Easter 2014

Our church celebrates the preparation for Resurrection Sunday with an old fashion Brethren Love Feast (note, we are not actually Brethren) and a foot-washing. Here's one diligent little foot-washer.










I was able to take the girls to my grandmother's house for Easter again this year, so we dyed eggs and harassed some barn cats. Visiting with family was a pleasure too. Happy Easter to the rest of you we haven't seen yet!







 

A whole lot of learning has also been going on here. Last week the two big girls spent two hours pouring over the Little Passports package that came in the mail. This month's packet on Egypt brought with it an artifact hidden in plaster, so the girls chipped away at it patiently to unearth a sarcophagus. Pearl also spent time playing the related geography games online. Thanks Aunt R!

We had our final CHAMP co-op. I had rented a chest of colonial 'arti-fakes' from the museum in York, then I led Pearl's class and then Sapphire's class through exploring the objects. Both classes were pretty much terrified of the blood-letting bowl, but they loved dressing up like colonials.

In the evening we had our Show and Tell, a little closing ceremony that allows the children a chance to take the stage and show their new knowledge.









And so far we've fit two field trips into this week. Pearl toured a local courthouse and jail on Tuesday, and today I took her and a friend to the Landis Valley Museum for a wool to weave workshop. We carded wool and learned to weave tape.

There and Back Again, with Photos

Overlooking Jerusalem from the Mt. of Olives

The travelers are home. They arrived in time for lunch after being on a plane for twelve hours and another couple of hours driving in from Newark, NJ. The jet lag hit late in the afternoon, and little Pearl is all tucked into bed, snoozing her way back to Eastern Standard Time.

I'll just share some photos they brought back.

Pool of Siloam, where Jesus healed a man blind from birth

The Wailing Wall, Jerusalem

Petra, the crescent valley

En Gedi, Pearl's favorite place because of the waterfall; this is the area where David and his men hid from King Saul

Fitted out for the narrow, watery, dark Hezekiah's Tunnel, Jerusalem

The Garden Tomb, Jerusalem (1st century tomb with rolling rock)

Atop the Temple Mount, in front of the Dome of the Rock

in the Jordan River, near where John the Baptist baptized Jesus

Our Little Traveler

Here's my little traveler in Petra, Jordan. They had a great day there.  One of the other women took charge of the camel-riding party and haggled for rides. Pearl rode a camel named Suzu.


I'm told she hasn't been homesick once, but we do talk every day, and her days are full.

Now they are in Jerusalem. Today they saw the Dome of the Rock and the Temple Mount.

They were also going to see the Garden Tomb. This is not the actual tomb, but it is from the same period. What a great thing to do during Lent.

Stitchin' Samplers

 
Pearl is getting ready for a big trip, and that means packing and preparation. We came home from our sneaker-buying outing to find that Sapphire and her daddy had been hard at work crafting a creative pinewood derby entry for Awana. Can you tell what favorite frozen treat inspired them?

Today I took the girls to our co-op. I had been excited to teach Pearl's class about samplers, and, from the comments I overheard as they were stitching, I think they loved it. Many of the girls had never stitched a thing before, and my helpers and I had plenty of re-threading and helping to do.

fter lunch, our co-op headed into York to see the York Heritage Trust museums. The kids enjoyed seeing a Conestoga wagon, a York city trolley, and a working sawmill. I was relieved once Sapphire had moved past all those working parts.

Then we toured the Gates House and the Golden Plough Tavern, both from the mid-eighteenth century. This was the perfect field trip for our Colonial Crafts class, and the girls got a kick out of just about everything. They saw a candle dipping machine and practiced being an excitable, fairly inefficient fire brigade.

Pearl has been reading many audio books with the help of the Kindle. Choosing books for her is especially tricky, but I suppose I only have myself to blame. Recently, when I selected A Little Princess, she refused to listen to more than a minute of this perfectly interesting book. When I asked her why she wouldn't give it a chance, she told me, "The reader does not have a British accent." This requirement knocks out a good many of the audio books we have available! We have had better luck with How to Train Your Dragon, A Horse and His Boy, Robin Hood, and The Book of Three.

Philadelphia Field Trip

We've been studying the colonial period and the American Revolution for eight weeks now. Before the temperature started to dive, my mother and I chose to take Pearl on a field trip to Philadelphia to see the places we've been reading about.

After the much anticipated train ride, we began with a trip to a museum that has a collection of Washington and Ben Franklin busts and portraits. Pearl had asked to see a real art museum after our foray into York last spring, and I was very proud of how she made her way around the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. The colored pencils I brought allowed her to engage with the art when she needed to sit. We also saw a few works by Benjamin West, a Quaker ancestor of ours who was the President of the (British) Royal Academy in the mid 1700s.





We thoroughly enjoyed a much needed meal in Chinatown before walking through that section of the city to Independence National Park. We had planned to skip the tour of Independence Hall, but it has been greatly shortened since I was young, and now you see just two rooms, the old court room and the congressional room where all the history happened. Pearl lagged a bit there, but she made it through with the help of her junior ranger activity book.

The next stop, Franklin's Printing Press, showcased a working, 18th-century press. The rangers running it entertained us with explanations. I enjoyed seeing the cases full of tiny type waiting to be set since it reminded me of the Victorian book creation I have read so much about.

We walked a few blocks to Betsy Ross's house, which is not part of the national park. Pearl and I climbed through the narrow building, winding up and down the stairs. The costumed Betsy Ross stole her heart, I think, when she gave Pearl a cut out star like the ones on the first American flag.








Our little historian retained just enough energy to walk back to the park office for her swearing in as a junior park ranger. The gentleman did a great job engaging her in the process, and she proudly displayed her little plastic pin.

Field trips are fun!

In front of the Chinatown gate