A Day in the Life

HERE'S LOOKING AT YOU: While purging the basement this past weekend, I found several small items I thought the kids would be interested in, including a kazoo (can you believe they've never had one before?), a harmonica (which Annabelle has spent hours playing) and a pair of magnifying glasses.

Today as Annabelle was playing with the magnifying glasses, I thought back to my childhood and recalled using magnifying glasses to start a couple small fires on a sunny day. I have to admit, I'm vacillating between whether or not showing my kids how to start a fire with a magnifying glass is a good idea or not. ...

I'm thinking I'll probably do it. After all, what if they're stranded on a desert island someday and need to start a fire!

SIGN ME UP: This morning I finally got around to some paperwork for the upcoming school year. Specifically, filling out order forms for the Homeschool Day at the Woodland Park Zoo (Monday, Oct. 18), and special homeschool sessions of plays at Seattle Children's Theatre. (I got tickets for "Lyle the Crocodile," "Go, Dog, Go!," "The Man Who Planted Trees" and "Jackie and Me." Lots of good times ahead for MPA!

FANTASTIC "FIELD TRIP": The library wants some of their stuff back, so the pressure was on to watch a DVD that's been collecting dust at our house. Called "definitely a stellar find" by Parenting Magazine "My Fantastic Field Trip to the Planets" did hold CJ and Annabelle's attention for its entire duration.

Personally, I found the songs a bit too corny and the acting pretty bad. But afterward, I asked the kids what they thought and CJ said, "I liked it - I think."

Annabelle's praise was more effusive. "It was great!" she declared.

My favorite part, by far, were the "bonus features," all of which were videos produced by NASA. One was about the International Space Station, another was about the Constellation, there was a short about life in orbit and one of them was NASA: 50th Anniversary Video. Giving goosebumps from start to finish, it covers the triumph and tragedy spectrum, to be sure. It's about 5 minutes long and highly recommended viewing. Happily, as it turns out the video can be viewed on NASA's 50th anniversary Web site . Just click on the NASA: 50 Years icon on the lefthand side of the screen.

PUNCTUATION, PLEASE: The kids read along with a book called "Punctuation Takes a Vacation." The premise of the book is that on the hottest day of the year, an overwrought teacher declares that punctuation is on vacation. The class rejoices, but quickly comes to realize punctuation is pretty darn important.

WORK IT OUT: Late morning, CJ and Annabelle started (rather uncharacteristically) snipping at each other. There was an accusation on CJ's part that Annabelle gave him a raspberry. Bee vehemently denied it. Kirby was the only witness, but she wasn't talking.

Deciding it was time for a distraction, I set them down at the table and gave them each a workbook sheet. It feels like it has been weeks since we we've touched a workbook, but they both got right to it. As much as I'm a fan of spontaneous and student-led learning, it occurs to me that we need to be doing more worksheets to reinforce basic skills - including how to follow someone else's directions, even when those directions are poorly written. That happens a lot in life. ...

TO TOWN: We had errands to run in "The Village" today. We parked by Albertsons, got a couple of grocery items and stashed them in the car. Then we walked 4 blocks to the post office, mailed some stuff, and then walked back to the car, hitting the hardware store on the way. After stashing the hardware store stuff, we walked five blocks in the other direction to the library.

During our walk today, we had a couple of Boeing 787 Dreamliners fly overhead. It's cool to get to see those before they make their big debut for the rest of the world. They are huge and have a very distinctive sound. I know it's the Dreamliner when I hear it coming, now.

Once we were at the library, the kids checked out the DVDs first (of course) before moving on to the over-sized books.

CJ always wants to read "There Was an Old Lady ..." a book which Annabelle decidedly does NOT want to read due to its tragic ending.

After paging through it, CJ shook his head and said to no one in particular, "Why would someone want to write a book about an old lady dying?"

"Well, maybe they're trying to teach people a lesson. It's a cautionary tale," I suggested.

"They wrote it so that people know not to eat a horse?" he said, non plussed. Of course, that led to "What would happen if you ate a horse?"

"You'd be dead, of course. Like it says in the book," I replied.

"But what would really happen? Would your stomach explode?" Clearly CJ wanted the gory details about just how death-by-horse-consumption goes down. So, we talked about that for awhile.

He studied the pictures of all of the animals the foolish old lady swallowed and declared, "It's a food chain!"

FINAL CHAPTER: I was shocked to learn that Zane Goldmanis, the children's librarian at the Magnolia branch of Seattle Public Library, died suddenly a few days ago, at the age of 67.

If you were a child and in that library, she made it a point to make her way over to you and offer some suggestion or direction. One day a few months back, she beckoned for CJ, Bee and me to come over to where she was standing. There, she was putting the finishing touches on a display featuring books by a children's author whose birthday fell in the present month. She told us it was something she did every month. Tucked away in a corner, I'd never even noticed it before.
Today, when we were at the library, I just had to go check out her display for July. It would be her last.

The last time we saw the librarian (on the right in the photo) was a couple of weeks ago, at a special summer reading program.

She will be missed by many, many Magnolians.