A Wonderful Trip to the Philadelphia Museum of Art

It is that time of year again.  Throughout our neighborhood, children are climbing on the school bus bright and early. Many of them are excited, but some, and you can see it on their faces, simply would rather stay home.  As far as I know, we are the only exception in our neighborhood. We homeschool.  This year, we have a fourth grader and a K/1st grader, depending on the subject. 

I have found over the past two years, that transitioning from summer break to the academic year can be a challenge when you never board the bus or walk to another building, so we are making a gentle, free-flowing change. We will be in the full swing of things in a few weeks when co-op begins.  Last week we kicked off the changeover to daily lessons with a fun field trip to the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

We were pleasantly surprised to find several interactive stations among the exhibits.

Up until our visit, I  thought I knew what 6 artists we would study this year, but seeing how excited they were about Pablo Picasso, I added him to our curriculum.

Having the flexibility to travel and tour is one of my favorite things about homeschooling.  Have you already started field trips too?

Plans Change and Contemplating Art

As we were on our way to Oklahoma last week, our plans changed and we had to turn around and come back to frigid Pennsylvania. Our plans of delightful southern hospitality will wait until next month.

Yesterday, after a couple of days being couped up with only little freezing bursts of outside time, I had to get out of the house. So out we went on a field trip to the Reading Public Museum where there is everything from an Egyptian mummy to a stuffed bobcat to modern art. (And for one more week, an excellent exhibit on the Boy Scouts.)

I let my boys explore, as long as we were in the same room. (I worked hard when they were little at being consistent in teaching them appropriate museum behavior, so now I generally don't have to worry about them in such settings - thankfully.) They each stopped at artwork and just stared, so I let them be. Sometimes we all just need to simply be left to contemplate, dream, and wonder, right?