On Sunday we took a drive to Philadelphia with my mom to see the Liberty Bell among other things. It was such a beautiful day, we toured old Philadelphia and saw the Liberty Bell, took a tour of the Independence Hall where they signed the Constitution of the U.S. in 1787 as well as the Declaration of Independence in 1776.
The kids loved the Philosophical society's new display of Darwin's life and works and the Beetle display. The girls got to make their own paper beetles and learned a lot about them from the resident bug expert :). We sat and had lunch outside in the sunshine and the kids ran around the park. After lunch we walked over to Franklin court where Benjamin Franklin's house used to stand, now they have a big metal structure showing where it was. Next to it is the Underground museum where we saw some of the items he invented such as the Franklin stove. The kids' favorite of the day had to be watching the 1956 cartoon of Ben and me, where a mouse is shown as Ben's friend and helper all throughout his life. It's a 25 min show and the kids learn a lot about Ben's life and his inventions. The night before we went to PA I read them a book about Franklin's life and inventions. they were very eager to learn about him and see the place of his life in real life. We also went inside the printing studio where we learned how newspapers were made in the 1700's.
This was not our first trip there but it's good to go at least once every year and see all it has to offer and as the kids get older they get more and more of the significance of old Philadelphia.
It was a long but good day.
Monday I took the kids to Greenwood cemetery, it's a 400 something acre lush green cemetery established in 1838. They have a lot of famous and interesting people interred inside. We saw the soldiers' monument that was erected in the 1860's which gave homage to the Revolutionary war soldiers and the Battle of Long Island (also battle of Brooklyn) and read about the first battle of the war that took place across the fields of where we were standing in Aug. 1776. It was a very peaceful day, I had a guide book that I bought a while back so we saw some interesting statues, and monuments. F loves cemeteries and this is a great place to learn about history as well. After 3 1/2 hours of walking around, collecting chestnuts and looking at gravestones, DH came and picked us up. Quick trip to Trader Joe's and then home to dinner and crash.. :) After 2 long days we were all in bed by 9 pm and woke up the next day close to 7:30 am.
Tuesday we went back to our regular schooling schedule of math, vocabulary, and language arts. F is now working on decimal points and how to multiply with them.
Errands always need to get done as well so we did laundry, then walked to the park and did food shopping at the fruit/vegetable stand.
We are also doing regular story time at night, last night we started The graveyard of Dinosaurs. The night before we started the 5Th book of Magic Tree house The night of the Ninjas.
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