Adventure #14: Old City and Ice Cream

On Wednesday, Becky and I had a mid-week adventure to Old City. We walked for like 45 minutes (I am going to get such awesome leg muscles) to get there. We saw the Betsy Ross house, and then we walked to Elfreth's Alley. Elfreth's Alley has been preserved to look like it did during the 18th century. People still live in the houses, but you're not allowed to even put anything in the windows besides things that were around back then. (Not sure why there is a car parked in the middle of the alley.)

 There's also an alley-within-the-alley called Bladen's Court.

And, some of the houses are for sale or for rent.  Think I'd be able to afford to live here?

Next, we saw the Liberty Bell. We were there later in the day, so there wasn't much of a crowd, which was nice for picture-taking.

We took the subway back to South Philly. Subways sort of scare the crap out of me, but I guess it wasn't so bad. There must have been a Phillies game on Wednesday, because there were all kinds of folks down there in their Phillies garb.

When we got back to South Philly, we went to Cap Giro's for some of the best ice cream in the world. I got a scoop of dark chocolate and a scoop of mint. It's pricey - I paid almost $5 for those two scoops - but oh my goodness, it's delicious. Just look at this.

 

The mint had little mint leaves in it, for crying out loud.







Today was the best day of work I think I've had yet. My partner teacher started a Star Chart earlier this week, and the kids are really responding to it. Each of their names are on the chart, and they can earn stars for helping to clean up, playing nicely, following directions, participating in activities, staying out of fights...etc. The original plan was to give the person who has the most stars at the end of the summer some kind of special prize, but now I'm thinking that maybe if they reach a certain number of stars, they can earn a prize. Say, maybe a prize for every ten stars earned, or something like that. I think that would be more fair, since not everyone comes every day, and would be even more motivating to the kids. Also I was happy because this morning, the kids responded really well to an art activity that I took from the summer camp curriculum. They had to cover pieces of heavy paper with aluminum foil, draw a picture on it with a pencil, trace it with a marker, and then either paint it or color it with marker (I had Sharpies.) They stayed engaged with the activity for a long time, and most of them even made multiple pictures. Later in the day, there was another Talent Show in the gym, and at the end almost everyone was up doing the same dance to...what is that song...the one where you go to the right, and turn, and whatever. It was really cool to see the kids do something together that looked organized! I hope things continue to improve next week.

Happy weekend everyone!