Spencer's School Work, Volume 2

I was very proud of this map Spencer drew at school and want to share it with you. It is a map based on a video game that he loves, The Sims 2: Castaway. Basically the concept is this, you create your crew, from 1 to 6 people and your boat is shipwrecked during a storm. You wash up on a deserted island and have to survive and find your other crewmates. Not only did he draw a cool map, he labeled the islands! Check it out!

Now keep in mind that all of these words are spelled phonetically. I'll translate for you:

1. shipwreck island
2. airplane island
3. volcano island
4. crystal island

raft
canoe
forge

He later told me he used the dictionary in his classroom to look up how to spell 'canoe'. I'm not certain I could do that when I was 5! Go Spencer!

How Does Your Garden Grow?

Welcome to our home office/greenhouse...

Our little plants are just waiting to grow.....outside in the garden with more sun....but alas, the weather keeps doing weird things here! Yesterday was beautiful, highs in the 60s, we wore shorts to the park. Today it's 45 degrees! And they're calling for snow tomorrow! But, hopefully, we can finally move our plants outside and get going on our gardening!

Adinkra Pillow Update

Well, International Night has come and gone. And the kids' pillows turned out great! The pillow project has inspired me to get more creative. I've decided to learn to sew and ultimately make quilts and bags. I'm really excited about it! Check out the kids' pillows!

Here, Jemila, a member of our host family, is showing Lily and Shreena how to use the adinkra stamps on their pillows.

Bella stamping her pillow. In Ghana, the adinkra stamps are hand carved out of a gourd called calabash.

Looks like Ashton is having a lot of fun here!

Scout stamping her pillow...

The finished products! Aren't they great? The kids will have these forever to remind them of their studies of Ghana!

For a few more International Night pictures, please visit this link.