Upon Closer Examination

RAPUNZEL REVISITED: Today we took advantage of the lesson plan resource I found last night regarding Paul O. Zelinsky's version of "Rapunzel." It was a wonderfully enriching component as compared to just reading the book on its own.

For instance, two of the study questions were, "What is the main idea of the first paragraph where the husband is placing his hand on his wife's abdomen? What does it mean that her dress is growing tight around her waist?" The second question is labeled "grades 4-6" but CJ and Annabelle both chimed right in that the woman was going to have a baby.

Two more questions about the first illustration (of a couple) were "Where is the light source?" and "Where is the center of the painting?" It was neat to watch the kids identify the light source (a window in the painting) and then we talked about how the light from that window was affecting the objects/people in the picture (for instance, the back of the man's neck, which was toward the window, was illuminated, as was, to a lesser degree, the woman's face, since she was facing the window).

The study guide suggested we compare the couple's facial expressions. The kids both observed that the couple appeared happy, and surmised that it was because they were going to become parents.

We continued the close study of illustrations and key phrases in the text and the kids discovered all sorts of things they hadn't on the first read through of the book.

I'm hoping that in the future we can find similar enrichment exercises. At the bottom of the Rapunzel one, it said it was from the Penguin Young Readers Group. Naturally, I hopped to their Web site and it looks like a treasure trove for future studies!

O CANADA! Tomorrow MPA is going international. We're heading to Canada for a graduation (congrats Renee!). I thought it would be appropriate to learn a little bit about the country we'll be visiting. So, we checked out the Time For Kids feature on Canada, and gleaned some BC Facts from the government of British Columbia.

Most importantly, from Canadian Geographic, we learned that Canadians consume more macaroni and cheese than any other nation on earth. :) There were other fun and important facts on the site, too.

Given that we'll be driving about 4 hours there, spend about 4 hours in Canada and drive 4 hours back all in one day tomorrow, please excuse us in advance if the entry for Wednesday, June 16 is tardy.

TRAGIC REMINDER: This past Saturday morning, tragedy struck a family in Fremont, a neighborhood just across the bridge from us. Five people - four children and their aunt - died in an apartment fire. The mother of the four who died managed to escape the flames, and carried her niece to safety.

Though we've talked about fire safety in the past, it's been a few months and Saturday's devastation was a grim reminder that we should revisit the topic. Today, I concentrated on the kids' bedroom. We checked their smoke alarm to make sure it was working (it was) and then talked about what they'd do if they heard it go off at night.

I had them practice opening their bedroom windows. They both are able to manage the big casement window on the north, but we learned today that neither one of them can open the big slider on the west side. It's just too big and heavy for them to unlatch and slide at the same time with their little hands and arms. Discovering that, I told them that if they had to exit through a window and they couldn't get it open, they would need to break that window by throwing something heavy at it really really hard and that they would then need to watch out for the broken glass.

After the fire escape drill in their room, we moved to the bathroom. I told them that in the Fremont fire, it's reported that all five who perished were found holed up in a second story bathroom. We talked about the pros and cons of being in a bathroom in a fire. On the upside, you'd probably have access to a towel to put on the floor at the door threshold (to help keep smoke out). And you could stand in the shower and turn the water on in hopes of knocking back flame - but I reminded the kids that in most cases that really wasn't going to do you much good because what typically kills people in a residential fire is the smoke, not the flame. What you really need to be able to do is get the hell out of a burning structure. Which brings us to the major downside of holing up on a bathroom - there's usually not a window in a bathroom that's large enough for egress. Such is the case in our downstairs bathroom, and so I told the kids that is nowhere you'd want to be or stay in a fire. (Chances are, you'd be better off soaking towels, wrapping them around you and crawling through a wall of flames to try to get out than you would be staying put.)

Truth be told, Annabelle got a little bit panicky/upset during our fire drill. While I felt bad that she was upset, as I told her, it's much better to experience the uneasiness while practicing than to not be prepared in the event of a real fire.

IT'S SICK'S: Tuesday = yoga day, so we spent some time in Columbia City this afternoon. Before going to yoga, we stopped by the nearby Lowe's on Rainier Avenue to buy some more sedum for our green roof. As we pulled into the lot, I told the kids that believe it or not, on that very plot of ground, long before Seattle had a Safeco Field and even before the now long gone Kingdome, this plot of ground - home to Sick's Stadium - was where you went to play baseball.

The stadium was named after Emil Sick, owner of Rainier Brewing Company, and the baseball club that played there was, of course, the Rainiers. And baseball wasn't the only thing that went down at Sick's - Elvis even staged a concert at the stadium on Labor Day weekend, 1957! Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin had gigs there, too.

Let me tell you, the kids looked at the Rainier Valley Lowe's in a whole new light today. :) And when we got home from yoga, they began playing baseball straightaway.
PARTING (MOON) SHOT: Today's email from NASA included a retro image from 1967 of the S-II stage of the Saturn V rocket being hoisted onto the A-2 test stand at the Mississippi Test Facility (now the Stennis Space Center). The S-II was the second stage of the 364-foot tall moon rocket, which was powered by five J-2 engines.

We saw this rocket up close and personal in the rocket garden during our trip to the Kennedy Space Center. So cool!

Image Credit: NASA