Jokes by Levi


What did the ice cream say when the banana asked when it could come over?
Only on a sundae!

What does a drama king wear to bed?
Pa-dramas!

What do you call a swashbuckling rat?
A pi-rat!

What do you call a shoe that has a problem?
An is-shoe! (An issue)

What do you call a video game that you play with more than one person?
A "we!"

What do you call it when someone listens in on Christmas Eve?
Eves-dropping!

And one contributed by a friend:
What's brown and sticky?
A stick!

Levi called me into his room saying, "Oliver's a quarterback." Oliver was on the bed on his tummy with 4 quarters on his back.

What does a crocodile say when it wants to be a rooster?
CROC-a-doodle-do!

Tuesday, January 8, 2008

Baltimore Museum of Industry





Much of what we learn in the Upside Down (F)unschool comes from "doing, going and seeing." Today we went on a field trip at the Baltimore Museum of Industry, one of the few museums we'd yet to visit in Baltimore.

From their brochure: "Founded in 1977, the Baltimore Museum of Industry celebrates the past, present and future innovations of Maryland industry and its people . . . . Museum activities help students connect what they learn in school with real world concepts about work, technology, industry and the economy."

In the Neighborhood

There were 2 parts to our tour today. During "In The Neighborhood," the kids got to experience work at various early 20th-century Baltimore neighborhood businesses. Each child had a job that they got to perform during the tour. We had a ship's captain, stevedore, baker, grocer, pharmacist and soda fountain owner, and oyster shucker. Last but not least, Levi was the banker and Oliver was the security guard at the bank.

The kids each had a collection of tokens at the beginning of the tour. As they went from business to business, they paid that businesses workers for their services. The kids learned about the differences between skilled and unskilled workers and how that effected their wages.

Their last stop was the bank where the kids deposited their tokens with Levi the Banker while Oliver stood guard. Each child received a bank book with their deposit amount in it.

City Builders

The second part of the tour was called "City Builders." Using a large map of the museum's neighborhood and paper patterns for various neighborhood buildings like the one's they had earlier done business in, the kids constructed a 3 dimensional neighborhood. Everyone got to bring their building home.

We saw a small part of the museum on our trip today. The museum holds many more exhibits that we didn't see today including a belt-driven machine shop, a blacksmith shop, an oyster cannery, a print shop, and a garment loft. We'll be back there soon--there's much more to see.