Thursday, February 5, 2009

MOHAI today...

This morning we headed down to the MOHAI in Seattle to meet up with some other homeschoolers for a field trip day. Most of the Seattle-area museums are free on the first Thursday of the month. It is a great opportunity to rotate through the museums and we usually time them so we catch the traveling exhibits. Unfortunately, they were changing over from one exhibit to another so it didn't take that long for us to go through the museum. I've read all the signs and the children like to play on the interactive exhibits. Brad did read signs and watched the movie about the Seattle fire.

We had lunch in the frigid lake air and then walked on the bridges through Marsh and Foster islands at the base of the 520 bridge. We made it over to the arboretum side but turned back rather than continue on - people were really cold!

The history fair is coming up and Victoria picked "Mongolia" as the country she wants to do a report on. We stopped at the library and she picked out a few books, a DVD, and two cookbooks all about Mongolia. I was really impressed with the selection there without having to reserve (and bring in) any books. Right now she's watching the Ghengis Khan movie.

I picked up the The Fine Art of Kimono Embroidery that had come in on interlibrary loan. What a gorgeous book! So many times they just show the kimono with no explanation and it's hard to see the detail because it's so far away. This one shows the kimono, then on most there is a close up detailing so you can see her detailed stitching. At the very end there is a key that lists the techniques used in each piece. It's very grand.

Most of the pieces in the Kimono Embroidery book were inspired by The Tale of Genji, a Japanese novel written hundreds of years ago. I'll confess I'd never heard of this book, but after seeing the pieces inspired by it I'll be reading the book!

Ok, Ghengis Khan movie is over so we're off to the post office to mail tax information to the accountant!

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