The small town drama continues and our large rainbow giraffe keeps getting airtime!
Pride Giraffe on TV
Orono’s efforts to celebrate pride week were featured on a local television station News Center Maine. Reporter Alex Haskell did a great job.
Schoodich
More than ten miles on bike. This summer a new statement is starting to appear on QW adventures: “Mommy, you coming?” 😊 After years of carrying and cajoling, I’m now the slow one being checked up on.
Orono Pride in the newspaper
The full story and more photos can be found here. Hooray for Orono!
Pride giraffe
Our contribution to Orono’s pride month, just before we moved it to the center of town:
Summer sleeping
In the screened in porch.
The fellas have been devoted to sleeping there for weeks now. Their tools: a slumping air mattress, a mound of about 30 stuffed animals between them just to ensure someone falls out of bed (Reid has twice this summer), and an obscene number of blankets and pillows. They love it!
Liam Solves 3^3 Rubiks Cube
Summer and protest
Black Lives Matter and Protesting Trump in Bangor
We missed the recent local rallies and protests in support of Black Lives Matter, and George Floyd in the last couple of weeks, so when we heard that Trump was coming to Maine for a photo op with a company that makes swabs used in COVID-19 testing, and there was a protest, we thought we should do it!
Some very clever signs. 
For example. 
Many very clever signs, actually. 
Some Bread-and-Puppet-esque pieces too. 
Over 1000 gathered near the airport for the Trump protest / Black Lives Matter rally. Keep in mind that ME is among the whitest state in the Union. It was very heartening to see this show of solidarity. 
After the speaches and chants, the crowd took over the round-about near the airport, and some lay down in front of traffic. The police were engaged, but everything was civil and peaceful. So proud of these young activists. 
Our little crew. With an Orono friend.
Final ELA reports
We’re rounding off the school year and Reid and Liam have each recently finished off their final pieces of writing for English Language Arts. Liam wrote about political speeches, dating all the way back to Pericles, a famous Athenian politician. For this essay, we worked on thesis development, outlining, and substantiating arguments with quotes. I think he did a really nice job. His essay can be found here.
Reid dictated his synopsis of The Odyssey to me after we read an illustrated and abridged version of the famous epic. He then wrote a comparison between aspects of the Percy Jackson novels and The Odyssey. Reid places Rick Riordan well above Homer in his evaluation. Here’s a piece of art he made, messing around on the digital art tool Procreate to accompany his comparative essay:
It’s been a ton of fun to work with the kids this spring.
