National Colonial Farm trip

Yesterday we braved the rainy weather and headed over to the National Colonial Farm.  They were having a "green" homeschool day.  There the kids learned a little about recycling, planting native trees, grasses, and flowers, and worm composting. 

J and C weaving coasters out of "plarn" (strips of old plastics bags.)

C getting as close as she dares to the worm colony.  Believe it or not there are about 4,000 red wigglers in there!

Unfortunately, the sky opened up before we were able to get to the far end of the farm.  That's the one place they all wanted to go.  At the far end are some old mulberry trees that they remember climbing and harvesting berries from.  Since we just planted a mulberry tree in our backyard, they were very excited to go see these old trees again to help them imagine what our tree might look like someday.  I could be wrong, but I don't think the mulberries are quite ready yet.  So maybe it is just as well that we didn't see them yesterday.  We will plan to go back sometime in the next couple of weeks (maybe with Daddy) on a sunny day to really explore the farm again and visit those wonderful old mulberry trees.

Mount Vernon

We live in a really fantastic place to homeschool.  There are so many wonderful museums near our home.  And so much history all around this area.  Last week we visited Mount Vernon, the home of George Washington.  We had never been there before even though we have lived here for nearly seven years.   Well, we were really missing out!  George Washington said (paraphrased) that it was the most wonderful place on earth.  I find it hard to argue with him.  It was beautiful!  I wanted to sit on his back porch all afternoon and take in the view of the Potomac and watch the kids run around his lawn.  We spent all day, 9:30-5:00, walking around his estate.  When it was time to go I was sad to leave.  It is really a beautiful place.

 

a ha-ha wall

Placing flowers at George Washington's tomb

 

Playing "Revolutionary War soldiers" at Mount Vernon.  How awesome is that!

A large old juniper makes a perfect fort.  It's all hollow underneath.

 

Good bye for now, Mount Vernon.  I'm sure we will be visiting you again soon.

Oh, the irony

I started this blog to encourage myself to do more fun and interesting stuff with my family. Ironically, we have been so busy doing fun and interesting stuff for the past couple of months that I haven't had time to catch my breath, much less blog about it. I kind of went crazy signing my kids up for activities this autumn. We've been on field trips to the National Zoo, the Baltimore Science Museum, Anne Marie Gardens, the Library of Congress, the American History Museum, and Historic St. Mary's City. We have had family visit and lots of playtime with friends. The older kids played soccer in the Upwards league. M entered an original Lego creation in the County Fair and won 1st prize! J and C entered handmade stuffed animals in the fair and won ribbons, too. They had art lessons. They started gymnastics and horseback riding lessons. M continues with jujitsu. And they are in the Christmas Pageant at church this year and rehearsals started a month ago! And we have joined a second homeschool group. And I'm taking T to the library story time, too. Oh, and we are trying to squeeze in our school work sometimes!

It's been fun, but exhausting. I think we are all ready to start slowing down and spend more time at home. Plans for November: cooking, sewing, knitting, reading, drawing, and celebrating the beginning of my favorite time of the year.

Brick Fair 2010

This past weekend we took our kids and one friend to the Brick Fair in DC. Even for someone like me, who is not really into Legos, it was pretty amazing. All the creations on display were original designs. And all of them were incredible.

Here are our kids looking at some of the creations done by young kids:
They were neat, but I know M can (and has) made some equally interesting creations at home.

They had a big room set aside full of Legos for people to build with while they were at the Brick Fair. I thought that was a great idea. Seeing all those amazing creations, I know my kids were itching to try building something themselves.

This one doesn't look as impressive in the photo as it was in real life. It was a series of motorized contraptions that moved plastic, marble-sized soccer balls along a course all the way around the room. It was a definite favorite.

This one was my favorite. A scene from Ghostbusters:
Almost makes me want to buy M some more Legos. Almost.

Local History

Last week we went to Ft. Washington on the Potomac River. It's very close to where we live yet in six years we had never been there. I kind of feel like I am failing in my attempt to "do more" with my family. We really haven't done anything very interesting lately. But there was this. I wasn't sure if the kids would even appreciate it. And the weather was kind of miserable. But if those European Kindergartners can be outside all winter, then we can brave a little rain in the Spring. So we did. And the kids had a blast.




I'm glad I forced myself to go.

National Zoo

We went to the zoo a couple of days ago. There were no crowds. The weather was beautiful. The animals were out enjoying the weather, too. We didn't try to see everything. We just visited a few animals, but we took our time and really watched. I think the kids enjoyed seeing the orangutans traveling on the "O-line" the best.


I enjoyed seeing a mother gorilla and her 8 month old baby.


I feel somewhat sorry for the individual animals that are in the zoo. But the kids learn a much better appreciation for those species when they can connect with a living example rather than just a picture in a magazine.

Of course, we had to climb on some animals, too.



It was a perfect day.

Hanging on to summer

We are back to school and the Autumn Equinox is right around the corner. We aren't quite ready to say goodbye to summer yet, though. Yesterday we ditched afternoon lessons and filled up the kiddie pool.

And today we took a field trip up to Baltimore to the Science Center with some friends. We had a great time and learned a few things, too! The best part of the day was right after we left the museum, though. We spotted this great water fountain that (despite the cooler weather) just had to be run through again and again until the older kids were soaked through. I restrained myself from insisting that they not get wet because we had no change of clothes or even a spare towel in the car. They were having too much fun to care about silly things like that. The fact that they had to ride home bare naked just made the whole experience that much more memorable. Oh happy days!