Schoolwork

Since the girls were sad to see their friends go, one of their assignments today was to write a letter to them (we try to write letters each week). Liam wanted to get in on the action and drew a picture for Annika, and I just had to post another "people" picture, since it is so fun to me to see him drawing recognizable things!

Washington, D. C. Field Trip!

In the spirit of spontaneity, and since our friends were heading that way, we dropped any plans we had for yesterday and headed south to D.C. with them. Two field trips in one week - pretty fun school, don't you think? The girls were especially thrilled to get to spend more time with their new friends. We left in a gray, rainy morning and arrived to bright, hot sunshine! It was the perfect day to sight-see!
We started at the Washington Monument, headed down the mall past the WWII Memorial and reflecting pool (they really liked the ducks there!) to the Lincoln Memorial. Then, after walking through the Vietnam Memorial, we headed past the White House and enjoyed ice cream and french fries in the Ronald Reagan Building. After our brief and wonderful rest (sitting felt great!), we swung by the National Archives to see the Declaration of Independence and then the Capital Building and then played in the mall while the guys fetched the vans. All in all, a great day! The only downside was that we think Darsie has the flu now, though we didn't realize she was getting sick until we were already down there. Some Motrin and a few stroller rides later, though, and she did pretty well (the fun friends helped, too!).

WWII Memorial fountains

More WWII Memorial

Look, that's where the president and his family live!

View of the Washington Monument from the Lincoln Memorial

Capital Building

New Skill!

I used the girls as guinea pigs this afternoon and had them test out the houses my co-op class will be making on Thursday. They had great fun decorating their houses and watching me glue them together. While they were all decorating (Liam, too), I noticed that Liam is actually drawing people now! After weeks and weeks (forever!) of dictating who to draw for me or the girls to do, he was drawing his own people today and telling me who they are! The curious thing is that he is drawing the same way Darsie started out - upside down. He draws the circle for the head and then sends a leg up and off of it for the body. No idea why, but it is interesting that both of them have done it.

Darsie's house

Liam's house

Katy's house

Liam drawing people on his house

Close-up of his people - circle then line shooting off of it. He also put heads looking out of the windows - I think he said they were me, Matt and him. Pretty neat!

Our Very Own Junior Rangers!

We have had a fun weekend spending time getting to know some new friends who have been staying with us. Matt has a friend who is a pastor in Colorado, and his family is taking a vacation visiting much of the Eastern US and some of Canada right now. They have daughters who are 8, 6 and 2, and who have fit right in with our kids while they have been here! Most days, we have only seen them in the morning and at night, since they are touring different places, but yesterday we went with them to Independence National Park downtown for a tour of the historic area.
We prepped the kids with two good books: The Fourth of July Story by Dalgliesh and Independence Day by Ansary. I had already done a unit on basic Us/Philadelphia history in the summer, and so it was neat to hear what the girls actually remembered from that. We also printed out a Junior Ranger booklet for each girl from the National Park Service. It has activities to do and questions to answer while on your tour, and then when you have completed a certain number of activities, you take it to the ranger at the visitor center and he checks it and gives you a certificate and badge certifying that you are now a junior ranger. It was a fun way to get the kids paying attention and reward them for their efforts!
So, after much walking and looking and listening, the girls became official "Junior Rangers"! I think they were all very proud of their efforts!

Matt poses by a marker for where Abraham Lincoln stood.

Hangin' with George...

Liam wanted to get in on the action, too, so he "worked" in his journal.

Showing their work to the ranger.

Our new Junior Rangers (and Liam)!

Art Lessons

I found a really fun book at the library that I want to make my own soon! Discovering Great Artists has lots of ideas for introducing kids to different artists and genres/methods of painting!

Today we read about Giotto and then looked at samples of his art online. Then, we made our own egg tempera paints using crushed up chalk as the pigment. Of course, real colors, such as beetles, minerals, berries,... would work better and make much prettier colors, but this was a fun experience none the same, and they did enjoy crushing the chalk!

Fall Fun

Pumpkin lessons with Michelle at playgroup

Nature walks at Tyler Arboretum

Beautimous fall trees!

A spruce (?) at Tyler

An amazing sugar maple in Swarthmore

The red maple a few streets over that we have been watching since it first began to bloom in the spring!

We Love Fall!!!!!

(Too many exclamation points? You should hear me exclaim it, and then you'll think that maybe they're just right!). We have been enjoying our first tastes of fall, with cooler weather, not so many bees, less mosquitoes (though Liam did get about 6 bites on his head yesterday!), leaves, color, more leaves,.... We have taken many fall walks, looking for seeds or leaves and just enjoying the wonderful weather!

Yesterday, we made leaf rubbings to put into our nature journals, and this afternoon, we branched out and made leaf prints. I think, honestly, we all just love painting anything! :)