Field Trip Chronicles: Three Cities

This is my second post about the places we visited when my parents were here.  This time I’m writing about the cities of Chester, London, and Oxford.  We didn’t visit them on consecutive days, but I wanted to post about them together.  It was fun showing my parents Chester and London, but Oxford was new for the kids and me, and I loved it!

Chester

I’m including Snugbury’s (a dairy farm ice cream shop)because we stopped there for ice cream on the way to Chester.  Their ice cream is pretty awesome, so of course we had to take my parents!  We also got to see piglets.

Okay, here’s our day in Chester (we visited the Chester Cathedral, Roman walls, Roman Gardens, Roman amphitheatre, the River Dee, and the town centre):

London

We did London in one day, and my only regret is running out of time to show my parents St. Paul’s Cathedral.  We still got to see a lot, though.  The weather was rainy on and off all day, but we only got really wet at Buckingham Palace.  We saw Buckingham Palace, Big Ben and Parliament, the London Eye (didn’t ride it, but it’s the first time I had been on that side of the river), Westminster Abbey, 10 Downing Street, Trafalgar Square, Tower of London, and Tower Bridge.  We’ve seen the Tower Bridge several times, but this was the first time we had seen the draw-bridge (bascule bridge) go up, so that was interesting.

                          

Oxford

On our way back from the south part of England, we stopped in Oxford.  Greg had been there once before, but the kids and I never had.  I can’t tell you the names of all the places, but the buildings are amazing.  It was pretty cool to think that I was walking where C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien (two of my favorite authors) once walked.  We missed riding a double-decker bus in London, so my parents were pleased to get to ride one in Oxford.    

That’s it for this post.  The next one will be about our travels to North Wales!

5 a Day Books: Week 5

Here’s Gabriela’s 5 a Day book list for this past week:

1.  Jamberry (by Bruce Degen)—I love this book!  The illustrations are so colorful and show great imagination, and the rhyming is terrific, too.  This book is perfect if you’re doing a unit on fruit or berries.  Out of the 5 books I chose this week, this is the only one I brought from America.

2.  Hairy Maclary’s Bone (by Lynley Dodd)—Although I’ve seen Hairy Maclary books at the local library, I never had checked one out.  A friend recently recommended them, and I just happened to find one at a charity shop a few weeks ago.  Written by an author from New Zealand, they’re very popular here in England, and I can see why.  The illustrations and rhymes are very appealing to children.  The stories are simple, and there is a lot of repetition.  Apparently there is a whole series of Hairy Maclary books, so I will be on the lookout for more!

3.  Guess How Much I Love You (by Sam McBratney)—This is a simple, yet lovely little story—great for bedtime!

4.  Dear Zoo (by Rod Campbell) —I have the board book version of this story, but it’s very worn, so I was happy to find the larger paperback version (in perfect condition) at a charity shop recently.  This book is enormously popular in the UK.  It has flaps to lift to see the various animals, and it has a lot of repetition.  It’s a very cute book for small children.

5.  Tip Tip Dig Dig (Emma Garcia)—Gabriela was given this book at one of her development check appointments (whatever they’re called).  It’s very simple, with lots of repetition.  It features different construction-related vehicles, each a different color, and they work together to build an adventure playground.

Gabriela loved all of these books and really interacted with the storytelling.

I’m linking this post to “5 a Day Books” at The Imagination Tree.  Go there to see what others are reading to their small children and also to read more about the 5 a Day Challenge!