Dawn of December

REMEMBER NOVEMBER: We started the day off by going through all of paper goods (workbook sheets, graphs, creative writing and jotting) that the kids generated last month. We reviewed what we learned and spread it all out on the table in front of us. CJ and Annabelle showed a good measure of pride in what they'd created and accomplished in the past month. Way to go, guys!

GIMME A "D", GIMME AN "E" ...: We worked on a couple of December-related tasks this morning. The first order of business was the creation of December calendars. They're old hands at this now. Without prompting they wrote the days of the week across their calendar's top and labeled them with the month's name. We said the "Thirty days ..." poem to figure out how many days December has, and then they filled in their numbers (through 31, of course). Next, it was labeling this month's regular action items (yoga, music, ballet), as well as holidays and winter's first day.

To help set the mood, we listened to "A Long December" by the Counting Crows (which was in heavy rotation on MTV and VH1 circa 1996, back when they still showed music videos). Annabelle approved of the tune, saying, "That's a nice song." (Of course now it has been stuck in my head all day.) We also listened to Once Upon a December from a Disney movie, Anastasia, that I've never seen or heard of. Lastly, we checked out Matt Costa's Cold December.

ON THE TRAIL: Our midday PE was walking Kirby to the neighborhood park. The kids, of course, played on the playground. Meanwhile, I kept watch for the neighborhood coyote, wondering if it was his lunch time too. ... CJ spent most of his time climbing the faux rocks on the playground. He took them on systematically, starting with the smallest and working his way to the biggest. Once atop the largest rock, he declared himself King of Mountain Climbing and then asked about climbing ... "What's that mountain in Washington?"

"Mt. Rainier?" I guessed.

"Yes! That's it. Mount Rainier!" he confirmed. He then asked if there was an elevator to get to the top. I told him no dice, he was going to have to use his own power to get to the top.

On the way home, CJ and Annabelle looked for signs of the coyote. They found a couple of paw prints and sticks they were just SURE were coyote clues.

SEASONS GREETINGS: This afternoon we hopped back on BrainPOP. We reviewed the video about the reason for the seasons (no, not the birth of baby Jesus - I'm talking about the 23.5 -degree tilt of the earth on its axis). We took a comprehension quiz online and I transcribed while the kids gave me definitions in their own words for terms like "axis of rotation," "vernal equinox," "hemisphere" and such.

DOMO ARIGATO, MR. ROBOTO: This afternoon Annabelle heard some hip hop music and said she wanted to learn how to hip hop dance. So, we hopped to YouTube and found a kid friendly lesson on how to do the robot. Hilarity ensued as she and CJ got down with their bad robotic selves. Afterward, it was off to yoga, where things were a little more serene.

SO MANY STORIES: This afternoon, we scored a DVD at the library that's a collection of five of Eric Carle's classic stories, including "The Very Hungry Caterpillar" and "Papa, Please Get The Moon For Me." The kids enjoyed that while I made dinner. After dinner, their dad read them a trio of "If You ..." books to them (Take a Mouse to School, Take a Mouse to the Movies, Give a Pig a Pancake.) Such simple books, so formulatic. They must take 10 minutes to write. What a goldmine for author Laura Numeroff.