The Continuing Adventures of Bonnie and Clyde

Well, it’s been a busy couple of months.  So, I’ll try to catch you up on things.

Bonnie and the girl scouts have been quite busy.  They prepared lunches for the local homeless shelter, have been involved in a country-wide postcard exchange with other girl scouts, and they’re preparing for the World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts Thinking Day celebration.  Bonnie’s country is France, so she’s been having fun learning about the country.  Apart from all that, she’s in the middle of cookie sales.  She’s quite thankful for all who have supported her this year, and she’s looking forward to working a booth soon.  (I’m hoping that the weather warms up before our turn to stand outside!)

Clyde and the boy scouts have just returned from a ski trip.  Clyde took a turn in ski school, and then hit the trails.  He learned to wedge all the way down the mountain, and has realized that while the mind was willing; the shins were weak.  His troop is trying to sell mulch, which is an interesting prospect with the weather we’ve been having.  I can’t wait for mulch weekend – the husband and I have bets on how many bags of mulch he’ll be able to lift.

School-wise, there isn’t a whole lot new.  Most of our activities are year-long activities, and there hasn’t been a whole lot new.  But there are some highlights:

Our art co-op studied art in the style of Calder.  Each kid built a mobile, and not surprisingly, the subject of Bonnie and Clyde’s mobiles were their favorite football teams:

They also studied art in the style of Dali – creating dream photographs of outrageous and impossible subjects and ideas.  They enjoyed that and now I have a rainy-day activity that is guaranteed to occupy them for a few hours.

Bonnie and Clyde are still in the writing class, and didn’t put up a fuss about signing up for the next level classes next year.  Progress!

In science, the kids are just completing a class on the different systems of the human body – the digestive system, the nervous system, etc.  The teacher wasn’t quite brave enough to tackle the reproductive system, though.  Ah well.  That’ll be left for the at-home science teacher, I guess.

We’re about finished with the Civil War – the kids have wrapped up their Civil War lapbook, and we’ve finished reading Across Five Aprils.

In music, the kids have been practicing for the annual music festival.  They each played two individual pieces, and then they had two duets to play.  Since we’re not able to record the festival, we took a quick video of their practice session.  I’ll upload those tomorrow.

I see that I forgot to finish updating this post, and hit publish.  Sorry about that!  This post was originally about the week before the week of Thanksgiving.  It was a catch-up week since Clyde was recovering from H1N1, and there were a ton of activities that week, too.  Busy, busy!

In the kids’ pottery class, they made coasters out of tiles, using shaving cream and dishwashing soap to create a textured design.  Those had to be fired, so I won’t have a picture until we pick them up after the next pottery lesson.  My sensory-challenged kid was able to do the craft; a big step for him!

Tuesday of that week, we learned how to sculpt in the style of Rodin.  The kids used sculpting tools made of paperclips and clothespin to whittle away their designs from the block.  Clyde created a tie-fighter and Bonnie went for a globe.  They still need to paint those now that the clay is dry, but they had fun creating a mess with the little pointy tools.

Wednesday, both kids went to scouts.  The girls learned how to crochet to satisfy the Yarn & Fabric Arts junior badge.  They learned both how to finger crochet, and how to use a hook to create a simple chain stitch.  I had to learn enough so that I could help the scouts, and in the process became quite hooked (no pun intended).  Since then, we’ve been having a good time checking out crochet patterns for napkin rings, hats, wash cloths, etc.  Thank goodness for the patience of several good teachers; they are all so much more helpful than a picture in a book.

The next week was mostly Thanksgiving prep.  One of Bonnie and Clyde’s grandmothers came to town, and the big kid came home from college, so we had a household.  Besides eating way too much, the kids enjoyed playing games and hanging out with family.  It’s going to be rough to get back to school!

(FYI, the IEW papers have been updated for both kids as well.)

Please add to the annals of  “Things that I never thought I’d say as a parent” the statement, “Why is there a salami sandwich under my couch?”

In more mundane matters, it’s been a busy couple of weeks around here.  Both Bonnie and Clyde took and passed another TKD test.  They were a bit nervous about it, but came through with flying colors.  The test was 3 hours long, though, and Clyde started feeling punky about half-way through the test, so he was quite glad he was able to complete it.  Neither kid has been able to wear their new belt, however, because that was the onset of the flu for Clyde.

It was about 9 days of symptoms for Clyde.  Once we decided it was definitely flu-like, we gave him oscillococcinum, which did a great job in knocking back the symptoms, but didn’t quite knock the flu out of his system (which was quite unusual).  His fever remained fairly low-grade, so we never saw the scary fevers that other friends experienced, but he couldn’t quite kick it until this past weekend.

The rest of the family seems to have missed it (knock on wood) and we hope that that’s our last run-in with the flu for the winter.

We were a bit concerned that Bonnie stay healthy as we were supposed to go on a Girl Scout campout this past weekend.  So, come Saturday morning, we packed up the car and headed out for 24 hours of Girl Scout fun.  It was a really wonderful time!  After many days of rain, we had beautiful weather and the girls enjoyed their time outside.  They went on hikes and learned how to recognize some different trail signs.  Bonnie enjoyed practicing skits and making SWAPS (Special Whatchamacallits Affectionately Pinned Somewhere) to trade with her fellow scouts.  In fact, she enjoyed the whole weekend.  When we got home, her comment was that it was, “the best camping trip I have ever been on, and it makes me want to cry.  In a good way.”  You can’t ask for better than that.

And the reason there was a salami sandwich under the couch?  That’s probably best left to the imagination.

One of the biggest surprises when we first started homeschooling was the HUGE number of activities which were available to homeschooling families in our area.  So, the first year we signed up for too many activities, and were run ragged hurrying from one thing to another.  The next year, we backed off a little too much, and the kids felt we were home too much.  Every year since has been a bit of a balancing act.

So, this year, we deliberately picked activities that didn’t occur every single week.  It provides us with the variety, and a lot of flexibility in the schedule.  This week, however, was one of those rare weeks when all the activities collided into the same schedule.   Oy!

In our first art class of the week, Bonnie had to create and paint a mold in her pottery class (Clyde decided to skip this activity).  Bonnie chose a Christmas tree for her mold, and while the class waited for the clay to dry enough to paint, she chose a horse-head magnet to paint.   Both items have to wait until the next class to be picked up, though, so no pictures yet.

In the 2nd art class, a couple of us have gotten together and formed an art co-op based on the Discovering Great Artists book.  The book features art  activities for children to experience the styles and techniques of the great masters.  For example, they might emulate what it’s like to be Michaelangelo painting on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel by laying down on their backs and painting on paper taped to the underside of a table.

Our co-op started our first session by learning about Piet Mondrian and Andy Warhol.

Piet Mondrian wanted to create pictures to express thoughts and feelings entirely created with straight lines and simple colors.   Here’s one of Clyde’s attempts.  He just couldn’t stay with rectangles, or leave any white space in it, though.

Andy Warhol liked making art using the images of famous people or things.  Many of his paintings show repeats of the same image colored in different ways.  Bonnie was really excited about this one.  In her picture, she gave herself a different necklace for each image.

The creepy skin tone seems really fitting for Halloween, too… But she really had fun messing with Clyde.   She took the picture of his favorite bear and made it a Colts fan (something Clyde is NOT).

Thanks R for leading the kids on such fun activities!

Besides the two days of art activities, it was also Girl Scout week.  This week, the girls had a guest speaker – a police detective, who shared what it was like to be an investigator, to help them work towards their Marvelous Mysteries Badge.  Our family finished up the badge last night with a rousing Murder Mystery game at home.

Next week should have much less running around, thank goodness!

As I mentioned in the beginning of the year, both Bonnie and Clyde are taking classes using the Institute for Excellence in Writing’s writing curriculum.  Clyde’s is focusing on the creation of Powerful Paragraphs, while Bonnie’s class is a Level I class (this is her first year).

I’ve created a tab at the top of this blog containing this year’s writing samples for both kids, to watch as their writing develops.

Enjoy!

Having visited the turning point of the Civil War, it seemed necessary to also visit the site of the bloodiest one day conflict, and to also see the town that saw the events which headed the nation towards Civil War and was a key strategic location for both the North and the South.

So, we started the final day of our field trip with a stop at Antietam National Battlefield.

The Battle of Antietam was the culmination of the Maryland Campaign of 1862, the first invasion of the North by Confederate General Robert E. Lee and the Army of Northern Virginia.  Over 23,000 lives were lost in that one day, and though the battle was tactically inconclusive, Lee withdrew his forces back to Virginia (ending this first campaign in the North) and it gave Lincoln enough confidence to announce his Emancipation Proclamation

Unfortunately, the museum was closed that day, so we took a quick look around the Visitors Center, looked out over the grounds,

decided against another car tour, and decided to move on to Harpers Ferry National Historic Park, where there would be more to see and do.

Indeed, there was too much to see and do at Harpers Ferry; we were only able to cover one small portion of it on this trip: the lower town. Some day we’ll have to return with plans to hike some of the ridges and explore more of the Civil War ruins that are still around.

Harpers Ferry is located at the intersection of Virginia, West Virginia and Maryland, and is located at the confluence of the Shenandoah and Potomac Rivers.

You’d be right if you thought that that created a recipe for a flood plain, and indeed, the town has flooded many times.   Here, Clyde contemplates the height of the flood waters from various historic floods.

The lower part of the town is the National Historic Park, and was mostly deserted, making it seem a bit like a ghost town …

… which was a shame, as we really needed more people to witness the family in 1860s clothes.

Harpers Ferry is historically important for multiple reasons.  It’s perhaps best known as the location of John Brown’s raid on the Federal Armory.  John Brown was an abolitionist who planned to raid the armory at Harpers Ferry in order to arm rebellious slaves and strike terror amongst slave owners throughout the south.   He ran into several problems, and ended up holed up in an engine house, which became known as John Brown’s fort.

President Buchanan sent a detachment of marines, led by Robert E. Lee, to Harpers Ferry to squash the rebellion, and John Brown was eventually hung for his treasonous actions against the government.  Though the raid failed, it is commonly credited with escalating the tensions between slave and free states to ignite the War Between the States.

Once the war began, Harpers Ferry became an important and strategic location.  It had witnessed the arrival of the first successful American railroad, and because of it’s location on the B&O Railroad, Union and Confederate troops moved through Harpers Ferry frequently.  The town changed hands 8 times between 1861 and 1865.

One of Clyde’s favorite Civil War heroes is Stonewall Jackson, and he was thrilled to learn that Harpers Ferry was also the location of one of Jackson’s most decisive victories.  In September 1862, Robert E. Lee led the confederate troops into his first invasion of the North, and he chose Jackson to lead the assault on Harpers Ferry.

On the morning of September 15, surrounded by a force twice the size of their own and out of long range artillery ammunition, the Union forces surrendered.  Jackson captured over 12,500 Union troops at Harpers Ferry – the largest single capture of Federal forces during the entire war.  The southern victory was short-lived, however, as the Battle of Antietam was to come two days later, and ended Robert E. Lee’s northern invasion.

With that, we were at the end of our time, and began our trip home.  We’ll have to head south to visit sites for the end of the Civil War, but that’s for another trip.

Though we haven’t visited very many Civil War sites, it seemed as if we would be remiss if we didn’t make a stop in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania since we were so close to it.  One of the bloodiest battles, the three-day engagement is described as the turning point in the war.  The battlefield is quite large, and there are lots of tours that you can take, but we weren’t sure if there would be enough kid-appropriate things to hold their attention.

It ended up becoming Clyde’s favorite stop on this whole trip.

We started at the Gettysburg National Military Park Visitors Center and purchased the kid-friendly version of the audio car tour.  There’s a more complete version of the audio tour to the park, but the cashier was quite helpful in telling us that the kids’ version would be more engaging to them.  She was right; this version was perfect for their attention spans, and the descriptions of the individual skirmishes were engaging, but not overly grisly; factual and not overly simplified.  The kids still gained a decent understanding of the issues and situations on each battle day, but weren’t totally overwhelmed with names and places.

We also picked up the Junior Ranger booklet to the park, which has activities for the kids to complete at many of the sites in the park.  We’ve done many other Junior Ranger booklets, and each activity usually takes between 5 and 15 minutes to complete.  It can get a little annoying if the kids focus on only completing the booklet, instead of seeing other things in the park, but it also calls their attention to things they might not normally notice.  However, if you have children and plan to do this activity booklet at Gettysburg, be aware that it’s MUCH longer and more complete than any of the other booklets we’ve seen.  Most activities were rated to take between 45 minutes and an hour, and some take longer than that.  It’s an excellent resource if you’re going to spend a large amount of time at the park (at least 2 days), but be aware it could be frustrating if you’re only spending an afternoon here.

Anyhow, we started the car tour, thinking it would take us about 2 hours to work our way through the park.  We should have realized it would be longer when we were sidetracked at the very first stop on the tour.  The whole tour was quite amazing – the dramatizations of each battle, the descriptions of strategies, the consequences of decisions were all outlined for the kids.   There are approximately 1600 monuments in the park, and some of the most significant are also called out on the tour.

One of the most impressive monuments in the park is the Eternal Light Peace Memorial with the eternal flame.

Located on the summit of Oak Hill and surrounded by guns that mark Confederate artillery positions, the Eternal Light Peace Memorial overlooks the July 1st battlefield.   It was dedicated by former Union and Confederate soldiers to “Peace Eternal in a Nation United” in 1938, and the flame was lit by FDR.

One of the most chilling sections of the tour was the area known as the Devil’s Den in the Valley of Death.  A turning point for Day 2, the kids could easily see how the Confederate soldiers were trapped when they gave up the advantage of the higher ground.

And the kids were also quite moved by the Pennsylvania memorial which lists the names of all 34,530 Pennsylvanians who lost their lives in the Civil War around the base.  As the football fan stated, “That’s over 2 and a half stadiums of people!”

We ended up interrupting our audio tour in order to make the final ranger program of the day at the National Cemetery, the location of Lincoln’s famous Gettysburg Address.

We had issues with the ranger, but we did learn that Lincoln was NOT the featured speaker of the day.  When the cemetery was being dedicated, a popular orator at the time was asked to speak, and he prepared two hours worth of remarks on the battle at Gettysburg.  Lincoln was asked to just say a few, brief, appropriate remarks.  His comments were so brief that the photographer wasn’t able to set up his camera in time to get a picture!

I’m not sure the full implications of this cemetery really sunk in for the kids, but they did see the Soldiers’ memorial,

and learned that the great, great, (great?) grandfather of President Richard Nixon is buried here.  Someone had set a dime on his grave marker, and we would love to know the story about that.

By this time, we were quite a bit behind on our planned itinerary, so we had to do a little revising on the fly.  After a decent night’s sleep, we went back to the Minuteman National Historic Park’s visitors center in Lexington, just to see what was there before heading on  our way. It was an absolutely gorgeous morning.

This visitor’s center focus is entirely on the events of April 19, 1775 and we saw one of the best multi-media presentations on those events that I have ever seen.  I’m so glad that we stayed to see it.  It very clearly outlined the events on the Lexington Commons, the North Bridge, and the ensuing battle down Battle Road and the kids got a very good feel for how the Revolutionary War actually began.  It tied together a bunch of loose pieces, I think, and was totally worth the stop.

We had planned to stop in Hartford, CT and at the New England Carousel museum, but those didn’t make the cut.  Instead, we did a long drive down through NY (over the Tappan Zee bridge), though NJ, into PA, to make our way over to start the Civil War portion of the trip at Gettysburg.  However, we didn’t want the two battles to get confused, so we needed something to delineate one portion of the trip from another, and what better way to do that than to stop at the very historical Chocolate World?

Ahem.

Okay, so maybe not really historical, though there are Revolutionary soldiers buried in the town, and we did learn quite a bit about the history of Milton Hershey and the Hershey Chocolate empire.

The kids enjoyed the factory tour ride (and the free sample) and enjoyed packaging up their very own package of Hershey kisses.

The trolley tour through town was quite interesting, too.  The kids really got a kick out of the Hershey kiss street lights

and the fact that there are 80 million kisses made each day (just imagine the thousands of miles of foil needed to wrap those kisses!)

And, they enjoyed the multiple free samples along the trolley route, too.  “It’s the milk chocolate!”

Someday, they’re looking forward to returning, but mainly to ride the rides at Hershey Park.

Since the focus of this field trip was on historical things, I was looking forward to the stop in Boston for a quick little side trip into cultural history, with a quick visit to the restaurant that inspired the TV show Cheers.  It was right off the trolley tour, what could be easier, right?  It was a sitcom-worthy day of misadventures, and while I did see the outside of the restaurant, alas, I will have to be greeted where everybody knows my name another day.

We had planned to start early, take a quick trolley ride through Boston, hear some historical facts, and then move along to Lexington and then head towards Connecticut.  We knew we weren’t going to be able to walk the whole Freedom Trail (little legs on Bonnie would have tired out long before the end of the trail) and the trolley tour seemed a good compromise.

We got a late start to the day, and when we boarded the trolley at stop 1 (near Quincy Market / Faneuil Hall), we learned that stop 3 was unavailable for the morning, but would be available towards the afternoon.  There was a movie shoot going on in the morning, and the bridge was blocked off.  Okay.  A quick look at the map showed that stop 3 was exactly where we wanted to be – at the Bunker Hill memorial.  Argh!

So, we rode by Paul Revere’s house, and decided that we would hoof it from stop 4 (The Garden) up to Bunker Hill, then walk back to stop 4 to re-board the trolley.  The day was nice enough for the walk, and we had an excellent view of the Leonard P. Zakim Bunker Hill Bridge as we walked across the Charlestown Bridge along the Freedom Trail.  Though it was a bit confusing, as there was plenty of traffic going across the bridge.

A quick view of the USS Constitution (we skipped it since we had just done a ship tour) and then we walked up to the Bunker Hill monument.

It is, of course, at the top of a hill, Breed’s Hill, to be exact, and Bonnie, in particular, was glad that we weren’t walking the whole Freedom Trail.  Good choice there!  We wandered into the Memorial, and there was a sign:

And, of course, Bonnie & Clyde wanted to climb to the top.  294 steps to the top.  There’s a family story that Dad was once challenged by Grandpa to RUN up and down those steps in under 2 minutes (history says that he made it, too) but I can tell you that it took us longer than 2 minutes to go up those steps.  The steps are helpfully periodically numbered, so you can tell when there are 284 … 200 … 100 .. 50 steps to go.  The view from the top is delightful.

But then, remember, there are 294 steps on the way down.  The kids did learn that different leg muscles are used to climb UP stairs and to walk DOWN.  So, history and anatomy, all in the same day.  That’s a homeschooling bonus!  There was the mishap of the missing dad, and the mishap of the iron-covered hands, but we did eventually make it back down to the Charlestown Bridge to head back to the Garden, and we realized there was something odd about the bridge.

Yes, it was completely deserted.  Apparently the filming had not yet taken place, and the bridge was, indeed, blocked off.  We were stopped about halfway across the bridge, as the scene was supposed to start, but there was some sort of delay, so we were finally allowed to cross.  We did get to see cars backing up the bridge … we assume it is some sort of chase scene as there was talk of a helicopter coming down the bridge a little later in the day, too.   We hung around for a bit, but then gave up as we were already really behind on the day, but when the movie “The Town” comes out, we’ll have to watch it for the scene.

We made it back to The Garden, finally, and then realized that the trolleys weren’t running there either.  Apparently, they had expanded the closures to include stop #4, so we had to hoof it to stop #5, about another 1/2 mile walk.  Yes, Bonnie was very tired by then.  We did finally find a trolley (despite the mishap of the missed trolley) and were very relieved to sit for a bit.

The swan boats were put away for the season, but we did get a view of the “Make Way for Ducklings” statue, and finally, we reached Cheers.  Hooray!  Lunch, at last!  We took the required tourist photos out front, then went inside to be seated.

Instead of hearing “Norm!” though, we heard that it was an hour wait for a table.  Kids were expiring, so we gave it up as another mishap, and wandered around until we found some food.  A few more delays and mishaps, and we basically gave up on Boston for the day.  It was late, we canceled our hotel reservations for the next stop (there was no way we were going to get that far), and instead, moved over to Lexington, MA.

We had originally planned to just buzz through Lexington on the way to somewhere else, but upon finding out that they could get their National Parks passport stamped at the (closed for the day) visitors center, we decided to see a few sites on a self-guided tour, and would visit the visitors center in the morning before moving along.

So, of course, we had to see the Minuteman Statue.

The statue in Lexington is said to face the same direction as the advancing British “regulars” (the regular army), and this is his view today.

From there, we walked the Battle Green, stopped at the Revolutionary monument, and visited the reconstructed belfry.  There, we had a bit of an odd moment, as it was pouring about 20 feet away from us, yet we were perfectly dry.

From there, we made our way to the Old North Bridge.  It ended up being a gorgeous evening at the bridge.

At one end is the gravesite for the first British soldiers to lose their lives in the Revolutionary War.

The inscription reads:

Grave of British Soldiers
They came three thousand miles and died,
to keep the past upon its throne:
Unheard, beyond the ocean tide,
their English Mother made her moan.

At the other end of the bridge is the Concord Minuteman statue, which marks the spot where the Minuteman first turned back the British regulars on the first day of the war.

The best known stanza from Ralph Waldo Emerson’s Concord Hymn is inscribed on the base of the statue:

By the rude bridge that arched the flood,
Their flag to April’s breeze unfurled,
Here once the embattled farmers stood
And fired the shot heard round the world.

One of the most challenging things, for me, on a trip of this length is dealing with the disappointment when Mother Nature does not follow my plans.  We had planned to spend this day in Plimoth Plantation, soaking up the costumed-goodness of the period.  Alas, the forecast was predicting a 100% chance of rain and thundershowers, so we were pretty sure that wasn’t going to be worth the drive.

Instead, we spent the morning at the Mashantucket Pequot Museum on the Pequot reservation in Mashantucket, CT.  It’s a fascinating museum of Native American art and artifacts, and we were quite disappointed we weren’t allowed to take photographs in the museum exhibits as it is really is a nice treat.

We first took a ride up the 18-story tower to get a view of the reservation (and casino!).  Quite impressive.  The actual tour started with a descent down, underground, and back in time to the Ice Ages.  The exhibits are state-of-the-art and well-maintained, and both kids enjoyed the exhibits.  Favorite exhibits included a video of the ruffled grouse (that sounds like a lawnmower that can’t quite start!), a diorama of a buffalo hunt that filled the room, a 300-pound beaver, and the beautiful, extinct, dire wolf.  A film on tool-making was extremely well done and interesting, as well.

We still wanted to see Plymouth Rock, even if we couldn’t tour the Plantation, so we headed on up to Plymouth after lunch.  It was quite rainy, and the heavens really opened just as we arrived at the Mayflower II.  Fearing that we would flood out the car, we moved to higher ground and toured the Pilgrim Hall Museum instead, a museum of Pilgrim history and possessions.  The museum has a “treasure hunt” for kids to help engage them in the exhibits – paintings and artifacts from the Pilgrims and the Wampanoag culture.  The kids enjoyed the possessions that were brought over on the Mayflower:  a 3-legged chair, a chair for a baby, a baby cradle, an ornate upholstered chair were amongst their favorites.  Unfortunately, no pictures were allowed there either.

By the time they finished the treasure hunt, the rain had let up a little, so we went back to visit Plymouth Rock.  The actual rock is protected from vandals, but I think this is new(ish).  I’ll have to look back through old family photos, because I thought we had a picture of me standing ON Plymouth Rock when I was a kid.

You can see the rock in the bottom portion of the monument, behind the bars.

From there, it’s just a short walk to the Mayflower II, a replica of the original Mayflower.

We had just enough time to tour the ship before it closed, and it was worth it to breathe in the smells (thankfully not too many!) and sights of how the voyage must have been for the Pilgrims.  The sea voyage itself was 66 days, but they spent almost 6 months on-board the ship because of a delayed start, and then having to build lodging when they landed.  Just imagining the living quarters with the livestock was enough to make us all happy that we were not on that voyage!

We had quite an enjoyable Navigator who regaled us with his theories about intelligence being related to hair color, and he told us how he would shout down directions to steer the ship to the sailor at the steering stick.  You can see that the person steering couldn’t actually see where they were going!

Of course, by the time we were done, the skies cleared, but we had to move on from Plymouth.