Movin' on Up

HEAT RISES: It was cold this morning. Again. Tired of the less than cozy temps on our main floor, I had a revolutionary idea. MPA was going to move to a place where there's a floor to ceiling view of the sunny landscape and picturesque Queen Anne Hill, and peek-a-boo views of Puget Sound and Mount Rainer. A place with beautiful bamboo floors, abundant heat and insulation, plenty of comfy seating and free wireless Internet. That's right kids, we're heading upstairs!!!

For you see, the main floor, where we do 95 percent of our living, is just above the basement, and the basement has zero insulation. Therefore, the main floor is the first line of defense in the cold battle, and the last couple of days it has been losing.

FROSTY FLAKES: Once settled in upstairs, we revisited the BrainPOP lesson plan about snowflakes. Our goals today were to come up with in-their-own-words definitions for some of the new/biggish words the kids encountered (things like molecule, vapor, symmetrical and humidity), as well as record some of the facts we learned about snowflakes from the BrainPOP video and supporting activities. We learned: - Snowflakes grow and change as they fall toward earth
- H2O is two hydrogen molecules, one oxygen molecule, and H2O = water
- Colder air produces snowflakes with sharper tips
- A snowflake's shape is determined by conditions under which it forms
- If it's warmer, snowflakes grow slower and in more subtle shapes

BRITISH INVASION: This morning's math activities came courtesy of the British Broadcasting Corporation, which has an astoundingly comprehensive educational Web site. (In fact, I think a person would keep busy even if this was the ONLY site they used to support their classroom/curriculum .)

We hopped over to "Number Time," the "numeracy" ("math" here in the States) portion of the site, where there are online games, printable worksheets, songs, videos and more. (Have I mentioned the BBC site is fantastic?)

This morning, the kids played a great game called Dartboard. It has three levels - the first level gives you a number and you have to use one dart to get to get that value. Once in awhile it's as simple as putting a dart on a number that matches it, but other times, it involved addition or multiplication - more specifically, doubling (a new concept to the kids). For instance, if the target score was 10 and the inner ring of the dart board only features the numbers 2-9, you have to figure out which one of those numbers doubled = 10. The kids caught on really quickly and finished the first round in no time. The second round was more challenging - every problem required adding values, some inner rings and some outer rings (which were the numbers' doubled values). By the third round, they were working with target scores in the 30s and 40s, and it involved doubling numbers, as well as adding three numbers together to get a sum. We used all sorts of tools to make that happen (a number line, tally marks, a number table, fingers ...). In all, we spent over an hour on the "game" that was really hardcore, above grade-level math! When we were done, Annabelle said, "Let's dance for joy!" For inspiration, we played three math songs from the BBC site.

RUBY PROBOSCIS: For a musical interlude, the kids sang along with a karaoke version of Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer. Afterward, they read along with a wonderfully narrated version of the Rudolph story.

STOP, DROP & ROLL: I've been planning to do a fire safety day for a month now (well, maybe two - October was fire safety month). The fire safety books I checked out to help make that happen are due back to the library tomorrow, so today was Fire Safety Day at MPA. Interestingly enough, Annabelle happened to be wearing a sweater today (for the first time in months) that had a fire truck on it.

Together, we read three books about fire safety and one (really, really wordy) book about daily life at a fire station. The kids paid close attention, and we didn't just stick to the text, we took every point and talked about it in the context of our house and our lives. I kept asking the kids for their ideas and their input and what they'd do in various scenarios. At one point, CJ suggested that if he was in his bedroom and he smelled smoke he would put a blanket at the bottom of the door to help block the smoke from entering. "That's an idea that wasn't in the book!" he said with a sense of self satisfaction.

After the books were over, we went into each room of the house and talked about what we'd do if we were in that room and heard a smoke alarm. I had the kids practice crawling toward safe exits and unlocking and opening windows. A couple of times Annabelle got panicky because she couldn't get them open, but waaaaay better that she become frustrated during a harmless drill than a real life emergency. Eventually, she and CJ got them all open with little trouble. We also talked about how if they think there's a fire, it's their job is to get out of the house and to a safe spot and to wait there. Under no circumstance are they to return into the house to get someone or something else.

MEANWHILE, ON MARS: We here at MPA get all sorts of daily updates from NASA. This morning's big news was a cool photo the Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity took of a rock informally named 'Marquette Island' (island names are used for all isolated rocks the rover finds on the Martian surface). Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

COVER GIRL: We got notice today from editor Stavroula Kousta, Ph.D that a baby photo of Annabelle will be on the February cover of a scientific journal, "Trends in Cognitive Sciences." Pretty cool!