American Village

One of my favorite field trips this year has been to The American Village in Montevallo.  Our focus on history for second grade has been American History.  This was a great place to see some of that with skits and replicas.

 

The day started with a skit (actually an audience participation rally) concerning no taxation without representation.  We were all chanting and it was quite fun to kind of get to see what our forefathers did.

 

 This is a statue of George Washington.  We spent a good deal of time on him this year and there was quite a bit at American Village devoted to him.

This is a replica of The Oval Office to the exact specifications.  There was alot of nuggets from multiple past presidents (such as a jar of jelly beans from Ronald Reagan's administration).  We all found this room very interesting.  They give you a lot of history and information on site.  I learned so much I didn't know.  Homeschooling has proven to be very educational for Mom, too :)

This was one of the gardens.  All of the gardens were so beautiful but we weren't able to enjoy them.  You can't really tell in this picture, but it was nasty weather that day.  We were soaked to the bones by the time we left.

There was this entire building of miniatures.  This case was of each of the president's and their wives.  This was probably my favorite building.  There was so much to take in.  There is no way to take and post all of the stuff, but trust me, it was good.  There were miniature combat zones from the war, miniature space exploration scenes, and more. 

These are my little prisioners.  Leah wouldn' actually put her head in.  She said it was too scary. 

This is a replica of the Liberty Bell.

This man was one of the actors and he was good.  He wouldn't even get out of character when we were just having a regular conversation.  He was quite humerous.

I forgot what they actually call this building, but I just thought it looked fancy and worthy of a picture.  There was a lot of good stuff in here.  Replicas of the early Congressional meeting rooms, framed copies of the Declaration of Independence and Constitution and much more.

Like I said, this was one of my favorite field trips (despite the super yucky weather).  It definitely reinforced much of what we have learned this year.

Zebra Cupcakes and Ice Skating

These are some cupcakes that I did for the girls' friend, Eva.  She LOVES zebra print.  Last year I made her a zebra print cake and this year she wanted cupcakes.  After some brainstorming with her mom, we decided on zebra print holders with some 'E's and '8's as cupcake toppers.  I cut those out of zebra print scrapbook paper with my Cricut and put them on lollipop sticks.  I used hot pink icing and sprinkled it with black sugar crystals.

The girls got to ice skate again.  They absolutely LOVE to do this.  Notice they are hugging the wall at first, but were soon out in the middle.  [The pictures are really poor quality.  I desparately need a new camera :(  ]