Thanksgiving

WE LOVE A PARADE: The kids watched the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade this morning, spotting lots of favorite characters, including Spider Man, Shrek, Kermit, and even M&Ms!. Of course, now CJ wants to go to New York more than ever. I do too.

MEASURING UP: We finally extracted the now water-logged amazing expanding dinosaur and giraffe that we've been watching and measuring since last Friday night. The packaging said they'd grow 600 percent in 72 hours. Let's just say they were a little off. ... ;)

The dino started at 2 inches wide by 2 inches high. The giraffe was 2 inches wide by 2.5 inches high. At 72 hours they were 3x3 for the dino, 3x4.5 for the giraffe. We wondered if they were done growing and found out they weren't. They continued to swell, and so we left them in the water for a total of 144 hours. Their size seems to have peaked at 4x4.5 inches for the dino and 3.5 x5 inches for the giraffe, so we ended our experiment tonight.

Speaking of the giraffe, our specimen had a bit of a birth defect. His left rear leg hardly grew at all. Really, it just made the experiment more interesting! (For instance, we wondered, "Why didn't that part grow?")

All in all, it was a fun exercise that held the kids interest. Thanks go to Ruthie for providing the materials. :)

DISCOVERY OF THE DAY: So, I was doing some Black Friday (gray Thursday?) browsing on Amazon and happened to spot an Amazon customers' chat thread complaining about teachers showing movies during class time. I read some of the discussion/accusations/name calling, and one teacher said that he shows movies in his class regularly - from the Discovery Education Web site. Curious, I hopped there and discovered a goldmine. There are engaging videos covering math, science, social studies, arts, tech, games, languages.

Heck, their list of other Internet resources is a treasure trove all by itself. Seriously with Internet access, a person who doesn't mind doing a little research would never need to buy any curriculum or workbooks for that matter.

FRESH AIR: Around midday we went for a jog. We headed to the grocery store (I know, not too bright given it was Thanksgiving and all), but hey, we needed mozzarella cheese for our pizza (I know, pizza on Thanksgiving?! Sacrilege!) Along the way we stopped on the bridge over the Interbay rail yard. We've never seen the yard so full - it was train cars on nearly every track for as far as you could see. I guess no one but Amtrak was working on the railroad all the livelong Thanksgiving day.

THANKFUL, THOUGHTFUL: I thought I'd keep the workload super light today. Really the only 'school' work I asked the kids to do was a craft project where they cut out four turkey tail feathers and on each feather they were supposed to write something they were thankful for. Annabelle knocked it out in about two minutes. She listed family members' names and the color pink. :)

CJ, well, let's just say it didn't go as quickly or as smoothly. He did great with the crafty part, and he pretty quickly came up with marshmallows and chocolate chips as things he was thankful for, but when Christian and I suggested he try to think of things, places or people that make him happy, progress ground to a standstill. For whatever reason, he popped off with "pears." "I don't really like them, but I'm thankful we have them," he tried to qualify. When we reminded him we said something other than food, he replied with a feeble "pineapple." And so it went for several minutes until he came up with Transformers (toys that he's really only mildly interested in). So he drew a car (as that's easy to spell, and Transformers sometimes turn into cars). And he drew a star - to signify that he's thankful for Captain America.

CJ's mind works in mysterious ways. (:

HEADING HOME: Like so many others on Thanksgiving, the astronauts on board Atlantis were preparing for a trip home to family and friends. They should land tomorrow morning, about 6:30 our time. It's highly likely CJ will be up to watch it live. Seen over the Mediterranean Sea, near the Algerian coast, the space shuttle Atlantis is featured in this image photographed by the Expedition 21 crew on the International Space Station soon after the shuttle and station began their post-undocking separation. Undocking of the two spacecraft occurred at 4:53 a.m. EST on Nov. 25, 2009. Image Credit: NASA