Mrs Otis was a Homeschooler!

    Yesterday B took an architecture workshop at the Otis House on Beacon Hill in Boston.
He cast a plaster ornament like the ones one the walls and ceiling of the house, learned about the Classic motifs Bostonians copied from the Romans in the late 18th century as they looked to Rome in the founding of our nation, and took a walking tour/scavenger hunt through Beacon Hill looking for vernacular and high Classical motifs.

 M, K and I joined him for the scavenger hunt but we hung out on the common for most of the time.








    It used to be when B did a field trip, M and I tagged along and the pictures I took reflected B’s experience fairly closely.  But these days, I’m off with K, and so is the camera.
    I did take a house tour with M and K though.  She was thourouly tired of life in her ellaroo,
so I let her sit in the middle of the room.   She liked the carpeting.  I thought it was garish but fun.  We wore blue shoe covers so we wouldn’t damage it, it is 30 year old reproduction carpeting but even that is old.  I couldn’t photograph it or anything in the house either least the flash damage the artifacts. 
    K eventually tired of the carpet roses and wanted to touch a carved table leg. I picked her up and put her in the middle of the room again to hear about how Mrs Otis was the cheapest, and best educated governess for her 11 children, and how she had a classroom and dormitories for them on the 3rd floor, keeping her drawing room and parlor tidy.  I was longing to hear more about her homeschool organization, but the fire marshal won’t let the tour up to the 3rd floor as there is only one door in or out.  K got close to that table leg again, and I sat down in a corner to nurse her.  Just then the tour ended, and M walked downstairs with the tour.  My friend Connie rescued me by catching him and letting the tour guild know where I was and why.

    While we waited for B to un-mold his plaster cast, M and his friend R made towers out of rocks and loose pavers in the Otis House courtyard.  funny how kids will find thing to play with wherever they are, and usually with rocks.
I leaned back in the bench and snapped this photo of the tree.  It didn’t come out as well as I wanted, it was very pretty and back lit.
    After all that touring and playing, the kids and I walked through Boston Common, down Winter Street until we found China town.  We had a snack at the King Fung Garden, walked to South Station and caught the 3:45 train home.