Our Trip to the Maryland Science Center

Trip to New York City!

We had the opportunity to visit New York City with a German exchange student our church was hosting. I've never really done the "touristy stuff" in NYC, so it was a unique experience for me! We also usually park in Hoboken and take the PATH over, but took the Staten Island Ferry for this trip. Here are the kids waiting patiently for the ferry:
And Nicholas pretending to be a race car driver:

At last, the ferry arrives!

And away we go!


Seeing the Statue of Liberty in the harbor was amazing:
One of Katie Grace's co-op classes was a National Parks class, and she had to do a presentation. We were very excited to discover that the Statue of Liberty Island and Ellis Island are national parks!
As impressive as the statue was from the boat, it was even more amazing up close:

And we even got to eat lunch with Msr. Batholdhi, the designer!
Next we headed over to Ellis Island. Unfortunately at this point, Katie Grace was pretty sick with a nasty cough.
Also unfortunately, this is where our camera ran out of juice:

After Ellis Island, we took the subway to Time Square and checked it out. From there, we walked to Rockerfeller Center and St. Patrick's Cathedral. We also made a stop at American Girl Place. We took the subway to Chinatown for a most excellent dinner at the Excellent Dumpling, and then headed home.

Field Trip: Camp Susque Soapmaking

One rainy March day, we went to Camp Susque for a soapmaking workshop. The original plan was to make soap outside over an open fire, but since it was rainy and cold, we had to settle for melt-and-pour over the woodstove in the Lodge.
We're always happy to run into old friends! For all the complaining people do about homeschoolers not being socialized, we certainly run into other unsocialized homeschoolers we know often. Here is Katie Grace and her buddy choosing their molds:
and pouring their soap:

And Michael, too!

Nicholas adding color to his soap:
And Daniel, just being cute:
The final activity of the day was to decorate sticks and rocks. I'm honestly not sure what it was all about. I think it was kind of a filler since they couldn't go outside. Regardless, here they are with their creations:

Our Field Trip to the North Museum in Lancaster, PA

We haven't had a field trip in a while, so when Daddy had to go to Lancaster for a pastor conference, we decided to tag along and spend the morning at the North Museum. I remembered the museum from grade school field trips, even though I hadn't been there in probably twenty years!

The kids loved the Discovery Room. Well, the younger three did. It was a little too young for Michael.
Katie Grace enjoyed the microscope.

The mural was fun, too, although Nicholas sort of missed the point and didn't put the animals in their habitats. He was going for the silliest placement possible!

Here is Katie Grace and Nicholas enjoyed a seashell discovery box. We also worked through a Native American box together. It was hard to believe we were handling objects that were hundreds of years old!

Nicholas's favorite part-- the dinosaur!

One of the reasons I wanted to go is they have a display about Pennsylvania Native Americans. Unfortunately, it's hard to find good, accurate information. The children enjoyed searching for petroglyphs.

Nicholas and Katie Grace enjoyed trying to grind corn.

Daniel mostly enjoyed climbing on things.

There was an "Arctic Adventure" exhibit when we were there.

Nicholas really liked the "moon rocks". I don't think they were actually moon rocks, but couldn't convince him otherwise.

Michael liked the star finder. We were really disappointed the planetarium wasn't running that day.

Madagascar hissing cockroaches. Blech! This was definitely the grossest thing in the live animal room.

Nicholas was fascinated by the turtle in his tank.