Emma at Work

Emma loves going to work with Alison. They work at a fair trade store. Emma helps organize merchandise, dust the displays, explain fair trade to customers, ring up sales, make change and count the money at the end of the night. Here she is talking with a local artist as they select hand drawn greeting cards to be added to the stores merchandise.

The Alpacha Farm

Emma, John and I attended an open house at an alpacha farm. It was love at first site...the little Chloe was smitten with Emma and the feeling was mutual. After the little love fest, we attended a seminar about how to process the fibers and the types of crafts and garments one can create with them. The seminar was rather long and technical but Emma really enjoyed it, especially the tactile experience of all the different items made from the fibers. She and I left there with a real feeling of "we could so do this."

Save the Earth

This poor VERY dead shrubbery was given new life as a piece of social commentary art by Emma. She rescued it off the curb where I had deposited it for trash pick-up, then added pine cones and trash.

When I inquired about the new decoration on our front porch ( it is still there, 3 months later) She told me "It is to show people that they should be good to the earth."

It's hard to disagree with that.

Childhood is not practice for life...

it is life. Emma leads Katie and Lauren on an archeology adventure after the inspiration of Grey's Fossil Site. They were searching for fossils, bones and "bows and arrows".

They found some cool rocks, fossils and a rope from the "Pirates of the Caribbean".

Grey's Fossil Site

Emma and I visited Grey's Fossil site during our trip to Tennesse www.grayfossilmuseum.com

ETSU Natural History Museum and Gray Fossil Site covers more than five acres located along State Route 75 in East Tennessee. The Miocene site is dated at 4.5 to 7 million years old, containing fossilized remains of an entire ecosystem of plants and animals.A series of sinkholes, formed from a collapsed cave, created a watering hole that drew animals from near and far. For some unlucky animals, the sinkhole became a trap that preserved them as fossils for the ages.With less than 2 percent of the site excavated, thousands of fossil specimens have already been recovered! You’ll discover saber-toothed cat, short-faced bear, ground sloth, rhino, alligator, camel, shovel-tusked elephant, Eurasian badger, the world’s largest collection of fossil tapirs, and the world’s only near-complete fossil red panda!

This was really special to me, because I have always dreamed of being a paleontologist, and to discover a world class wonder like this so close to home was exhilerating. I believe John Holt now, that "it is never to late". My dream has been revitalized and Emma really enjoyed both the museum and my excitement...I was moved to tears, REALLY!

Horseback riding in Wolf Laurel, NC

Our trip to Tennesse was a dream come true... We found a stable that would let Emma trail ride on her own horse! She needed to demonstrate her ability to control the horse to David our trail guide and the owner of the stable! She was great with her horse, Bud. And she also did well communicating with David, this however she found more personally challenging than dealing with the horse!

Then is was off to see the Mountain trail in the glory of spring. We got to cross two streams on horseback, have a snack on a mountain rock out cropping and eat a Ramp freshly picked by our guide. What a wonderful day!

Emma the Engineer

WE got this marble construction set for christmas and until this session of use Emma has asked someone to build it for her.

It is a completely open ended construction activity, there are no instruction, just assemble the pieces to create a marble run. Her style of construction was WAY different than what she had seen done by her Dad and older brother and brother-in-law. The three of them assembled a complex structure THEN added the marbles to see what would happen sometimes successful and sometimes they did not work.

Emma would assemble a very small section, run the marbles, make adjustments to get the results she wanted, then add more to the structure. She spent several hours using this method till she achieved two "Y" shaped runs that had complex variations in their flow.

After using it off and on throughout the day I was very surprised when that evening she was ready to disassemble it. She said "next time I will just experiment again!"