the problems in a way Rylen could understand. After a while the kids were getting tired of paperwork and became more defiant in completing their assignments.
As we started venturing further south and experienced more cultural diversity, I thought it might be good to add a second language into the kids’ studies. My friend Chris is a high school Spanish teacher and he suggested Duolingo, which has been a game changer. The kids enjoy learning with games and don’t fight with me (as much) about class time. To supplement the worksheets as well as give them more instruction on assignments, I found Khan Academy for Rylen and Kids Khan Academy for Lylah. That has been very helpful not only for them, but for me as well. I am now able to split up their class time, so I am not trying to work with both of them simultaneously. One does worksheets while the other does Khan Acadamy or Duolingo. Game changer!
To see daily reels and posts of our adventures, you can now follow us on Instagram at @campingwithkayla
