Fall Fun

a trip to the pumpkin patch with friends...

Ben's Gallery: The Tree

Ben drew this tree in his nature journal during one of our recent park trip. He made sure to point out to me the wind swirling around the top of the tree - a detail that pays homage to Grandma SuSu and one of her drawings that we have hanging in our house. Ben is definitely my detail-oriented kid - a boy after my own heart!

Park Days

This fall has been gorgeous and we have been fully enjoying it! We've visited favorite places and discovered some new ones.

Japanese Garden at Roger Williams Park

Sabin Point Park, East Providence

A Happy Family

Reunited after Andrew's long trip!

Mad Scientist

Ben has been busy at work in his lab! 

Field Trip: Plimoth Plantation

This is our third year in our history cycle: Early Modern History, we started with the Holy Roman Empire in the 1500s and will be ending the year with the California Gold Rush of 1849. There's so much to cover in one year! We're lucky that as far as the American history goes we live incredibly close to where many of these events took place and that means field trips!!

First up, Plimoth Plantation where we toured the historic 17th century village, conversed with historians enacting people from the original Plimoth Village, and discussed Native American traditions with Native People from several tribes in the Wamponoag Homesite and the craft center.

chilling in the Native American rock circle

the garden of the Wamponoag homesite, the summer weetu is in the background

sheep are fascinating

outside the 17th Century English Village

plant identification

trying out the stilts

harder than it looks!

Ben's natural reaction to photo requests!

after Mom cajoles him!

everyone needs a coon skin cap!

he decided to buy a quill and ink set and couldn't wait to try it out

of course, we couldn't miss the actual Plimoth Rock!

Class time

The kids are taking quite a few classes this fall - science, sailing and marine biology at the New England Science and Sailing Foundation in Stonington, CT, Junior Naturalist classes at the Audubon Education in Bristol, RI, and extracurriculars at our homeschool co-op in Coventry (soon to be Pawtucket), as well as various others. It's been a busy couple of weeks as we get settled into our new schedule but the experience of learning out in the world has been amazing!

talking about vertebrates at Audubon of RI

gorgeous jasmine at the Audubon center

Robin Hood - ready for his archery class!

Flying with Presidents

We never thought we'd get a chance to step foot on Air Force One but thanks to a project by the Children's Democracy Project we had the opportunity to check out a new replica of the plane and exhibit about the history of Air Force One. The experience was still under construction and a little lacking in details and information but it was still impressive.

a vehicle from President Kennedy's motorcade

barely taller than the wheels

photo op!

Tuesday Teatime

Once or sometimes twice a week, we sit down for some tea (hot chocolate for Benjamin) and read poetry to each other.

Julia and Benjamin are partial to the silly poems of Jack Pretlutsky and Shel Silverstein while I vary my choices week by week. It's one of our favorite parts of the week, not only because we often have special treats (chocolate chip scones are the top choice currently) but also because it's time for us all to share poetry that we find beautiful or funny or interesting and spend some time laughing and sometimes, creating our own verses.

and sometimes Dad gets to join in too!

Fall Fun: Apple Picking

We recently joined our homeschool group for an apple picking outing at Jaswell's Farm. Since Julia has been giving lectures to folks on how apple cider is made and Ben knows exactly how you are supposed to "gently pick the apple from the tree." We all enjoyed sampling the cider and the apples!