Saying So Long to 2010

FRIENDLY DAY: Truth be told today was another day nearly entirely devoid of formal academics. Sure, we answered the normal 1,001 questions from the kids (What's '3D?' What year was Beauty and the Beast (the Disney version) made? How do I make a question mark [on the computer]? Does this sign have pixels? How does a magnifying glass work? and on and on.)

I had intentions of doing bookish stuff, but I have been hit by The Plague that Annabelle and CeeJ had/have, so I'm feeling like I've been hit by a truck and just tried to get through the day, period.


That said, we did have one obligation today and I was determined to make good on it. CJ is overdue to see his best kindergarten buddy and we had plans to meet up today. It was cold, but sunny, so we decided to meet at "Big Howe" park on Queen Anne, not too far from where his friend lives.


It was a little over a year ago that CJ had his first post-kindergarten pow wow with her at Top Pot Donuts on Queen Anne and wow, what a difference a year makes. I remember back then "coaching" CJ on the way over about things he could ask her and talk to her about, and reminding him that she wouldn't just want to hear about video games. And we've had several meetings at parks since, and in the early ones, I'd remind CJ he was there to play with her (as opposed to running of on his own).


Today, there are none of those concerns. With no prompts or reminders, he's super attentive and conversational and it's just great to see.


Annabelle also enjoys the pow-wows, of course, as it's a park outing and a donut for her, too. :)

All three of the kids ordered a Top Pot chocolate bar, which is about the size of a loaf of French bread. Yikes!
NOT SO ROCKIN' NEW YEARS EVE: It's a little after 8 p.m. and I'm hosed. No way we're making it to midnight Pacific Time. If I'm lucky, I'll last until 9 p.m. and we can celebrate East Coast style. ;)

Happy New Year from MPA to you!

Bowl-O-Rama

NOT GONNA LIE: We didn't do a whole lot of book work today. Why, you ask? Because, you see, the Holiday Bowl is tonight.

No, it's not a BCS bowl, and yes, the Huskies only had a 6-6 record this year but you know what? It's the first time they've been to a bowl in EIGHT FRIGGIN years, so today, we were all about getting our game faces on. We made two kinds of cookies and decorated them. We made "cowboy caviar," (which I highly recommend), we made BLT wraps, Chex Mix and bloody Mary steak (oh, so good). Rick, Kennedy and a couple of their friends came over to watch the game. Our hard work paid off and the food was awesome but by far the best part of the evening was the Huskies beating Nebraska soundly. Go Dawgs!!

A WATERY GRAVE: By pre dawn's early dark, Christian and I sized up the Sea-Monkeys. The news was not good. Either they were really heavy sleepers, or they were having the Big Sleep.

I wasn't ready to "call it" until the sun came up and we could take a good look.Or a bad look, as the case may be.

We came to the undeniable conclusion that the Sea-Monkeys were all goners.

"Their lives were so short," Annabelle bemoaned.

We talked about what might have gone wrong. My theory is that it got too cold in our house last night for them. It's about 32 outside, and it was probably close to 60 in the room where they were last night. If I had it to do over, I'd put them in the kids' room, where it was nearly 70.

The kit did come with a coupon for do-over Sea-Monkeys if your kit goes bad, so we'll send away for those. Hopefully we don't kill another batch of 'em.

IT'S A KICK: Though yoga, music, science and ballet were on hiatus this week, Annabelle did have her soccer class today. It's still just a class of two, so they get lots of personal attention.
Meanwhile, on the sidelines, CJ watched. He clapped when Bee scored a goal or stole a ball. He was also quite happy to play PacMan on my phone.

At bedtime, Annabelle started crying for no apparent reason. When pressed, she told us that it was because she only has one soccer class left in this session and she doesn't want it to end. We couldn't sign her up for the next session as, for whatever reason, the day is switched from Thursday to Monday and it's smack dab in the middle of her ballet class, which she doesn't want to give up, either.

We assured her that we'll find another way for her to continue her soccer activity.

Worldy Wednesday

LET THERE BE LIFE!: First thing on our To Do list today was to continue the Sea-Monkeys project. Yesterday we'd set up their tank and conditioned the water. Today, the magic Sea-Monkey powder was added to the mix.

Bee did the pouring, CJ did the stirring. At first - in large part due to turbidity - it was hard to tell what might be a Sea-Monkey as opposed to what was just an air bubble or other debris in the water. But after several minutes, when things had settled down, we did spy tiny specks that appeared to have movement on their own.

I thought to rustle up a magnifying glass. It helped us get a better look. We'll see if the Sea-Monkeys grow. We're not supposed to feed them for five days. Hopefully they'll still be alive by then to enjoy a meal. ...

HISTORY LESSON: Before Annabelle was even up this a.m., CJ asked me when YouTube started.

Naturally, I had no clue, but I told him I knew we could find out on the Internet. So we hopped onto Wikipedia and found out the YouTube was founded in February of 2005 by three men, all former PayPal co-workers. They are Chad Hurley, Steve Chen and Jawed Karin.

The very first video ever uploaded to YouTube was "Me at the zoo." It was uploaded by YouTube co-founder Karim and it's of him at the San Diego Zoo. The (very unremarkable) video was uploaded on April 23, 2005, and can still be viewed on the site.

THE ENVELOPE, PLEASE: Our thank you card project continued today, with stuffing and addressing envelopes and getting them in the mail our goal.

It was good practice for the kids. They were reminded of the proper stamp, return address, address format on envelopes.
While they worked, I played some mail-inspired tunes via YouTube. They included Elvis' "Return to Sender" (what a catchy song!), "Mr. Postman" by the Marvelettes, Leonard Cohen's "The Letters" and even the suite from "The Postman." While its theme was forgettable, I rather liked that movie.

Once the letters were all ready, we walked three blocks to a mailbox. The kids were very excited to drop their letters in. I think it gave them a real "mission accomplished" feeling. No doubt they also like thinking about the people by whom those posts will be opened. :)

FUNION: I saw a headline on a story from The Onion today and couldn't help but think of CJ. The headline read, "Half Of 26-Year-Old's Memories Nintendo-Related."

A HOUSE DIVIDED: The kids were downright excited about math today for two reasons. First, they have reached page 100 in their books - a milestone they discovered. Second, we started working on division today.

Before we delved into the lesson, I got out our white board and drew a circle to represent a pizza. (Honestly, how many division lessons do you think have started this same way over the years?) We talked about ways to divide it among people so that each person got the same amount of slices. From there, we got into the Singapore Math pages.

The kids had no trouble with the introductory concepts. In fact, they finished their three pages of exercises in record time.

MAMMOTH MAP: We spent a good chunk of this afternoon on geography and puzzle solving thanks to a great Christmas gift from Auntie Renee and Uncle Jim - a 4 by 6 foot world map puzzle. Its 252 pieces were fashioned from a dense foam mat, which make them easy to handle (and fun to roll around on, as the kids found out later).

We worked it methodically, doing the top (world clocks) border and bottom (world flags) borders first, and then the east and west edges next (which showed the equator and some lines of latitude). We talked about how the world isn't really flat, but it was made that way for the map's purposes (so Russia and Alaska were at opposite sides of the map rather than right next to each other, as is the case in real life - just ask Sarah Palin).

Working the puzzle was great because the kids got a good sense for the continents and their relative locations, the countries that make up each continent, and the names and locations of oceans.

It took us darn near two hours to finish the puzzle. CJ wanted to take a break several times, but I made his soldier on. I told him we wouldn't be quitting until we were done, and thanks to good teamwork and sticktoitiveness, we did complete the awesome puzzle.

To celebrate their achievement, the kids did "snow angels" on the map.

Approaching Normal

BACK TO BALLET: Today we started making our way back toward a "normal" schedule following the Christmas chaos.

For starters, we headed to the village for a ballet class this morning. Though her normal Monday ballet class was off due to the holidays, Annabelle did enjoy a special dance camp today. It's theme was "Jumpin' Jeremy." During it, the kids watched a ballet video about a frog named Jeremy who "had to jump from lily pad to lily pad to get to the best fishing spot in the pond - the middle." There, he promptly fell asleep and when a fish bit his line, he got pulled into the water with it. He made it back to land safely, and lived happily ever after, by Annabelle's telling. The take away was a cute little stuffed frog, which she loved.

TABLE TIME: Once ballet was over, we got right down to business. First, the kids continued their first chapter dealing with multiplication. It went mostly, OK, except poor CJ was having a complete mental block on one problem.

He kept getting it wrong over and over and over. Meanwhile, Annabelle had finished up, so she was keeping herself amused by playing her new accordion ... while jumping on the trampoline.
Apparently CJ found this a tad distracting, so a dejected Annabelle trudged off to the top of the spiral staircase to play the blues.
FINALLY, CJ figured out that 6x4 = 24 and we were able to continue on.

DANKE SCHÖN: Next up, we got started on the many, many thank you cards we have to write. First we took inventory of gifts received and who the kind gifters were. Once that was figured out, together we designed the cards and then the kids worked collaboratively on writing on their insides. While they worked, I played one of my Christmas gifts, composer Christopher Tin's "Calling All Dawns" CD. Tin is a California native of Chinese descent.

"That's wonderful music - really good music tracks," assessed Annabelle.

CJ asked, "Is this from 'The Lion King' " during the first track, "Baba Yetu," which is the Lord's Prayer in Swahili. A couple tracks later, during "Caoineadh," a song with its lyrics rooted in Ireland, CJ asked, "Is that part of the 'Beauty and the Beast' song?"

Many of the songs were hauntingly familiar though we'd never heard them before. The lyrics paired with Tin's compositions takes listeners on a journey through several cultures - Swahili, Japanese, Mandarin, Portuguese, French, Latin, Polish, Hebrew, Farsi, Maori and Sanskrit. Together, the CD is an amazing artistic accomplishment. When the last track came on, it was clear the musical journey had come full circle, but not until reading Tin's Web site did I find out that "Calling All Dawns is a song-cycle in three movements: day, night and dawn. Each movement corresponds to a different phase of life--life, death, and rebirth. In short, it's 5 songs about life, 3 songs about death, and 4 songs about rebirth. There are songs of joy, mystery, and hardship, reflecting the complexity of our mortal selves. There are songs of the deepest, darkest sorrow to accompany us through death. And finally, there are songs of triumph and exultation that bring us roaring back to life, beginning the cycle anew."

The CD, which has been nominated for two Grammys, was recorded at the famous Abbey Road Studios with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. It's Tin's debut album. We're sure looking forward to his future projects.

NO YOGA: In an email from snowy New York, we learned that there would be no yoga this afternoon. Ironically, not because the kids' regular yoga teacher was snow bound and unavailable; it's because the substitute teacher was sick. Tonight before bed, CJ said, "I hope she feels better soon. And I hope she didn't get sick from us."

I assured him that wasn't the case. :)

MONKEY SEA: Today we launched a science experiment - we laid the groundwork for spawning Sea-Monkeys.

We found an intact kit at Value Village last week for $1.99 (score!). The kids were hot to get on it that day, but I told them we needed to be home to feed the Sea Monkeys, so it would have to wait until after Christmas. So, today was the day!

CJ filled the Sea-Monkeys tank with water and Annabelle conditioned it.
Bee was mad that we didn't get to hatch any Real Live Sea-Monkeys today. "I do NOT want this to be more than a one day process," she said, with an Attitude.

I offered up a "good things come to those who wait" type sentiment. Tomorrow, we get to add Step 2 - the Sea-Monkeys. Stay tuned. ...

LMAO: This evening, we were watching "Sunday Night Football," which had been postponed until tonight because of the wretched weather back East.

At one point, Annabelle asked, "Who do you want to win, Dad?"

Christian was non-committal.

At that point, CJ weighed in. "He doesn't really care who wins. He's watching it just for the hell of it." At that, CJ abruptly headed to his room for some post dinner YouTube. Hysterically (to us) about 60 seconds later he re-emerges and asks, "What does 'Just for the hell of it' mean?"

BRIGHT LIGHTS, BIG CITY: Not quite ready to call Christmas over, tonight we went out in search of Christmas lights. Having grown up around the Portland (Ore.) metro area, Peacock Lane is my frame of reference.

After searching the Internet, we decided to check out Candy Cane Lane.

We learned that Seattle's "Candy Cane Lane" grew out of a contest sponsored by the Seattle Times around 1950. The initial challenge was to create a display that shows the most Christmas cheer and "Candy Cane Lane," a circular block north of the U District, took the top prize.

According to a Seattle Times article, the 23 houses on Candy Cane Lane are the result of 1920s University of Washington architecture project, "which fashioned this block as a neighborhood community, with homes made of brick and arched doorways with tiny garages hidden in the back."

It certainly wasn't a huge display, but it was nice. We made the small circle three times (which took all of 5 mintues). Peace was the theme of the display (don't know if it's this year's theme or the ongoing one), but the word 'peace' was featured in several languages in front of the Candy Cane Lane homes.
We all liked the animated (his mouth opened) nutcracker at Candy Candy Lane.

Christmases

FIVE DAYS OF CHRISTMAS: As I sat down this evening to reflect on Christmas 2010, it occurs to me that we really had five Christmas celebrations this year. In fact, our Christmas stretched from December 13 to December 27. Phew! No wonder we're all so tired!

Poor CeeJ was so sick for the past three days - he missed a lot of the festivities. :( In fact, here's his plate at the table for Christmas dinner. He was out of it for a good portion of the evening, but he did make it to the table to eat some Goldfish off the pretty place setting at his Nonnie and Bops' house. Naturally, by Christmas Day Annabelle was coming down with her (not quite as bad) version of the virus.

Despite their colds, the kids definitely rallied on Christmas morning. CJ was thrilled to receive the vintage Krang he'd asked Santa for, and Annabelle was so happy with the tiny pink accordion she got from him.Their gifts also included lots of LEGOS, so there will be some building in our future!
We also got some cool books and movies, some science-y kits and it likely won't surprise regular readers to know there were some video game-related gifts, too. Annabelle, especially, is wild about the new Nintendo DSi XL. Without a bit of help from anyone, she figured out how to use both of its built in cameras and its fun photo editing software. She LOVES the Wario Ware DIY game Santa brought, as it allows her to create mini games, make music, make comics and more. And on the game's Web site, there are avenues to download games others have created and contests to create games to certain specs. We'll definitely be following up on that. They're also having fun getting to know Mario vs. Donkey Kong Mini-land Mayhem. It's challenging, which is good.

PLEASANT PIT STOP: Today, on our way home to Seattle from a very nice night with Grandma and Grandpa in Vancouver, we stopped in Olympia for a break. We drove through the historic business district north of the capitol building. There are many cool shops and galleries there, lots of neat architecture and we even saw a sign for a children's museum. We all want to make a field trip of capitol tour and downtown Oly sometime in the future.

Today, our tour consisted of one spot: McMenamin's Spar Cafe. We like checking out McMenamin's because of all the cool artwork and accoutrements their locations always have. The Spar was definitely worth the minor side trip off Interstate 5.

Built in 1935, the current structure has been a billiard hall, a saloon, a tobacco merchant and even a bowling alley before the McMenamins' arrival. Today, it has amazing chandeliers, a beautiful wooden bar and fantastic original paintings capturing the spot's history adorn the walls.

Interestingly, there's an artesian well in the cellar of the Spar, and the McMenamins are using its water to make their microbrews. Which, of course, reminds me of the old Olympia beer jingle, "It's the water, and a lot more ..." Above: Krang plots his overthrow of the Spar Cafe. (First, the Spar, next the state capitol!)

TOMORROW: It's back to the 'grind' (which really isn't a grind at all). Though they are still on break from music, Annabelle has a dance camp and they both have yoga and we're gonna get our noses in some books, for sure.

Are We There Yet?

OVER THE RIVER AND TO THE WOODS: Apologies for the tardy post, but yesterday was a loooooooooooooooong day. A very looooooooong day. Three hundred and ten miles long, to be exact.
We left Seattle just after 8 a.m. and for much of the 175 mile drive to our lunchtime destination - Vancouver, WA. - we listened to and sang Christmas carols. I told Christian that I don't want "Jingle Bells, Batman smells, Robin laid an egg" to be the only holiday tune they know all the words to.

We arrived at our first stop, Grandma and Grandpa's house, a few minutes after 11. We were happy to see them and stretch our legs.

By around 2:00 it was back in the car for the second leg of our trip, south through Portland, through Salem, through Corvallis and then onward toward the ocean and Nonnie and Bops' place. Part of the way, Rick, CJ and Annabelle amused themselves by drawing completely inappropriate though pretty darn funny pictures in dry erase markable book.
We got to Nonnie and Bops just before 5 p.m.

By about 6 p.m. CJ started crashing hard. What was a stuffy nose has bloomed into a full fledged horrible cold. He's hurtin' for certain. :(

IN THE MORNING: CJ slept through the night, but he's no better today. :( He did rally for a Christmas cookie decorating session this morning.
He was pretty proud of his cookie that had a spider on it.
Bee made faces on more than one of her cookies.
TRACKING DEVICE: this afternoon we checked in with NORAD to see how Santa's journey is going so far. It's cool - on a world map, you can see all the places he's already been (as indicated by gift icons), as well as where he is right now (as evidenced by a Santa icon). You can click on any of the icons and see photos of his stop, and there's even video of some of his deliveries!
There's also a cool, interactive "Kids' Countdown" portion of the Web site. It's a section of the village at the North Pole, and there are many games to be played there.

In case you were wondering, (I was!) NORAD stands for North American Aerospace Defense Command, and it's the bi-national U.S.-Canadian military organization responsible for the aerospace and maritime defense of the United States and Canada.

First Christmas

BY DAWN'S EARLY LIGHT: Long before Annabelle was even up today, CJ was poring over the latest "Highlights" magazine (thanks, G&G). He spent a good half hour reading and then finally he moved over to the table to take on a "hidden picture" puzzle. It was still so darn dark out, I had to monkey with a floor lamp to get some light shining in his direction.

TOUGH AUDIENCE: This morning a special "Mickey's Adventure in Wonderland" was on the Disney Channel. CJ kinda sorta watched the whole show. Apparently he was none too impressed. As the credits rolled he yelled, "You mean I've wasted 60 minutes of my life watching this?!"

LOL!

GOLDFISH GEOGRAPHY: This afternoon both kids took a virtual trip around the world with a goldfish as a tour guide. Earlier in the day I'd bought them some Pepperidge Farm Goldfish as a snack, which reminded them that they have enjoyed tooling around the PFGoldfish.com Web site in the past.

While some games are pure silly ("Operation Underpants" comes to mind), others had some educational value. For instance, Annabelle spent the bulk of her time playing "World Treasures," which required some geography knowledge. The player has to play detective as one of the goldfish collects souvenirs and four of his souvenirs are missing. The detective has to scour the globe using goldfish provided clues to find the missing treasure.

HAIKU REDUX: I kept our writing assignment today short. I asked the kids to write a haiku about Christmas. I was happy they were each able to recall what a haiku is and how it's crafted.

Annabelle:
Christmas toys for all
A time of year for giving
No taking away

CJ:
Christmas is so fun
Decorations on the walls
It is like winter

YEAR IN REVIEW: We received a Christmas card from the family of the kid's BYB (best yoga buddy). It included a "first annual" family letter. CJ was especially intrigued by it, and took it upon himself to read it out loud to us.

He and Annabelle were very flattered to learn they had been named in the letter as a highlight of their BYB's year. Nice. :)LATE REPORT: I neglected to report that this past weekend the kids went to another play. This time it was "Red Riding Hood & The 3 Little Pigs," performed by the Fremont Players at Hale's Palladium.

The play was billed as a British Panto, which the Fremont Players described as a production with a 300-some year history in Britain. This type of play is apparently always put on around the holidays, always based on a fairy tale, and interactive play is the norm. (For instance, the audience is encouraged to boo the villain, cheer for the hero and if a character says, 'Oh yes I am,' the audience is expected to reply, 'Oh no you're not.') Men often play women and vice versa.
Christian and Kennedy took the kids and all four thought it was a great show. There was lots of slapstick and even a live band accompanying the performance. Cool! Sounds like it's going to have to become a MPA holiday tradition!

ROUND ONE: Christmas started for us tonight. We had a Christmas dinner with Kennedy, whom we are going to miss on Christmas Eve and Day proper. We had a lovely vegetable lasagna and there were presents, much to the kids' delight (the presents part, I mean; the veggie lasagna, notsomuch).

The kids were happy to receive some Pluto Plasma from Ken. They also had tons o' fun playing with other people's gifts - including the (South Park) Kenny mask we got Ken.
And they had lots of fun with the high tech LED candles Ken got us. They conducted spooky tours of their bedroom.
THE MATH WARS RAGE ON: The debate about math (pro and/or con) is still going on on one of the homeschooling email mail lists I read. I'm digging the debate, because people continue to post links to math resources that are of interest. Case in point, today, a gentleman suggested we check out a YouTube video, "Why the other line is likely to move faster." It's short and interesting, and it turns out its author/star/poster is an engineering prof at the University of Illinois. He has a whole bunch of videos on his YouTube channel http://www.youtube.com/user/engineerguyvideo, and his own stand alone Web site, too. We'll definitely be checking out more or Mr. Bill Hammack!

Winter Arrives

ANOTHER DANCING DAY: Annabelle had yet another special dance "camp" this morning. Today's theme: "A Ballerina's Christmas."

Annabelle spent 90 happy minutes dancing, drawing and watching a video. The special classes are always fun for her because she gets to meet new people.

POETRY BY NUMBERS: I thought it would be good to mark the first day of winter with a poem. I haven't had the kids write haikus before, so to help explain what one is, I thought it would be fun to write a haiku about haikus.

Very short poem
Easy and fun to write
Won't you try one now?

We went over the 5-7-5 syllable pattern, and then they took a crack at it. Annabelle whipped one out in short order.

Winter is so fun
I like playing with snowballs
Snow is really fun

Unfortunately, CJ found the process painful. He was so fixated on the 5-7-5, he couldn't think about actual content for the poem. I suggested he just forget about the numbers for a minute and tell me one thing he likes about winter. He immediately said, "Making snow angels." Well there you go, CJ, there's your first line! How easy is that?

Afterward, his attitude improved and he finished the haiku painlessly.

Making snow angels
People having snowball fights
Winter is so fun

While the kids wrote their wintery haikus, I on Vivaldi's "Winter, Allegro" from "The Four Seasons." I love it! If that won't get you going, nothing will!
.
I also played an Elvis version of "Winter Wonderland."

TIMES TWO: Our new Singapore math chapter is about multiplication. Hallelujah! The kids were getting really tired of just addition and subtraction.

That said, I explained to them that multiplication is really just addition - but it's a quicker, easier way to add. For instance, 4 + 4 + 4 + 4 = 16, and 4x4 = 16. I explained to them when they have the multiplication tables memorized, they'll be able to solve multiplication problems super quickly. Another thing I pointed about about multiplication is that you can flipflop the order and still get the correct answer. For example, if the problem says 6x3, but you haven't memorized your 6s yet, you can flip it to 3x6 and solve for it.

They whipped through two pages of simple multiplication questions with no problems or errors.

SEASONAL SONGS: Awhile back, I scored a Raffi holiday song book at the library. Today Annabelle was perusing it and decided they should play some carols on their glockenspiels. They plunked around playing "Jingle Bells" by ear, and did pretty well. HI-TECK HIJINX: Today we used a couple of really cool online tools to have some holiday fun. First up, we "Elfed" (or would it be Elved?) CeeJ and Bee. This tool came from the folks at JibJab. We had to select mug shots of each of them, upload them to Jib Jab's site, adjust the mugs for size and rotation, and then we got to choose the type of song and dance we wanted them to do. The choices ranged from country to hip hop to the Charleston. It was great fun! Here's a link to the traditional dance and a video of the elves surfing. By choosing the "Try Another Dance" feature, you can plug the kids' faces into any of the other styles. I think the Charleston was my favorite.

Next, I discovered the Portable North Pole site. Thanks to the folks there - and a little input from a Santa helper - Old St. Nick delivers a very customized video to children in just a matter of minutes. CJ and Annabelle were mesmerized when watching the videos Santa emailed them. (Annabelle's video; CJ's video). I'm so amazed that people are able to produce something like this.

LEFTOVERS: I forgot to include in yesterday's post the fact that the kids got to decorate cookies on the Space Needle Observation Deck. YOGA A GO GO: We did make it down to Columbia City late afternoon for yoga. We went about 15 minutes early so the kids could have a very mini birthday pow wow in the bakery across the street from the studio. Their best yoga buddy's bday is tomorrow.

There was a substitute teacher today. During class they apparently traveled to the moon. I'm sure CJ was Quite Worried as there's no oxygen there, and everyone knows we can't live without oxygen. ...

All of the kids emerged from class sporting bindis. Bee's was on her chin. CJ's was, not surprisingly, on his fingertip (he's not the sticker on your face type of guy).