They might not look like much from the outside of the pod, but these scarlet runner beans are incredibly beautiful. This week, our farmer taught us how to recognize when the pods are ready to be harvested. And when they are ripe, the beans are pink and dark blue! When cooked fresh, scarlet runner beans are nutty and just a little sweet. They are definitely worth the effort!

As part of our Exploring Arts Program, and as part of our religions of the world unit in World Cultures, Phaedra Siebert helped our kids compare early Roman and Christian objects, finding iconographic similarities. She facilitated a discussion about some of the reasons religions borrow from each other, and using pre-Columbian art as inspiration, Phaedra asked the kids to come up with holidays of their own as a way to demonstrate how newer belief systems often incorporate old

As part of City Kids' Nature Program, our kids went seining in the Chesapeake! They examined animals they found in an oyster reef, learned about oysters, and even built a filter designed to clean dirty water just like oysters. And they got to wear waders, which they LOVED! City Kids had an amazing time, in large part because of the expertise of their guide for the day. Thanks for an awesome experience! Here is a video of our kids learning the proper seining technique:

For one of our Nature Days, our kids had an awesome time pond dipping! They pulled up all sorts of plant and animal life to study. Of course, everything went back in the water!

As part of our Exploring Arts program, and to follow up from our visit to the Islamic Center, Phaedra Siebert, our Exploring Arts director, engaged the kids in a discussion and activity about Islamic architecture and design, using images from the Islamic Center as examples. Phaedra encouraged the kids to pay particular attention to Kufic script and to discuss ways to relay ideas without depicting them in pictures. She finished with an activity that invited our kids to use me