Louis Comfort Tiffany

It's taken me a little longer than I anticipated to get back to that post about the Tiffany stained glass that I promised you. Sorry about that! Life got a little busy. 

But without further ado, here are our pictures of the Willard Memorial Chapel in Auburn, NY. It is the only existing chapel in the world that was completely decorated by Louis Comfort Tiffany. 

He designed not only the stained glass windows, but the tile mosaic floors, the pulpit, the gold leaf stenciled ceiling and even the pews. It is stunning! Two sisters originally commissioned it in 1892 to honor their deceased father.

The chapel is now open to the public and is used for concerts and weddings as well. It was sold to a NYC antiques dealer in the 1980's and he planned to sell off all the stained glass and then turn it into a nightclub! Thankfully, a group of citizens joined together to raise enough money to buy it from him. Whew!

This is the glass tile mosaic side panel of the 

gilt bronze relief in the picture just above it.

The enormous pipe organ

Our tour guide said, "how would you boys like to see what's underneath this pipe organ?" 

She even let them preach!

This is a close-up of the front of the pulpit.

And when it was time to go, our guide let the boys find the secret panel where the light switches are hidden and turn off the lights. 

We all agreed that it was definitely worth the trip!

The Underground Railroad

We had a great week studying the Underground Railroad. Among the books we read were:

  
Wanted Dead or Alive: The True Story of Harriet Tubman
  
Follow the Drinking Gourd (with great FIAR lessons!)

  
Sweet Clara and the Freedom Quilt

  
The Drinking Gourd


That last one isn't the kind of book I would normally choose to read to my kids. In it, the child lies and his father, a deacon in the church(!) tells him that he's done a good job. I decided to go ahead and read it to see if they could spot "the end justifies the means" thinking and I was thankful that they could and that we could discuss it, since that thinking is so prevalent in our society today.


We listened to Follow the Drinking Gourd performed and explained.
We also listened to some great negro spirituals:
Go Down Moses, sung by Louis Armstrong, and
Swing Low, Sweet Chariot, belted out by Etta James


And, of course, we looked up at the night sky to find the Big Dipper (the drinking gourd) and the North Star!


At the end of our week, we made the trek to Auburn, NY. It was well worth the drive! 

We visited the Harriet Tubman home and visitor center and received a great personal tour. Our tour guide was wonderfully knowledgeable and so passionate about her subject. Her enthusiasm was contagious.

We were also able to visit the Seward House, which was fascinating. Oh my. This family saved everything. I can't begin to tell you. They even saved the blood-stained, knife-slashed sheet from the assassination attempt on William Seward on the same night that Abraham Lincoln was shot. I SO wish I had been allowed to take pictures inside. The library was amazing! And the paintings! I'm so glad we went.

We crammed a lot into our day in Auburn but this post is getting quite long so I will wait to tell you about the Chapel completely decorated by Louis Comfort Tiffany but, rest assured, it was stunning!

Baseball Day

We all spent a wonderful day at the Baseball Hall of Fame last week. Highlights included:

• a video conference with the Louisville Slugger Bat Factory. Did you know major league players have their own personal specifications for their bats? One player could even tell that the grips of his new bats weren't right - although it turned out they were 5 one thousandths of an inch off.
• Science on the Sandlot - We learned why there's a sweet spot on a bat, how energy is transferred from the bat to the ball and how the ball actually squashes when it hits a wooden bat but not an aluminum bat.
• Baseball Art - especially the Norman Rockwells!
• A very old film of Babe Ruth "calling the shot."
• Old footage of Abbot and Costello performing "Who's on First?"

And these two have been playing baseball in the side yard ever since. Bring on the season!

Happy Easter!

Happy Easter, Friends!

I thought I'd share some of our Easter projects with you tonight. We've been doing a Grapevine Bible study on The Last Supper and found this adorable craft to go with it:

The bowls hold some of the results of a wonderful tradition of getting together with our friends to color eggs every year. We've been doing it since our oldest God-daughter, Sarah, was 4 or 5 years old. This year, her new husband joined us!

And yes, we do blow out the eggs so that we can save them. A drill and a bicycle pump make that job a little easier!

Of course, we had to look at Leonardo DaVinci's Last Supper. This link will take you to a page where you can view it pre- and post-restoration. And here is a short video that discusses the painting.

Since we studied the artist Benjamin West last year, we took a look at his version of the Last Supper as well. It's very different, but you can see that he was influenced by DaVinci's painting.

This evening after dinner, we made these little empty tombs for tomorrow. The directions can be found here. They were so simple but the boys absolutely loved making them! Tomorrow, they will all have little "He is Risen!" banners. Before bed, we read a book that we just discovered and absolutely LOVE about a rooster that witnesses the crucifixion but rejoices in new life 3 days later.

Have a blessed Easter!

It's Super Science Day

Today, right after basketball, we participated in a science program at a (somewhat) local university. It was supposed to be for the kids, but the whole family had a great time.

We built Lego Mindstorms robots.

And programmed them.

We built skyscrapers with spaghetti and marshmallows.

Parents got to play too!

We learned about monomers and polymers and made our own silly putty.

Mmmmm... that's some tasty DNA!

And, after a fascinating demonstration of liquid nitrogen which included shattering a frozen raquette ball (when you have boys, smashing stuff gets extra points,) we made our own liquid nitrogen ice cream!

Yeah, Lovin' that science!

It was a wonderful day... and we even managed to learn a few things. It doesn't get much better than that.

A Random Sampling

Here are a few random pictures from the last few weeks:

Feeling a sheep's lungs inflating on a ventilator. Look at that face - what a good sport!

Going to the zoo with friends

Working on our anatomy studies. It would seem that some of us cannot simply color the stomach. The stomach must be invaded. Supply lines cut off, troops sent in... you get the picture.

Reading Shakespeare at lunch. Listen, if this happened every day, I wouldn't have taken a picture of it.

"Mom, can I fly it?"

Turning six! Happy Birthday, Little Man!!

Making milk carton homes for the much-loved collection of plastic frogs.

Basketball!

Getting by with a little help from our friends.

15 Miles on the Erie Canal!

Our TruthQuest History studies brought us to the amazing Erie Canal this week. At 363 miles long, it was the longest in the world, built in the least amount of time, for the least money. It also seems to have had quite a few folk songs written about it, some more colorful than others. But that's what the "fast forward" button is for, right?

We read some great books:

The Erie Canal by Peter Spier - filled with those wonderful, see-something-new-every-time-you-look-at-them illustrations;

The Amazing, Impossible Erie Canal by Cheryl Harness;

The Erie Canal by Samuel Hopkins Adams - a wonderful gem in the old Landmark series.

Then we decided to go to the Erie Canal Museum in Syracuse, NY and take a little ride on an authentic packet boat!

Well, OK, the boat was stationary, but we used our imaginations.

Captain Z

We're not exactly sure where people slept if they were taller than a five-year-old.

Probably the floor.

The museum is housed in the only surviving "weigh lock" building in the world. Boats were put into the lock, the water was pumped out and the boat was lowered onto a wooden cradle suspended by spring arms. Once it was weighed, water was pumped back in and the boat was on it's way. All of this was done in 15 minutes!

This interactive display allowed you to drag the boats in, weigh them and collect the tolls.

It was a great way to wrap up our study of the Erie Canal!