MFA

We spent the day at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston today. We haven't visited the museum in over a year, and I was struck by the beauty of the works we saw today. I left feeling so very grateful that this museum exists right in our backyard. J and K spent the day looking at sculpture, while D toured the modern art exhibit with the older kids. All 3 kids then worked on projects that tied in to the ideas they discussed while touring the galleries today.

Some of the sculpture we saw today included pieces from Ancient China and Japan.

The girls, hard at work in the clay studio.

Three 3-D masterpieces. 

Museum of Science

Were were all feeling a bit uninspired and sluggish this week, so we decided to spend a day with friends at the Museum of Science in Boston. This is one of our favorite field trip destinations. We spent quite a bit of time in the Pompeii exhibit, which was amazing, and visited some of our long-time favorite exhibits as well. Animals and dinosaurs seem never to disappoint.

Apples and Chickens

Is there anything better than apple picking in New England?

I've been meaning to post an update of our chickens which have grown so very much since I last posted about them in the spring. They are now fully grown and are starting to lay eggs. It is so much fun to see the kids run out to the coop throughout the day, looking for the prized egg or two, and to hear their words of encouragement toward the gals for a job well done. They are very much D's responsibility and he feeds and cares for them and cleans the coop out once a week. He is a good little chicken mama.

The girls exploring the yard.

Battleship Cove

We took a family field trip to Battleship Cove yesterday. This year D studied world history from 1849 to the fall of the Berlin Wall, so this trip tied in nicely to our study of WWII. The girls enjoyed the trip too, though they didn't ask too many questions about the nature of the ships we visited, which is probably a good thing. As a parent, I really struggle with the idea of teaching my children about war, or about glamorizing it in any way. War is terrible and violent, but war is also an unavoidable part of our human history. On our trip I tried to downplay the act of war itself, and instead bring to mind the courage of the men and women who have sacrificed so much to defend our country and our lives. We imagined what it might be like to live in such a small space, to go without privacy or a room of your own for months or even years, to go without seeing your family and friends, and to have the knowledge to operate all those buttons and switches on the sub - so many buttons and switches!

On board the USS Massachusetts

And onboard the USS Lionfish

Yikes, talk about close quarters! Not sure I could live on a sub without losing my mind due to extreme claustrophobia.

Checking out a ... shark boat?

Field trips are exhausting...

Maple Girls

The girls and I had a great time maple sugaring over the weekend. We took a walk through the woods, learned how to tap the tree, saw the sap drain into buckets, and watched it boil and turn into maple sugar! On the walk J and K found what they claim to be the perfect sticks! It's funny how you can plan an educational field trip, only to get there and realize that your kids would have been just as happy picking up sticks in our own backyard. I think next year we will try to identify some maple trees in our yard and see if we can tap them ourselves.

field trip

Hello December! I have been submerged in holiday craziness up to my neck the past two weeks so haven't had much time to post. We have seen the Nutcracker, been to our niece's fabulous middle-school performance of 'Fiddler on the Roof' (she was the best Tzeitel ever!), rehearsed for our church pageant in which J will play the very important role of 'the donkey', been to J's Suzuki violin holiday recital, and decorated our house with all manner of holiday loveliness. We've been baking and shopping and online shopping and shopping some more. In the midst of all this holiday cheer we've managed to keep up with our regular learning schedule, and thank goodness everyone is healthy. Knock on wood.

Last week we spent an afternoon at the Museum of Science. It was the most enjoyable, relaxing field trip we have taken as a family yet. The Museum was quiet and now that K is almost 3 we were able to see many of the exhibits without taking time out for diaper changes, nursing, snacks, or general toddler craziness. We saw the reptile exhibit, built with K'Nex, made enormous bubbles, saw a presentation on skunks, dressed up as bees and birds and built our own family nest, and of course spent time seeing the dinosaurs. K was in heaven, dinosaurs being her favorite thing ever. They can't wait to go back.

hitting the freedom trail

On Friday we took the T into Boston and toured the Freedom Trail with our HS friends. The Freedom Trail is a walking tour to up to 16 sites that were made famous during the Revolutionary War and during the days of unrest leading up to the war. We saw the State House, the gravesites of Paul Revere and John Hancock, the site of the Boston Massacre, and learned some fascinating nuggets of historical info from our guide, who was dressed in period costume and assumed the role of Sheriff Wright, a sherrif who lived in Colonial Boston during the war. D's favorite part was examining the musket and musket ball that Sheriff Wright brought along. I've attached some of our favorite pics, but for privacy reason I never post photos of other people's children on our website. This makes it tricky to add photos taken during field trips! But D and I snapped some good shots of downtown Boston and the graveyard to share. We ended the day with fried clams, Indian food, and gelato from Quincy Market. Did you know that Faneuil Hall used to be part of Boston Harbor and that it was later backfilled to create more land in the city? This is fascinating to me - first off, why would you fill in a harbor? And how did they do it? Can you imagine the ammount of work it would take to do this pre-industrial revolution? I feel a reasearch project in the making...

Three sick kids, sunshine, a holiday, and a field trip

We've spent most of this week in the house, with all three kids sick with fevers, colds, and/or coughs. DG was traveling for part of the week for business, which meant that I was truly trapped, in the house, with no escape with 3 sick children. In general we like to keep busy by getting out every day, whether it's to a class or lesson, the library, to have lunch out with family, or to spend some time exploring nature, so being in the house for days on end makes me feel that I am slowly losing my grip on reality.

However, we did manage to make it outside to spend a beautiful, sunny March day playing a fiercely competitive game of family soccer. It was so nice to see the sun after so much rain and cold this month. We celebrated Saint Patrick's Day by reading about the myths, legends, and life of Saint Patrick and the history of Ireland. We did some art projects and a cooked a somewhat authentic Irish meal. We finished our unit study of Chemistry, read lots and lots of books, made some music, and squeezed in a few math lessons when the kids were up to it.

We ended our week by finally getting out of the house! Today we visited the Sandwich Glass Museum. I'm hoping that everyone is on the mend and that we will begin next week with renewed energy. We'll be learning all about the Galapagos Islands as we get ready for our HS group Geography Fair!

Figaro Figaro Figaro Figaro Figaro Figaro Fiiiiiiiiigaro!

We spent the afternoon enjoying Boston Lyric Opera's performance of Barber of Seville. We've been humming Rossini all day :)