Last week was spent in San Francisco, such a great trip it was! We visited all of our favorite place and some new ones. Here are some snapshots of our favorite city.
Palace of Fine Arts
Exploratorium nearby is a nice place to play around and experiment.
We walked all through the park and came to Dutch Mill and Tulip Garden
Dutch Windmill
crossed Golden Gate Bridge
and arrived to Muir Woods
cable car ride next day
Sea lions at Pier 39
We also met our friends, re-discovered the city by visiting little nooks in the streets, eating at local cafes and just inhaling this amazing cool air, that we are going to miss come hot Colorado summer. Five wonderful days. And some books to remember our trip:
As much as we miss California we really appreciate the change of seasons here.
Yesterday was a gorgeous late autumn day- clear skies with a few fluffy clouds, warm breeze...It's hard to believe that it could change overnight (having had a couple of heavy snowfalls this year already we are prepared:)), and yet the snow on the ground will be welcome.
Today -slightly colder, but still bright sun and fairly warm outside. We decided to talk again about seasons changing and what it means for plants and animals.
The book that helped us do it is Four Seasons:Uncovering Nature by Annie Jones - a beautiful present from friends. The book contains loads of information and is beautifully illustrated.
After reading we did an art project , inspired by this picture I found on pinterest. This project took us two days to finish. Day one: We sketched a forest scene on a large sheet of paper- some trees, animals. Second step was separating sheet vertically into four equal parts- one for each season (initially it was done in pencil, when D. was ready to color I erased pencil and traced a line with a white crayon). Day Two: D. traced outlines with crayons using appropriate colors for each season (bright green for fresh grass, gray-blue for snowy ground, dark brownish-green for autumn grass, etc.). The forth step is painting each part with watercolors. Add some outlining with oil pastels and glitter accents and voila!
As much as I love doing science with kiddos, I must confess it is not my usual favorite subject to plan (being a liberal arts major all my life (and being told by "kind" teachers that science is not my thing all my life)). However this year I'm thoroughly enjoying it. September and October were dedicated to animals in general, and Colorado animals in particular. The November and December are going to be all about Space.
We had a great start learning about the Sun and having most amazing field trip to the Fiske Planetarium and Sommers-Bausch Observatory in Boulder.
The trip was organized by our amazing co-op -we saw the show about Sun's influence on the Earth at the Planetarium and got an incredibly interesting observatory tour. It was a lot of information for us to process afterwards, but D. was absolutely charmed by being given a chance to look at the sun and two stars (all that is visible in the daylight) through the huge telescopes.
looking for Venus
I had no idea that there is such a great place not so far away from us and now I believe we will visit both planetarium and the observatory quite often. The observatory has open house events which allow general public to do some stargazing every Friday during semester.
Before going to the planetarium we read about our Sun and talked about its importance to all that is alive.
Our reading material this week included our favorite encyclopedia- Universe from DK publishing ( as I have written before the latest editions come with handy posters that look great on our wall)
This book is always fun for little ones :
Another source of information is a book that we found on NASA webpage (some info is still beyond D.'s comprehension, but he got a good idea of what sun does) Super Star meets the plucky planet storybook
Our autumn was especially beautiful this year. Now all the gold is almost gone from the trees, but I still want to share it here.
We did a window display again. Last year we did the most beautiful watercolor leaves out of coffee filters for our window. This year we decided to use tracing paper and wax crayons for more "cartoonish" effect. The result is a very cheerful window :)
There's nothing better than exploring, even better if it happens not far from home. This time we headed to the Conifer area. My parents and I discovered this picturesque park there in the fall, but DH didn't have the pleasure to see it yet and I really wanted to hike all the way up the mountain. The weather was absolutely lovely, how grateful I am for this day now when it's chilly and rains!
We were greeted by spring flowers!
Aspens
Beautifully mossy tree stump
The sap was oozing from the trees, we just had to touch it and we had to have sticky and (pleasantly) smelly fingers
Magic forest, reminds me of Lord of the Rings, 1st movie for some reason
Finally at the top!
Some trees are only just starting to wake up
Wonderful day it was, looking forward to new adventures !
The other day we had a spontaneous trip to one of the most famous Colorado beauties- Garden of the Gods. It was a great walk indeed. Sandstone formations tower over paved walks and numerous trees provide nice shade. Admission is always free. This park is said to be especially beautiful in the morning and right before sunset, we were there shortly after midday and it was still breathtaking.
There are many birds there, one curious scrub-jay was even following us around the park to children's delight.
curious birdie
Pikes Peak
On the way back we decided to stray off the interstate because my parents told us that back roads ( highway 67 and 105 that is) are empty and picturesque. It took us longer to get home (time wise, in terms of miles we even saved 2,5) but it was definitely worth it. We passed farms and ranches, beautiful mansions and even one mysterious community(?), the entrance to which looked like a castle. Shame we didn't stop to find out what it was. The hills were green and sun was golden. Small towns along the way are worth checking out too. Unfortunately there are no pictures from our trip back as we didn't want to stop, but next time I won't miss the opportunity :)
by M.Sasek
by H.Caen
by Virginia Lee Burton.
by Tricia Brown
by Don Freeman
