Family, Friends, Learning Fun, and New Experiences!

The past few days have been truly wonderful and full of family, friends, learning fun and new experiences. Here are a few highlights!

Thanksgiving Day at our friend's home – 3 courses and plenty of side dishes and an afternoon walk around their neighborhood. We arrived home in the late afternoon and enjoyed a family movie night curled up on the futon in from of the television watching “Bedknobs and Broomsticks”, one of my favorite movies when I was a child. D loved the finale with all the armor and the castles!

Saturday – Thanksgiving #2 at David's dad's house. Great to see the family and D got to play with his cousin, J. They are only a few months apart in age. It was one of the first times that they actually played with one another rather than playing along side one another.

Sunday – First Sunday of Advent. D share his first bread communion in church (which they had practiced last week in Sunday school.) After church we went to the Worcester Art Museum. We had never been to the WAM, despite living in the are for the last 2 years. It was a trip undertaken with the spirit of adventure. I had no idea what D would make of it. The museum supplied a “scavenger hunt” of several famous portraits which provided us with a purpose as we traveled the amazing galleries. D seemed most intrigued by the pictures with castles and animals. He particularly liked the Buddha statues in the Asia collection. Once we had traveled through the galleries and located all the portraits, we realized that a concert was about to begin! An experimental choir from Worcester Polytechnical Institute was there to give an acapella concert of traditional readings and British carols. We asked d if he would like to stay and he said yes, so we took seats in the back row in case we needed to make a quick exit. Although he squirmed and fidgited in his chair quite a bit (keeping in mind that he sat through a church service already that day for the Intergenerational Service) he really enjoyed the music. Later that evening I asked him what his favorite part of the day was, he replied, “I liked the singing soooooooo much!”

Tuesday – Homeschool Day at the EcoTarium! We brought the nature treasures we'd been collecting on our walks to the curator volunteers. They discussed the items with us and showed us how to create nature boxes. We were inspired to do a different nature box for each season. D scours the ground when we are outside for small treasures to add to our collection and record in our notepad. We enjoyed lunching and chatting with other homeschoolers at lunch. D loved the “animal encounter” - chinchillas!