Week 4- Independence

 Since we planned on heading out of town for the 4th of July, I lightened up on the amount of work.
Monday, we were still home, so talked about the basics of 4th of July. After our regular spelling and math, we read a book about Betsy Ross and the supposed origin of our flag. Then I pretended to be George Washington, ordering a new flag for my country. The kids designed their own versions.

 I was curious to know exactly how many states the girls knew and had them color the ones they did. We have recent connections to most of these states, but Pennsylvania? I have no idea.

 For our trip, the kids usually like to do a lot of coloring, but the pages fly everywhere. I found these handy binder boxes at a thrift store- 40 cents for all three!!  I printed up little cover pages with their requested favorite things- Hannah's is a picture of mac and cheese of course. : ) I filled the boxes with things to do.

 We read a couple of books on George Washington and colored a picture.

 

 

For the music portion of the week, of course we've been singing the Star Spangled Banner, but taking advantage of several hours in the car, we brought many of our patriotic cds, one of which I could brag I was on. : )

 Once at Grandma and Grandpa's lovely house complete with woods, lake, and deck, schoolwork had a pretty pleasant atmosphere.

 We used the front porch to make a store. Hannah's learning about the 10s place in math as well as different coins. So we used play dimes and pennies, lines up things from around the house and put price tags on them. The girls had to put the correct change on the item in order to buy it. They liked it, so we'll do more of that at home to really help them absorb the concept.

 We took a tour of Grandma's new school where she'll be teaching 3rd grade. The kids wanted to sit at the desks and have her teach a lesson.

 

                                 What a nice school, and I loved that the hallways were color coded.

                                        A lot of our time was spent just enjoying family.

                     For art, we made a few crafts with the cousins. Poster board paper airplanes...

                                and made glitter fireworks and hands/feet bald eagles on the dock.

                                      This year we tried a watermelon eating contest- so fun.

 On our way back home, we stopped for an official field trip to the Bill Clinton library in Little Rock, Arkansas. We'd heard it was mainly for adults and mostly full of things to read, but we were surprised with several things the kids could enjoy.

 They played in the cool fountains outside and we walked on the bridge over the Arkansas River.

 Inside we were excited to find that George Washington's personal copy of the constitution was visiting until Friday. No pictures were allowed, and we went into a quiet dark room to view it. He even had rare markings in pencil, highlighting parts he felt especially important. The book itself has been on quite a journey- what a perfect coincidence for this week's school!  In the Clinton portion of the library, Hannah recognized the seal from one of our books as well as the bald eagle we had read about just a few minutes before.

 In one section they had portraits of world leaders at the time of his presidency. I was happy when the girls immediately found China's flag and even Great Britain's since they learned about that at the church co-op. In general, Hannah was interested when I pointed out specific things. Chloe was interested in everything she saw and asked tons of good questions. I didn't always know the full answer, but I tried to give her enough to satisfy her curiosity. I was impressed she could focus on all this complicated information at all!

 Pretty views...

 Every day of Clinton's schedule was kept in binders. Dax found the Inauguration parade, which he marched in back in college. He also found the day Clinton arrived at the Knoxville airport at which Dax played in a welcoming band and shook Clinton's hand. My claim to fame was having played on the soundtrack to the HGTV special "Christmas at the Whitehouse" for the Clintons. So we ended up all having a bit of connection.

 Another great surprise for the kids was an entire room full of things celebrating George Washington. They tried "hoe-cakes" (small buttery pancakes smeared with honey) and wrote with quills.

                                   They rolled up beeswax candles and guessed who got purple?

                They played ring toss with rope and milk jugs filled with sand- an old game called quoits.
                I learn something new everyday.

              I'm ready for my exclusive meeting with the president. Guess he's a little late.

            The wardrobe of the 1st Lady- she looked great wearing these in the pictures, but in real life,  many of these looked pretty uncomfortable!

                  It's not a Clinton museum without a collection of saxophones. I can't wait to come back on my own someday and really read everything. It's pretty amazing what a huge job the presidency is. Regardless of one's support for who holds the office, it takes an amazing human to take want to take on such a task.

             Last but not least, Hannah drew her own portrait of George Washington, age 5.
Overall, I was surprised that even though we were light on written work this week, there was still lots to learn and absorb for the kids about one of my favorite holidays. And to me, experiences are worth more than anything else.

             Next week we begin Madeline- an old favorite!