Visiting Tennessee - The Hermitage

On the last day of our trip to Tennessee, we decided to visit "The Hermitage", home of the 7th US President Andrew Jackson (1829 - 1837). As it is located in Nashville, we did not have to drive much to get to the place, bright and early.

We got the Family package which includes a 22 minute film on the life of the President, an audio tour guide (it also includes kids audio version), museum, house and ground tour.  They also offer an upgrade (with additional charge) of horse wagon tour of the ground and touch screen access for additional information, however we did not take either of these. As the film was to start at 10 a.m. we decided to skip it and start with our tour.

We went through a series of displays: portraits of the president, artifacts that belonged to him, Christmas traditions at the Hermitage and information on the notable members of the Hermitage slave community.

President Andrew Jackson came from humble beginnings during the times when presidents were from aristocratic families. He was an army general and had won wars against the French/Indians and British. His personal and political life was controversial to some extent including his marriage, owning of slaves to work on his cotton, corn and wheat plantations, treaty to force the Indians westward leading to Trail of Tears. He had a very good business acumen and was visionary to some extent.

We then visited the museum which filled us with lots of information about the first Lady Rachel Donelson, the original Hermitage, the president's lineage and artifacts from his home and archaeological digs at the field quarters for slaves.

The tour led us to the outdoors on the plantation fields and the new brick Hermitage. We were given the tour of the home which had almost 90% of the original furniture and some of the original wallpapers and artifacts. We toured the First lady's garden, which is a tomb of the president and First Lady along with some of the family members. We then visited the grounds which housed the first Hermitage later converted to slave cabins, spring house which served as a natural refrigerator to store the milk products longer, the smoke house, the cotton fields, the excavation sites at the slave quarters, the possible site of overseer's cabin and Alfred's cabin. Each site had an audio tour as well as write up that would help gain more understanding.

Once the tour was over we saw the film, most of the information we had known by now! We looked at the time and realized that we had been at the Hermitage for almost 4.0 - 4.5 hours. I really appreciated the patience and reading my kids had done during this time.

That was a lot of history for a day and we couldn't have digested anymore, so we decide to head home.

Kosair Shrine Circus

Opening Ceremony

Recently I got the opportunity to take my kids to the Kosair Circus. We were very excited about our front row seats! The circus began with the opening ceremony performance.



Taming the Tiger!



This was followed by the tigers and the ring master show. It reminded me of the movie "Life of a Pi" where the main character, stranded with the tiger in an ocean, tries to tame the tiger.



The trapeze artists then showed their talent. After this was a performance with artists wearing illuminant butterfly costumes and flying around. This show was followed by another show in which the performers were lifted by their hair!


Performance

Performance







 

Then it was the animals turn (the kids favorite!), there was a synchronized camel performance and an elephant show followed by synchronized elephant performance. There was a poodle show as well.

During the intermission, kids got to ride animals: elephants, pony and camel. "I" took the elephant ride with her Flat Stanley (Visits with Flat Stanley is one of the projects she is doing for a friend and I would be blogging about it when its done).

 After the intemission there were juggler and clown shows and artist balancing on a vertically rotating structure. The climax shows were "MotorCycle Show" and "Human Launch Show". They left the crowd stunning and aweing.

The whole circus had good mix of intense and non-intense performances to keep the audience glued to their seats.



Fun in the snow!

The amount of snowfall in Louisville varies every year, thats what I have heard. This year it has snowed about 4 times of which twice it was heavy i.e. The snow stayed for few days.

While in bay area we had to drive 2-3 hours to get to snow, however here in Louisville the snow was in our backyard! The kids did not miss any chance to enjoy the snow.

Fortunately the kids had winter vacation and did not have to worry about homework or falling sick in the cold! They had fun sledding, making snow angels and playing snow ball fights.

Mufaro's beautiful daughters - a play

My family loves going to watch the children's theater shows. Few months after moving to Louisville, hubby "N" wanted to know if I had found a Children's theater here and booked tickets to any play.

As Louisville is a city rich in art, culture and history, I was sure to find such programs here and I was right! One such play that we watched over the weekend was "Mufaro's Beautiful daughters".

It is an African tale about a "happy" person named Mufaro who has 2 beautiful daughters, however one is good and kind-hearted while the other is mean and self-centered. The play opened with a beautiful song that caught the kids attention, followed by the introduction. The entire play was sprinkled with humour which kept the audience giggling. Another song that was very catchy was "Mufaro had 2 beautiful daughters...."

The end as we all know was " and they lived happily ever after " with the kind daughter getting married to the king and the mean daughter learning her lesson.

The kids and we loved the play although it was very short (30-35 mins).

WKU Super Saturdays

After moving to Louisville we have found lot of "hidden" - (for me atleast) gems here in the form of places, programs and museums. Over the weekends there would me multiple events and we have to choose 1-2 out of them.

One such Fall and Winter Saturday program is Super Sarturdays. It is a 4 week hands-on program where kids investigate and learn science, math, art, music, history, performance in a fun way. In the Fall there were about 40 topics offered for kids Gr 1-8. The kids choose 1 topic for their grade level. Super Saturday are hosted and run by The Center for Gifted Studies at West Kentucky University - WKU  in Bowling Green which is about 90 miles from Louisville. I being one of those crazy moms who do not care for distance when it comes to learning, enrolled the kids for this program.

For the Fall session "I" went for Science in motion, where kids made cars and rockets and learnt how to propel them by using rubberbands, blowing air. She enjoyed learning about Force and types of forces- push and pull. For the final day parent presentation, the kids had to launch the rockets they made. 

Placing the rocket on the launcher

Launching it



There it is, high up!



"A" chose "The Science behind Lord of the rings", in which they did a many experiments with controlled substances like Phosphorus to show how magic works. They also read the book - Hobbit. which later resulted in us watching the movie in theater. The kids learnt Dwarf script as well.

Presenting, Noes to Toes!



For winter session "I" attented the "Noes to Toes"  in which they learnt about various body parts (mostly internal). The learned how lungs work, how the brain looks, parts of digestive system and their functions, functions of the skeletal system, function of the brain. For the final day presentation the kids were grouped and asked to make a presentation i.e. draw things they had learnt and then present them to parents.



"A" chose "Mythbusters", which focused on proving or busting the myths with scientific reasoning. Some of them were the "5 second food rule", getorade for charging cell phone, tongue sticks to freezing surfaces, buttered side of a toast would face down when the buttered toast falls etc. As the final day presentation, the kids had to tell which Myth busting experiments they liked and why. Also they kids got to look at various bacterium under the microscope.



5 second rule

Cow tongue for experiment



Looking at bacteria!

Super saturdays were much fun and learning for the kids, so much that "I" wants to go for a Science camp in Summer! Sure enough we can't wait for the next Fall!

Henry's ark - weekend visit

Last weekend was unusually sunny (although still cold and windy) so we decided to visit "Henry's Ark" in Prospect. As its winter, we had not expected to see many animals here(although it mentions on the facebook that its open all year round!). We were taken by surprise on seeing a vast farm full of animals along with some of the exotic animals (that you would not expect to see here) like emu, llama, zebra, deer, bison and ostrich.


cute llamas

Pygmy goat

Emu and llama

elk

ostrich

bison

"Henry's ark" is an open farm with farm animals as well as others mentioned above. And the best part is that it is free and operates on donations from the visitors. We went on a Sunday afternoon and the place had less than 15 visitors while the time we were there. On this farm you can even bring food (carrots, lettuce and grains) to feed the animals.


sheep

bunny

peacock and peahen

The animal collection includes: Water buffalo, chickens, donkey, ducks, elks, llamas, goats, sheep, pygmy goats, peacocks, peahens, camel, ostrich, bunnies, geese, turkey, zebra, bison, cow, cat.





My kids loved this place and we are looking forward to visit this farm again to feed the animals.
 

Exploring the great artists - Alexander Calder

This weekend afternoon was spent by kids at the local Louisville Public Library, exploring and re-creating the art of  Alexander Calder. "Sandy", the name he was known by, was an American artist in the late 1800's  who  'made sculptures move'. His sculptures were made from metal wires and he was passionate about making metal wire mobiles.


The program host started by reading a story about Mr. Calder and then the kids were given pipe cleaners, papers, scissors and sponges to incite their imagination.

Let's get to work!

Work in Progress!

  

 This is what "A" and "I" came up with....

Aditi's art

Fork and Spaghetti
 

Ishani's art

Ishani's art

 
The Library is hosting this monthly series of "Exploring the great artists" and we can't wait to join another of these sessions.

Squirrel appreciation @Creasey Mahan Nature Preserve

This weekend, for a change, the weather was good here in Louisville. Although it was windy, the sun was out and we took the opportunity to visit a nature program, "Squirrel appreciation" @ Creasey Mahan Nature Preserve.  As "A" had a game, "I" accompanied me to the program.

It started with a slide show and introduction to ground and flying squirrels. Kids learnt about  characteristics, food habits of ground squirrels such as the Chipmunks and gray squirrels and tree squirrels such as the fox squirrel and flying squirrels. They learnt that the flying squirrels don't fly, but glide and they are nocturnal.

We also got to see a flying squirrel and an Eastern Gray squirrel.



Flying Squirrel

Eastern Gray Squirrel

Eastern Gray Squirrel



Gray squirrel

A short Disney video of flying squirrel and Donald duck was played.

There were few coloring and craft activities and face painting. A new magical forest toddler area was dedicated in the name of naturalist Joe Yurt.

This Preserve has a some great displays of animal hides and paw prints, bird eggs, magical forest, pond ecosystem, rocks, fossils, Native Americans etc.

Magical forest

Squirrel hide

Native Americans

Paw prints

Exploring fossils

Bird eggs










Programs like these help stir the curiosity about nature in the little hearts!