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tovlo4801
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| Posted: July 26 2005 at 8:42pm | IP Logged
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I'm so excited! Our family is going on our first real family vacation ever!
I was looking for a short and cheap Amtrak trip I could possibly take my son on. He is dying to ride a train. I found super cheap rates for a train going to Washington DC and managed to talk my dh into going. After finding the cheap train fare we had to figure out how to get to the "kind-of" nearby city where the train is taking off. It pretty much turned into a version of Planes, Trains and Automobiles. We're driving part-way, flying part-way, and then finally riding a train into Washington.  Then of course there are hotel costs... After a while my husband began joking with his co-workers that everytime he answered a phonecall from me it cost him another $500.00 for this "cheap" trip. 
So anyway, tickets are bought, hotels are reserved and we are definitely going!
We're starting school "light" next week and I've decided to focus on preparing for our trip. I'm going to try doing some sort of my first ever unit study and I need some guidance.
What I'm thinking of so far is:
1. Checking out tons of books (guidebooks, biographies, picture books, etc.) about Washington D.C.
2. Digging around the rich websites for the Government sites and the museums.
3. Thinking about attempting our first ever notebook. (lapbook? not exactly sure what the difference is...) I thought that we could take tons of pictures while on the trip and have my sons narrate or journal about the trip each day and then put something together. I did buy a used book at the homeschool conference about notebooking, so I'll dig that out and figure out how to go about that.
I'm wondering if anyone has any great books that would go along with a Washington D.C. trip. Do any of the unit study pro's have any other suggestions for pulling this together? How about advice from the notebook/lapbook people? Any travel suggestions from those of you living close to D.C.? Any general traveling with kids advice from those of you who described yourselves as "explorers"?
I really want to take advantage of this month of preparation we have to build the kids excitement and pull all the learning we can from this rare experience.
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Elizabeth
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| Posted: July 26 2005 at 9:05pm | IP Logged
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Richelle,
I'll let other natives here suggest places to go but I'm going to put in a plug for a notebook. Start it. Then, bring it along with you with lots of page protectors. Slip in brochures, ticket stubs, maps, etc. as you go. We did this when my boys when to England and the notebook is nice and fat (now filled out with pix and narrations) and full of memories!
Give us few days--we'll plan quite the unit before the trip and we'll get your itinerary together. I can see the wheels turning in Mary Chris' head .
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Elizabeth Foss is no longer a member of this forum. Discussions now reflect the current management & are not necessarily expressions of her book, *Real Learning*, her current work, or her philosophy. (posted by E. Foss, Jan 2011)
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cathhomeschool
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We took a huge trip last fall -- 6 weeks going from Texas up through Tennessee, Virginia, New York, D.C., the Carolinas and then down to Florida. We took pictures all along the way. It has taken some time, but the boys are scrapbooking the trip. They wrote narrations when we got back and (this week) are in the middle of cutting and pasting those narrations, pictures and stickers onto acid free paper. (I wanted them to narrate while on the trip at the end of each day, telling their favorite part of the day, but that just didn't happen. We got back late and tired every evening.)
We used the 3 months before the trip to prepare. We studied things that we knew we'd see at the museums we'd chosen to visit (certain artists, historical events, etc).
One cute book is You Can't Take a Balloon into the National Gallery of Art.
My advice on travelling with children is to make sure you pack little surprises for the moments of boredom on the drive. We packed lacing cards, magnetic "create-a-scene" books, matchbox cars, and much more. Much of it was borrowed, so I didn't have to spend a lot of money, yet the kids were excited because it was stuff they weren't used to playing with.
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Janette (4 boys - 22, 21, 15, 14)
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JennGM
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| Posted: July 27 2005 at 9:33am | IP Logged
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What a great opportunity!
It's probably already on your list, but I would spend at least one day on the Catholic corridor in NE DC -- Harewood and Michigan Avenue. There is some great historical architecture and interesting cultural places.
The Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception
Franciscan Monastery which besides the nice tour of the church, which is a replica of many places in the Holy Land, has beautiful gardens. This is a little farther down on Quincy. There is also a little cloistered Poor Clares Convent nearby.
John Paul II Cultural Center
Dominican House of Studies, which is across the street from the Basilica. Has a beautiful chapel and some great architectural features. You may have to call ahead to get inside.
Ukrainian Shrine...I don't think is open except for Sundays.
Catholic University and Trinity College are on the same street (Michigan Avenue)...
Not all of these places are a MUST see, just giving a smattering of the area. This would be the Brookland/CUA (Catholic University) stop on the Red Line of Metrorail.
I saw a book at Costco something about Off the beaten path in DC...I'll take a look at it tomorrow if it's still there.
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Jennifer G. Miller
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Family in Feast and Feria
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Mary Chris
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Elizabeth wrote:
Richelle,
Give us few days--we'll plan quite the unit before the trip and we'll get your itinerary together. I can see the wheels turning in Mary Chris' head . |
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I hope you will pad some time into your schedule so we can meet you.
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Blessings, Mary Chris Beardsley
mom to MacKenzie3/95, Carter 12/97 Ronan 3/00 and wife to Jim since 1/92
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tovlo4801
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| Posted: July 27 2005 at 11:30am | IP Logged
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I just finished putting a bunch of books on hold at my library. I found a great list of children's books for Washington D.C. at TheCapitol.net. Our library also had the book you mentioned Janette. It does sound really cute!
I'm going to look through my notebooking information this weekend and try to get a handle on that. Thanks for the suggestions Elizabeth!
Jenn, we will be there for a week and we had planned on attending mass at the Basilica on Sunday. We did discover the Franciscan Monastery on a site of suggested places to visit and thought we'd visit there after the Basilica. We completely forgot about the John Paul II Cultural Center! I didn't realize there was a Catholic corridor there. So are all the sites you mentioned in that same section of the city? We had planned on keeping Sunday open for visiting spiritually connected places so if they are all in the same area that would be perfect!
Mary Cris, it would be fabulous to meet you guys! We'll have to see if we can find a way to work that out.
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teachingmom
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Hi Richelle,
I am excited for you to be making this trip. What a great opportunity. Jenn has covered the spiritual tourist destinations very well. I'll add the historical/political destinations.
My list of "must see" places in DC:
The White House - check out www.whitehouse.gov for tour info and good info for preparing the kids for the trip.
The Capitol
The Washington Monument
The Lincoln Memorial
The Jefferson Memorial
The National Gallery of Art
The Smithsonian Natural Mistory Museum
The Smithsonian American History Museum
The Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum
The National Zoo
Other really good things to see:
The Supreme Court (more difficult to see than the White House or Capitol)
National Postal Museum
The Botanical Gardens
Arlington National Cemetery
World War II Memorial (this is new)
Vietnam Memorial
Korean Memorial
Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial
You may want to go to the new Smithsonian Museum of the American Indian, but we were very disappointed in it. (And this comes from the wife of someone who grew up on an Indian Reservation.)
As for books, one good one is The Inside-Outside Book of Washington, DC by Roxie Munro.
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~Irene (Mom to 6 girls, ages 7-19)
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tovlo4801
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Thanks for the suggestions Irene! We had all the must-see's and several of the others on our list so we must be working with a pretty good starting list. I'm going to look for that book at our library.
What do you know about the White House tours? On the website it seems like you need to contact your legislator at least 1 month in advance and you have to be a group of 10 or more. My dh is going to call and see if they just group unrelated people together or if only large groups can tour. Do you know how it works?
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tovlo4801
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Couple other questions. We're trying to stick mostly with things we can do without paying an admittance fee. There are a couple that we thought would be worth the fee - The International Spy Museum and the Albert Einstein Planetarium. Will we be disappointed with either of these places?
The one we're kind of on the fence about is the National Aquarium. It would be $17 to go and it looks neat, but the Zoo is free and we're already planning on going there. Is there anything neat enough at the Aquarium to justify the money?
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teachingmom
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tovlo4801 wrote:
| What do you know about the White House tours? On the website it seems like you need to contact your legislator at least 1 month in advance and you have to be a group of 10 or more. My dh is going to call and see if they just group unrelated people together or if only large groups can tour. Do you know how it works? |
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I'm afraid I didn't include details because I'm not familiar with them. They changed everything with White House tours after 9/11. My two oldest girls and dh took a tour since then, but that was with a homeschooling group. Sorry I can't be of more help there.
tovlo4801 wrote:
| The one we're kind of on the fence about is the National Aquarium. It would be $17 to go and it looks neat, but the Zoo is free and we're already planning on going there. Is there anything neat enough at the Aquarium to justify the money? |
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I've lived here most of my life and I've never been to the National Aquarium. There is an excellent aquarium in Baltimore that I've visited 3-4 times, but I didn't even realize that there was one in DC until a few years ago. So I guess that means that it doesn't have the reputation that the other sites have. I'd skip it if I were you.
One of the great things about visiting DC is that almost everything is free. I get sticker shock every time we go touring in another city!
I have a friend who went to the spy museum with a 9yo and 6yo. She enjoyed it a lot, but said it was better for the adults than the kids. I still want to get there at some point, and I'm sure we'll bring the kids when we go though.
Also, I didn't mention the Holocaust Museum, but that is one that I haven't been to yet because I think most of my kids are too young. I hear it's a very worthwhile stop, but you'd have to make the judgment call about taking the kids.
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~Irene (Mom to 6 girls, ages 7-19)
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cathhomeschool
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teachingmom wrote:
One of the great things about visiting DC is that almost everything is free. I get sticker shock every time we go touring in another city!
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It is nice that many museums are free, but the parking or metro are rather expensive, and they get you with the food costs at the museums! I wasn't expecting this so we weren't prepared when we went and there were probably more affordable options. We actually got away spending less per day at the New York City museums than we did some days in DC. Maybe someone can suggest parking/transportation options for Richelle?
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JennGM
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tovlo4801 wrote:
| Jenn, we will be there for a week and we had planned on attending mass at the Basilica on Sunday. We did discover the Franciscan Monastery on a site of suggested places to visit and thought we'd visit there after the Basilica. We completely forgot about the John Paul II Cultural Center! I didn't realize there was a Catholic corridor there. So are all the sites you mentioned in that same section of the city? We had planned on keeping Sunday open for visiting spiritually connected places so if they are all in the same area that would be perfect! |
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Yes, all the places that I mentioned are all in the same area. I was paging through a book at Costco today called Washington DC Off the Beaten Path by William B. Whitman. It breaks down DC into corridors. It explains this Northeast section called "Brookland" has about 60 plus Catholic places...called it "Northeast's Little Rome."
There aren't many restaurants in that area, that's the downside of planning a day around there. There aren't street vendors. The Basilica has a nice cafeteria, but I don't know if they are open on Sunday.
If you can pop into the Ukrainian Shrine, the Church is lovely inside, and there's a nice gift shop in the basement of the shrine and beautiful displays of Ukrainian eggs -- just museum quality gorgeous. This is two doors down or so from the JPII Cultural Center.
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Jennifer G. Miller
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JennGM
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PS on the Spiritual places...The National Cathedral, although not Catholic, is an impressive church to see. Also the Cathedral for the archdiocese of Washington is St. Matthew's Cathedral, recently undergone renovation. Being the nation's capital, these two churches appear quite frequently in the news.
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Jennifer G. Miller
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Family in Feast and Feria
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tovlo4801
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cathhomeschool wrote:
| It is nice that many museums are free, but the parking or metro are rather expensive, and they get you with the food costs at the museums! I wasn't expecting this so we weren't prepared when we went and there were probably more affordable options. We actually got away spending less per day at the New York City museums than we did some days in DC. Maybe someone can suggest parking/transportation options for Richelle? |
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Thanks for bringing this up Janette! My husband was there a little over a year ago for work and just used the metro. That's what we were planning. We managed to find an affordable hotel near the center of things and we were just going to do the rail metro. There seem to be stations within walking distance to most of the places we'd like to see and from our hotel. We budgeted between $50-75 for the week since we only have two kids and each kid rides free with an adult. Does this seem reasonable, or should we re-look at this?
We also found a hotel with full kitchen suite's and continental breakfast. We'll go out to eat sometimes just because it's a vacation, but I think we'll pack lunches for a lot of days and eat supper in our room a lot. So hopefully we can keep food costs a little slimmer that way.
Anyone have restaurant suggestions for when we do eat out? Can we find meals (lunch or casual supper) for between $6-8/person there or are my midwest prices waaay off? How do grocery costs compare? Does it tend to be more expensive?
BTW, thanks for all your great advice guys! I'm so grateful to have you guys to turn to as we plan this trip. Your better than a guide book! (..though I've still checked out about a billion from the library.  )
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tovlo4801
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| Posted: July 28 2005 at 11:31pm | IP Logged
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I found it at my library. It looks great! Thanks for linking the book.
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Kelly
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Hey Richelle,
Re: Tour Books. A very handy book for visiting Washington is "Washington with Kids". Small, portable, phone numbers and hours listed, as well as prices for attractions. We've used these for several cities and they are GREAT. They include the obvious as well as the obscure. The "Kidding Around" series are good, too, and include page by page activities that your kids can do in the book. My 10 yo likes these. I'm pretty sure there's one for Washington, D.C.
Books for Washington: two fun books by Peter and Cheryl Barnes: "Woodrow, the White House Mouse" and "House Mouse, Senate Mouse". They are cute stories and have pictures of places you'll see and historical fact included therein. My kids have all enjoyed these and picked up some history without even knowing it. I think there might be a new title in the series, too. There's one on Alexandria, VA (just outside WDC) that's good, too. Great picture books for Washington. You can find them on Amazon.com.
The National Gallery of Art has a free children's "scavenger hunt" that takes you thru the gallery. Ask for it at the Information Desk. It's well done. We keep doing it over and over again, guess that shows it's kid-friendly! Also, when it's really hot outside, a fun thing to do is take the tunnel from the National Gallery over to the Modern Art museum (but it's not called that, it's the East Wing, I think) and enjoy the cool waterfall from BELOW! You can eat there, too, but it's really pricey. Better for just a drink or an icecream, and a relatively clean bathroom.
The National Aquarium is small but approachable. I love the Baltimore Aquarium, beautiful and glitzy, but the Aquarium in WDC is my kind of place: old-fashioned, pokey and hands-on. However, if you're trying to economize, I'd save your $17 for something else unless you're children are bananas over fish. On the other hand, if you're in that area and you're really hot (and WDC can be very hot), it's a nice,cool place to duck into...might be WORTH $17 for that!
Ditto Jenn on the National Cathedral and St. Matthew's Cathedral. Your children will love the gargoyles and secret passages under the National Cathedral---it's very medieval feeling. Watch for the moon rock embedded in one of the stain glass windows! St. Matthew's is gorgeous, it's glittering gold mosaic really awed my children. I love going to Mass there.
The Spy Museum and the, what is it, Museum of Broadcasting, in Rosslyn, the Media Museum? Something like that. Anyway, both are big crowd pleasers with the kiddies.
For eating, we've usually found ethnic food to be pretty reasonable. Look for small, formica-table-topped places as you walk along. There are lots of little Chinese places downtown. Also, bagel delis are pretty good value. In Adams Morgan, there used to be an Ethiopian restaurant called "The Red Sea" that was super cheap and delicous (if your kids are adventurous...the food might be too much for them if not, but all children love the fact that you eat the meal with your hands!!!) However, I'd ask at your hotel about it, or even call to inquire about their prices. AM has gotten trendy, alas. In general, the secret in WDC, in my experience, anyway, is to avoid the Fancy Places (and the places on the Mall)!
One other thing that is fun, and inexpensive, is to go to the top of the Washington Hotel (downtown, near the White House) to have a cold drink, watch the sun set and the lights go on around town. It's a beautiful view. I haven't been there in a long time, though, so you'd better double check that you can still do that!
When it's really hot, my old roomates and I used to go down to the Senate and swim in the fountain, there. We called it "C Street Beach". Your kids would love it, but you might get run off by security...
Kelly in FL (but a resident of the District for a decade!)
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cathhomeschool
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tovlo4801 wrote:
| We managed to find an affordable hotel near the center of things and we were just going to do the rail metro. There seem to be stations within walking distance to most of the places we'd like to see and from our hotel. We budgeted between $50-75 for the week since we only have two kids and each kid rides free with an adult. Does this seem reasonable, or should we re-look at this? |
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There are stations everywhere, and since you're staying closer in, you won't have to ride as far (which will be cheaper). You'll get away paying much less than we did. In NYC, it costs the same amount no matter how far you ride, and the pass makes it even less (plus all 4 kids rode free). That's why DC was such a shock.
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Janette (4 boys - 22, 21, 15, 14)
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guitarnan
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Richelle,
Be sure to figure out what part of DC your hotel is in...there are some parts of the District that are really unsafe at night. Not trying to scare you, just to make sure your trip is all you want it to be.
It's kind of hard to find grocery stores near the tourist sights, but I'd definitely suggest picnics to cut costs. Around the memorials/Tidal Basin there are lots of lovely grassy areas.
There used to be a grocery store at the Crystal City metro stop (in the Crystal Underground); if you're on the Arlington side of the river for some reason, or close by there, you can get groceries there without needing a car.
Street vendors sell water and food by the Mall at high prices...try to get some water bottles and pack them along. Maybe some other folks can chime in with grocery stops for you.
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Nancy in MD. Mom of ds (24) & dd (18); 31-year Navy wife, move coordinator and keeper of home fires. Writer and dance mom.
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tovlo4801
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We're staying in the Foggy Bottom section of DC a couple blocks from the Foggy Bottom-GWU station. From what I've read it's a fairly safe area of DC, but we'll probably try not to need to be out walking after dark anyway.
I did a google search of the area and there are a few grocery stores in the area of our hotel. One is a block away. I'm hoping it's not just a convenience sort of store, because it would be really nice to be able to walk a block and get groceries each day. I'd love suggestions on the grocery stops.
We're finishing up our tenative itinerary (still VERY open to suggestions though!) and we really did want to try to find some time to be available to visit with any of you guys in the area that might like to get together. I googled playgrounds and the East Potomac park came up as a nice park. We thought we might spend Saturday September 10 walking the mall and then late afternoon/supper time letting the kids play at the playgrounds there. Is it true that this is a decent park? Would anyone be interested in meeting us there?
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tovlo4801
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BTW we'll be there over the 9/11 anniversary. On one hand it might be nice to be part of any memorial events that go on, but on the other we're hoping that there won't be larger crowds to deal with or even scarier - attacks. Does anyone know if there are any big 9/11 events planned in the area? I didn't see anything in my quick search, but I haven't looked too hard yet. Also, we're trying not to be too nervous about it, but with the attacks in London and it being the anniversary of 9/11 we would appreciate prayers for our trip to be a safe one.
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4Real Forums : Living Learning
Topic: We're going to Washington!
