Friday 21 October 2011

Paris

We've had a bit of a French theme going in our Five in a Row books-Madeline, The Glorious flight and Mirette on the high wire and last week also in our 5-a-Day books. There was a reason-we had a family day out planned to Paris-a very special treat- and yesterday was the day.

We got up horribly early, soon after 3am-no pictures at that time in the morning! It did mean though that we arrived in Paris not long after 9am, French time.

Paris is so different although, superficially, so the same.


We looked out for "An old house in Paris that was covered in vines" but didn't see it although we saw this

and some old houses.
Of course, we went up the Eiffel Tower.
and saw other "Madeline" sights from there. The Arc de Triomphe is in the middle.
Was this the bridge where Madeline frightened Miss Claval?
Then we left the "Madeline" theme and went to the Pompidou Centre. You either love it or hate it. I find it fascinating. There was a children's exhibition, the Blobterre with plenty to appeal to different senses; all except taste, I think. Miss Belle wasn't so impressed by the rest of the modern art and asked about the location of the Mona Lisa. Maybe we chose the wrong gallery for her.
A fascinating, tiring day. In retrospect, I would have

  • taken the stroller. Mr Exuberance wasn't exuberant by the end and fell asleep on his big brother's shoulders.
  • done more research. We wanted to find food for the way back but couldn't find a boulangerie.
  • perhaps have planned a slightly shorter day.
Overall, though a good day. It is such a privilege to be able to visit so easily.

This is linked to The field trip hop and the Hip Homeschool Hop.

14 comments:

  1. I love Paris. A day trip is not a possibility from here :( but I guess we could always have a Grandparent London stop over (once we had all bought passports........)

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  2. Wow, now that's a great "field trip"! Love the way you introduced the theme through books first. Paris is wonderful in the autumn, although I haven't been for years!

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  3. Yes, autumn was a good time for a visit and we had good weather. It might have been a bit miserable in the rain.

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  4. Wow, what a fun day and a fun way to wrap up the books. Wish I could 'hop' on over to Paris.

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  5. Awesome field trip. You may want to link up to Anna's field trip blog hop.

    http://lifesadventures-amb-fieldtriphop.blogspot.com/

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  6. Thank you for the link-sounds good.

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  7. What a great field trip! I've only been to Paris once and didn't have the kiddos with me. I've always wanted to make it back and bring them to see the sights.

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  8. Thanks for linking up to the Field trip hop:) We are planning on going to Paris this spring. I was there once before but my children haven't seen Paris and they are dying to go. We plan on spending a long weekend there so hopefully we will get to see lots.

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  9. I'm sure that your children would love Paris. One of mine has been talking about little else since then!

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  10. That is very cool! When my son was younger and reading the Beverly Cleary books, we did something similar with Portland, OR. It was especially meaningful though because my dad grew up two or three blocks from where the most of Beverly Cleary's characters live. My dad used to go to the park, library, etc that are described in the books.

    Shortly after our virtual field trip, and after exploring the Beverly Cleary website, we went on vacation to Portland FOR REAL! :) We found Klickitat Street and drove down it as we looked for houses that we thought might belong to each character. It was so fun to see the stories that way!

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  11. Malea, this sounds a wonderful trip. I've been really impressed with how much more the little ones get out of the trip if it is associated with a book that they have enjoyed. I've got some more plans of this sort!

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  12. Wow! If only we could take a field trip like that. What wonderful memories your children will have!

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  13. Lexi, thank you for visiting. I've been amazed how much my two year old talks about the trip. It is still very recent but obviously made a big impression.

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