Happy Holloween

No costumes at our house (except at the door), just pumpkin carving.

My sister-in-law, Barbara, and I carved these today.

You can see a few more pumpkin pictures here.

Cooperation

I've been teaching preschool in the First Day School (Quaker Sunday School) at my Meeting this fall. Our group of 8 is mostly almost 4 year olds. Our current topic is cooperation and working together. This morning we joined together to make a quilt.

Amy helped me cut a bunch of squares from fabric in our scrap basket a few weeks ago. I taped a length of paper to the table (mostly cause it kept curling up) and the children and adults added squares of fabric. Our masterpiece now graces the wall of our classroom (as long as the push pins haven't give way).
The children, even the one 2 year old in attendance this morning, were engaged by this project for a good 20 minutes and a few were actively working for 30 minutes. (By the way two of the arms in the above picture are those of one of the other adults.)

As an aside - if you must use glue sticks (I can go into a tirade about those another time) I highly recommend the colored ones, which dry clear. The color makes it much easier to see where the glue has been applied.

Birthday Girl

Yesterday was my grandmother's 99th birthday. My aunt hosted a party for her - tea, cake and conversation - and since we live close-by we joined the fun.

See my flickr account (there's a link in the sidebar) for more pictures.

Elephants in Cambridge

In my head I have an image of a circus parade full of acrobats, clowns, brightly colored wagons and animals decked out in sparkles. This is probably the result of movies like Toby Tyler, a childhood favorite. Circus parades like that are a thing of the past, but in Boston there is a small piece still happening. Each year when the circus comes to town, their train is parked along the tracks that run parallel to Vassar St on the MIT campus. The shows take place across the river at the Boston Garden. The elephants and horses walk through the streets to get from the train to the Garden. In all of the years that I have worked in Cambridge I have never seen the elephant walk.

This year one of the event emails I receive regularly included the dates for the circus shows. And that gave me not only a reminder but also the time to determine when the elephants were due to make their trek.

Tonight was the night. It was not the ideal weather to watch the elephants - it is cold here. And it was dark. But we were determined to see the elephants so we bundled up and walked down to Memorial Drive to watch the elephants. We saw elephants:



The lead elephant.



Bringing up the rear.

And horses:

There was also a duck boat full of clowns, but alas no clown pictures.

It wasn't a fancy parade but it was a lot of fun.

If you're in the Boston area you've got another opportunity to see the elephants. On Sunday at 5 they make the walk back to the train.

Two for Tuesday: City-Country

Boston at twilight and Barn in the Adirondacks.

See more here.