His amazing teachers, Mrs. Kelly and Mr. Jay, have been teaching the kids that not all kids have water. (Some of Joseph's new favorite YouTube videos show kids walking barefoot to get buckets of muddy water and then their village gets a well built and they drink clean water.) The kids have been collecting change to raise money for Amman Imman. They have been studying artists, mimicking their work, and selling their art at a fundraiser for Amman Imman.
Joseph has learned about Andy Goldsworthy and done his own multi-media nature piece, Piet Mondrain and done his own rectangles and primary colors piece, and he learned about van Gogh and really loved his self portrait and tried his hand at his own version of starry night.
This, combined with Abigail's interest in art, led us to drive to DC today (55 minutes to get there, 100 to get home because I-95 does not have bi-directional HOV lanes, which I will never understand). Our first stop was the Smithsonian Art Museum. Joseph got to see one of his favorite new paintings.
After that, I had packed lunchboxes for us to eat lunch on the drive home, but it was such a mild day (nearly 50 degrees, but, for the first time in forever, NO WIND!!) that we had an impromptu picnic in front of the Capitol building before heading to the United States Botanic Garden where there is an orchid spectrum happening now. The kids got to try vanilla ice cream (vanilla is in the orchid family), see a cacao tree (not related to orchids, but fun for them), and plant their own orchids which may flower in 2 years if properly cared for.
