First Grade Field Trip

In November, I chaperoned Spencer's 1st Grade Field Trip. We visited Morven Park, former home of Westmoreland Davis, who was the governor of VA starting in 1918. He grew up in VA, had a successful career as a lawyer in NYC, then returned to his boyhood home to pursue his passion for farming. With him, he brought treasures he and his wife had collected from their world travels.

Half of the first graders went on a nature hike around the property. The assigned day for Spencer's class was cold, wet, and windy, so instead of traipsing the trails, we got to tour the mansion, carriage house, and some of the outbuildings. It's something I've wanted to do as long as I have lived here. Every few years I run the New Year's Resolution Run (a 10k) around the grounds of Morven Park, and I am always struck by the beauty of the place. However, I have never followed up on my resolve to explore more formally. This was the chance I needed.

I loved exploring Morven Park with this fellow and his friends.

Spencer on the school bus.


Our little group.


Spence and me in front of the mansion.

Thanksgiving School Projects

An overwhelming number of papers and projects come home with my school kids. We haven't the space the keep them all, so I have taken to photographing some of the cutest things, and a select number of the ones that make the photo cut then find their way into the memory boxes.

Here are a few of Spencer's 1st Grade Thanksgiving projects:


Emma's preschool has been awesome this year. Her teacher is very creative, and she comes home with the most amazing projects. Presenting...Emma the Indian.


Here is her Pilgrim outfit.
*You will note that beneath each costume, Emma is dressed in a tutu. Standard daily wear around here. She changes as soon as she gets home.

And just to round out the preschool pictures, here is Emma from the week that they learned about dinosaurs and pretended to be paleontologists. She dug a dinosaur skeleton out of the sand, used a paintbrush to brush it off, all the while dressed in the hat and vest of a paleontologist. Her toilet-paper-tube binoculars were on hand for closer inspection of the specimen.

Fall Crafts

I'm not the craftiest mom you've ever met, but we do have some standard fall activities that I did as a girl (thanks, mom!) and my kids enjoy as well.

Here we are after having made leaf pictures with two of Emma's neighborhood friends. We went on a leaf walk before that, which was, arguably, the highlight of the afternoon. Collecting leaves is tons of fun. The kids were very creative with their pictures this year, and we had a smiley face/clown theme that caught on pretty strong.


Apple turkeys - another favorite activity. We invited Spencer's pals (both older brothers to Emma's cute friends) to join us for this one and did it the first day of Thanksgiving break. Each child brought an apple, and we supplied the candy. This year, we tried Mike and Ike. They were tasty, but I think we'll go back to something gummy next year since these were a little hard to spear with a toothpick.


Spencer's apple turkey had lots of weapons when it was complete. The turkey had to have 4 hands/wings to manage it all.


Emma made a classic apple turkey with very colorful feathers.


John was very focused on putting the candy on the toothpicks...and eating the candy along the way.