We had a lot of fun this week fishing in the York River, talking like pirates, receiving a generous gift from our Moose friends, and honoring our favorite state, Virginia! Here's a look at our week...
On Tuesday we had hoped for mild and sunny weather for our visit to the Watermen's Museum and a lesson called "What's in My Bay?" Mother Nature had other ideas as the wind was blowing, clouds were coming in, and the water was choppy. Our experience at the museum was still fun, but we couldn't stick around to ride the Yorktown Trolley or eat our lunch down by the riverside. Oh well, we shall return!
Mr. Mike, a longtime friend of the Arc's, welcomed us to the museum. He gave us an overview of the Chesapeake Bay watershed, and what we might find in the waters. He told us that the temperature of the Earth's waters is changing a bit, and some animals that once did not live in the waters of the York River have begun to migrate here, such as a few horseshoe crabs and seahorses. We thought it would be cool to find a seahorse today!
Mr. Mike used a large canvas map and some of our guys (representing states) to explain where the Chesapeake Bay watershed is. It stretches from all the way up in New York to down here. He also introduced us to Miss Anne, who is seen behind Alexis and Liz. She was going to work with us, too.
Miss Anne took us to the pier for crabbing. She taught us about the Chesapeake Bay blue crabs. We learned how to identify males and females, and that they all have claws, walking legs, and swimming legs.
Here, she explains that crabs are always on the lookout for predators, even among each other.
Miss Anne used empty crab shells so we could see up close what their claws and legs looked like. She let us pass them around for an up close look. Cameron wasn't so sure it wasn't alive, but he bravely held it anyway! Annmarie declined, saying she could see just fine with Cam holding it!
We used chicken legs tied to twine for bait as we crabbed from the pier. Drew looked on as Patrick checked his line. It was quite windy so it's hard to recognize Laura with her hair blowing in her face as she checked hers!
Here are Kevin and Alexis sitting on the pier, waiting patiently for crabs to nibble at their bait. Miss Anne was checking lines with Kacie. Alas, we did not catch any crabs from the pier today. We think we would need more time...and more patience!
This is a fishing net that we dragged through the water in an effort to catch some sea life. When Mr. Mike said we would not be fishing with poles, we were curious as to what he meant we would use. Abraham was wondering if we would get fish in that thing!
Since the water was so choppy, Mr. Mike decided it would be safer for staff to help him with the fishing net. Carol noted that keeping her balance in the moving water was challenging.
The fun part was checking the net to see what we caught! Devin and Sam gathered up lots of little silverside fish and we discovered there was also one chub fish in there! They were all very small and squirmy.
Kacie, Alexis, and Patrick were excited to see a medium sized blue crab in one of the hauls! After bringing the net in, we put the living critters in a small container of water so we could study them. When we finished, we returned all the animals back to the river. It was an exciting and interesting experience today!
With the wind picking up and the skies darkening, we decided to go back to AFCC for the rest of the afternoon. We ate lunch and enjoyed Choice Time, then checked our blog post from last week, read a bit of our new story, and ended the day with a rousing game of Bingo. We'll try to make a return trip to Yorktown and take a spin on the trolley sometime later in the Fall.
Our room has been kind of bare decoration-wise over the summer, but with Fall and (gasp!) the holiday season coming up, we have lots of options for decorations. On Wednesday, we made colorful leaves to add to the wall where we put up the word SEPTEMBER. Xavier and Sam carefully added colors to make a mosaic pattern.
The leaves add a nice touch!
Wednesday was the "birthday" of the United States Air Force. We learned that it is the youngest of the military branches, having been established by President Truman in 1947. We watched video clips of airmen talking about life in the Air Force and we also checked out a cool video of a Thunderbirds demonstration.
Several of our friends proudly shared that they have (or had) family members who served in the Air Force. Kate brought a picture of her grandfather (which Abraham is holding for her) and read a list of his accomplishments. We thank him, and all of our friends' family members, for their service!
Wednesday was also National Cheeseburger Day! We celebrated by making cheeseburger casserole for lunch. Liz, Devin, and Kate worked on chopping onions and browning them with the beef to make one casserole.
Bo, Cameron, Alexis, and Patrick put together a second casserole and popped it into the Nina to bake!
Sam, Laura, Kevin, and Kacie comprised our salad team. They chopped and sliced and assembled 16 beautiful servings of freshness!
We thank Drew, Abraham, and Xavier for getting our tables set! Nice job dividing up the tasks, guys!
We all agreed our center smelled like a burger joint when all was said and done, and the cheeseburger casserole worked well for celebrating with a big group!
Yogi Patti must have picked up a little bug while in Peru last week, as she was not feeling well and couldn't join us today. Here's a shoutout to her to feel better...and to let her know we carried on and had a yoga session with our online yogi, Jaime!
Oh, no! Our friend Kendall broke her thumb during softball practice!! When Lexi came across this picture on Facebook and informed everyone, we just had to make her a cheer card.
We hope you have a speedy recovery, Kendall! Glad you don't need surgery!
WOW! A few of us were able to join Patti and our Women of the Moose friends on Wednesday evening to receive a generous donation made possible by the golf tournament in August! We cannot thank them enough for their steady support of The Arc and the AoA! They have been on board with us since the AoA began in 2016 and we have had a lot of fun times with them. We look forward to many more! THANK YOU, PATTI and WOTM!!
On Thursday morning, we decided to add trees to our Fall decorations. We painted paper tubes for trunks and used gentle brush strokes to create colorful leaves on cardstock shaped treetops.
They add a nice touch to the windows! Fall officially arrives this Monday, and we're ready!
September 19 is Talk Like a Pirate Day, which is always fun around here. We watched some interesting video clips about pirate life and goofed off trying to sound like them...then we used our brains to complete some pirate-themed worksheets. Here, Sam is carefully focusing on connecting 80 dots!
Our guys are always proud to show off their work!
We're moving right along in our story Ghosts. The character Maya found out they like people with sunny dispositions and open bottles of orange soda. Who knew?!
We found out that Christina wasn't feeling well so we had to reschedule our museum visit for next week. We decided to take advantage of the gorgeous weather with a trip to Newport News Park. We found a playground that was "free" of little ones, so our guys had at it!
Swings are always a favorite!
Abraham and Kacie raced down these slides!
It was a beautiful afternoon and Newport News Park is so close to AFCC. We're ready for more days that we can spend time outside!
Here's a look of pure joy on Xavier's face!
Hey Laura, if you're looking for Kevin, he's coming out of the tunnel slide!
We had plenty of time for a walk, too.
By leaving the vans at the playground instead of moving them to the entrance to the trail, we added extra distance to our walk. It was close to 2 miles today! (The 5K is a mere two weeks away!)
It wasn't all hustle, though. We paused to enjoy watching the turtles from the bridge. The water was very clear and the turtles were active. We enjoyed our afternoon, but we missed Christina!
Friday began with our Dance Warm Up. We listened to everything from Jimmy Buffet to Michael Jackson to The Wiggles and Justin Bieber. Liz is our regular "DJ" and she knows what we like!
Shortly after getting the room set up, we had a Fire Drill! It's always good to practice, and we made it out in record time today. (Maybe that's because we only had 11 associates in attendance today?!)
Our best dressed for Virginia Day! Looking good, Devin, Patrick, Alexis, and Liz!
Kacie loved the okra we tried a couple of weeks ago when Nan brought us some from her and Grandad's garden. Grandad heard about it, and stopped by today to bring her some more. She plans to share it with her family! Thanks, Grandad, that was very nice of you!
Each week we add a map of the state we're studying to our wall, in the order they joined the Union. This week's #10 state gets highlighted a bit because it's VIRGINIA!
It turns out we know a lot about our great state, especially its history. Since we think Virginia is special, we used "special" white bags this week for our work.
It's easy to see what day it is with this cool banner Liz brought, and Laura was happy to show the Virginia apples her mom picked up for us at the Williamsburg Farmers Market. Thanks, Mrs. P! Drew ran errands with Lisa earlier this week and picked up Virginia peanuts from Whitley's! Can't wait for lunch...
Lunch was kind of simple, but we enjoyed our trio of Virginia foods. In addition to the apples and peanuts, we also made Smithfield ham biscuits! And cleanup was a breeze!
We finished our day with a lesson on George Washington Carver, who invented hundreds of ways to use peanuts. We learned about famous people from Virginia (including 8 presidents), and wrapped things up dancing to Pharrell's "Happy," because, we are happy to be from Virginia...and it was Friday!
We are going to be on the go next week! Sometimes they just turn out this way. Here's our schedule:
Tuesday: We're going to Freedom Park for therapeutic gardening with the master gardeners. The weather is forecast to be beautiful, so we'll eat lunch at the park. After lunch, we will stop by Studio South for a yoga session with Kiley! Please wear Arc shirts and bring a bag lunch. ***It's also Kacie's official birthday, but we're going to celebrate her tomorrow!***
Wednesday: Yay! It's Kacie's birthday! We're lucky to have lunch from Chick-fil-A provided by her family, and cupcakes, too! Besides celebrating our friend, we will also observe Comic Book Day and have a yoga session with Patti, so dress to stretch.
Thursday: We're headed back to Eaton for a work day! Please wear Arc shirts and bring a bag lunch.
Friday: The 11th state to enter the Union was New York. We'll study the Empire State today and try making our own version of New York Cheesecake. Last Friday was Fried Rice Day (one of our favorites), so we will "honor" all the takeout restaurants in NYC by making chicken fried rice for lunch. We also rescheduled our visit to the CW Art Museums to today, so we will visit with Christina (who is from New York!) after lunch. Please wear Arc shirts again! Thank you!
Only 2 weeks away! - Saturday, October 5th:
Have a great weekend,
Lisa, Carol, Nan, and the AoA Gang
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.