We trekked downtown to the Children's Museum this afternoon to see the
Spymaker exhibit there. The museum was so crowded, and this exhibit was so crowded that it made no sense to me or the kiddos.
We have begun a new unit on spies, instead of home-schooling we are going to be spy-schooling for a week or two here. The Children's Museum has made a big deal of this exhibit, and I had refrained from going, knowing that I wanted to do a spy unit. If I had known how much it would go over my kiddos heads, I wouldn't have made such a big deal about it, but it was kind of disappointing. Ah well.
K is still taking her new role as a spy very seriously, despite having tanked Spymaker. And L doesn't care, he is just thrilled to be wearing his sunglasses 24/7 for a reason.
We watched the fireworks last night, we went downtown to see them. By the time they got started it was about 10:15pm! Pretty late! But it was a lot of fun! We had people over all afternoon, so I thought that the kiddos were going to be tired? No way! It was me who was needing a little coffee pick me up!
I love a good fireworks show, and last night's was so beautiful! They set them off one of the tall buildings down town, and it's a true show.
I didn't get any good photos though.... oh well!
The kiddos map things out
Originally uploaded by annamaren.We went to Conner Prairie today, with some friends!
Conner Prairie is a living history museum, we spent some time in 1886 and in 1836. We went for the fun of hanging with friends, and to celebrate the "Glorious Fourth".
I love this photo- the kiddos had a map, and they laid it out and figured out what they wanted to visit, and how to get there. Emily and I just agreed and followed!
Today was the day that Conner Prairie just clicked for K. She fell in love with everything that she saw and did. She participated in every opportunity she was given, she sat in the schoolhouse and did some lesson work, she made some music in the Quaker church, she weeded, she hauled hay.... she and her friend O swept in the Doctor's house for *half an hour*! Emily and I were so impressed, we were timing it. I could never get her to sweep our own house for half an hour! I think for all our chores now, I am going to begin with a little time travel...... "OK, it's 1886- please go make your bed!"
Wonder if that would work?!
L is 4!
Originally uploaded by emaho.
Birthday kiss...
Originally uploaded by emaho.K gives a little kiss to her lil bro. I am so glad Jamie caught this moment! I can't tell how much I adore this photo!
Who me?
Originally uploaded by emaho.Jamie put up some beautiful photos of L's cake and ice-cream day on Monday! I am posting them here to share with family! Jamie really captured L well in this photo. He has been caught licking icing from the cake!
Portrait of a 4 year old!
Originally uploaded by annamaren.Here he is rocking out on his guitar wearing his new sunglasses K gave him, and standing on the deck of his new skateboard.
Does he look bigger today? I think so.
Singing Happy Birthday!
Originally uploaded by annamaren.We had a gathering of friends, we sang Happy Birthday, candles were blown out, and cake and ice cream were eaten! Yay for the new 4 year old!
Birthday Morning!
Originally uploaded by annamaren.Today we celebrated a birthday!
Happy Birthday my sweet L! So much still my little one, yet so eager to be exploring, off having big-boy adventures! He is so full of curiosity, joy, excitement, song, silliness, speed, spark and LIFE!
He has been so excited about his birthday for ages now, so today was a big day! You can tell by the look on his face, no?!
Just Enough, and Nothing More -Engineering and Music «One of the homeschooling blogs I read- Just Enough and Nothing More- had a little note about the value of music It's a premise that I have heard before- relating the value of music to other things- in Tammy's case she brings up a correlation between music and engineers.
It's something that I have heard educators bring up before- that music and math are related, which of course they are. It's just that I believe it to be so more than that! We should be upset that public schools are getting rid of music lessons for so many more reasons other than the relationship between music and math.
Music is rich in dimensions which maybe could be extracted out to prove any point- music aids in mathematical development, music can help teach history, music can show us world culture... etc. Music is all of that.
I believe though, that there is value in music, simply for the sake of music. For the joy of creating a beautiful noise! For the beauty of appreciating other people creating music.... for the shared fun of making music together with other musicians... Music can be lovely and has value as a whole, the sum of all it's parts. It's an enriching opportunity in anyone's education (young or grown!) to have a chance at making music. Music is something that you can carry in your heart where-ever your life takes you.
There. Enough said. (That was my attempt at Just Enough and a Little Bit More!)
