 | | This is Tamino playing the magic flute to tame the bears. |
THE METROPOLITAN OPERA HOUSE
In Mid-November I went to New York to go to the Met. Saturday was the day of the opera. We had gone shopping the day before, so we all had on fancy outfits. (My sister’s was the fanciest). When we got to the Opera House my dad and I went to the gallery of art that artists painted of other operas. My dad told me that when they rang the bell it meant that it was time to go in to the theater. And a couple of minuets later, the bell rang. We had to walk up four flights of stairs to get to our seats because we were going to be sitting in the third to last row! The theater can fit 3,500 people, and the tickets were sold out so it was FULL!!!! In a lot of operas there are overtures. An overture is when the orchestra plays a song while the actors get ready to perform. We have the movie The Magic Flute in Swedish but we saw it in its original language, German. The subtitles were on the back of the chair in front of you. We brought 2 pairs of binoculars so we could take turns seeing close up. The opera is about 2 men, 1 is a prince, Tamino, trying to save a princess, and the other is a bird-catcher Papageno looking for a wife. In the end they both are married. I thought it was really good. The producer, Julie Taymore, was the same woman who created the Broadway Musical “The Lion King.” On the way to New York my dad told my sister and I that when Mozart and his friend wrote The Magic Flute over 200 years ago their Queen was a mean person so they based the bad Queen in the opera on her.
APPLE PRESSING
On the 22 of September , we went to our friend’s house, to make
apple cider. This is how you make it:
- Pick the apples from the tree
- Wash the apples
- Cut out the brown spots and worms
- Put the apple in the food mill
- Turn crank, and the cider comes out
- Strain the cider
- Drink it!
I had a chance to turn the crank. I drank 4 cups of cider! It was really good.
Our friends gave us 3 gallons of cider to bring home.
HILLARY FOR PREZ!
In early September, my mom and I went to Concord to hear Hillary Clinton speak. It was on the lawn of the state capital building. We had tickets to sit in the bleachers, but someone came by and said: “Come with me to stand right behind the Clintons! And you might get a hand shake!" At first we didn’t want to but we finally did. When we got there we had to wait a while until Hillary and Bill Clinton came. On their way up to the podium they shook hands with some people, but they didn’t shake hands with the people in the corner that we were in. They each gave a speech. I saw people looking out of their apartment windows. There was a person who was translating the speeches into sign language. After they were done speaking they shook hands with everyone else, including me! Hillary signed  | | Sophie and Claudia at Walden Pond |
my poster. There are pictures of this at the bottom of the page.
FIELD TRIPS WE'VE TAKEN:
American Museum of Natural History, New York (http://www.amnh.org/)
“Falstaff,” Lebanon Opera House (http://www.lebanonoperahouse.org/home/home_main.asp)
The Constitution Center, Philadelphia (http://www.constitutioncenter.org/)
Montshire Museum of Science, Norwich, VT (http://www.montshire.org/index.html)
Walden Pond, Concord, MA (http://www.mass.gov/dcr/parks/northeast/wldn.htm)
New England Aquarium, Boston (http://www.neaq.org/)
Paul Revere House, Boston (www.paulreverehouse.org)
Walking the Freedom Trail, Boston (http://www.thefreedomtrail.org/)
Bunker Hill Monument, Boston (http://www.cityofboston.gov/freedomtrail/bunkerhill.asp)
USS Constitution, Boston (http://www.ussconstitution.navy.mil/)
Isabella Stewart Gardner House, Boston (http://www.gardnermuseum.org/the_museum/isabella.asp)
Nature walk at Apple Blossom Farm, Piermont, NH
ECHO Lake Aquarium and Science Center, Burlington, VT (http://www.echovermont.org/)
"The Magic Flute," Metropolitan Opera, New York City (http://www.metoperafamily.org/metopera/season/production.aspx?id=8842&detect=yes)
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