So Long, Summer

WATCHING WEATHER: To commemorate the changing of the seasons from summer to fall, Annabelle made this Cloud Top Weather God. Each of its four targets is a different season. The middle one (in the belly button) is fall, the one on its right hip is summer. Its left hip is winter and the small one just right of its mouth "is spring, of course," she says.

OOH LA LA: A couple of months ago, Annabelle, CJ and I all worked together to try to French braid Annabelle's hair. I failed miserably. I'd like to blame it on trying to rush to make sure we got to ballet on time, but really, it was mostly just me being klutzy and lame and trying to make it more difficult that it is.

I figured I'd give it a go again this morning. Annabelle and I found a tutorial on YouTube and while it was far from perfect, we got it on the first try this time! Sweet victory!

BY THE NUMBERS: Annabelle did a couple of "maths" (as they call it in England) exercises in the "Alien Cookbook" on BBC. Mostly it involved working with counting by .25/quarters (like the fraction, not the coins).

CJ did "Number Jumbler." His challenge was to do some mental math - adding icons representing various multiples of 10s with icons representing some value of ones. For instance, 50 and 20 and 20 and 10 and 3. I was so impressed - he added them all quickly and correctly, and even though we haven't practiced rounding up or down to the nearest 10 before this afternoon, he caught on to that immediately and got all those right, too. Once he completed the online challenge, there was a "print" option. By selecting that, it spit out a "Rounding to the nearest 10p" worksheet, which he completed in no time flat. "I'm glad I woke up on the smart side of the bed today," he said, in reference to his not-so-smart side of the bed he got up on yesterday.

WHAT IF?: This morning the kids read a book by Bernard Most called "If the Dinosaurs Came Back." The book was full of fanciful ideas about all the wonderful things dinos' return would entail, like more work for dentists (what with all those teeth), new ways of transportation and recreation (riding a dino to work or skiing down its back), and so on.

I asked the kids if they thought any of that would really happen if dinosaurs roamed the earth today. They were quick to say "no." So, as a very short writing assignment, I asked them to finish the phrase "If the dinosaurs came back," and told them they could write something nonsensical, like the book's author, or they could be realists.

Bee went for silly, writing, "If the dinosaurs came back, they wood make good briges."

CJ, the realist, wrote, "If the dinosaurs came back, they wood destroy billdings."

One thing their sentences had in common was misspelling "wood." That prompted a short spelling list for them to practice: Would, could, should.

MORE MUSIC: This morning and early afternoon, we worked on finishing up the music homework for the week. The kids each had to draw a picture representing their favorite part of the song "London Bridge." CJ chose "build it up with sticks and stones" and Annabelle's was "build it up with gold and silver."
The kids were also tasked with bringing something to class today that is from or represents England. Annabelle remembered "London Bridge" is in her Xylofun songbook, so she took that. CJ took some Cadbury chocolate.

ORDER: Today there was a request on one of the homeschool email lists I'm on looking for ideas for art projects. I have discovered many, many such Web sites over the course of the past year and I'm happy to share them. So, I hopped to my Web browser and opened my Homeschool folder in my Favorites folder and YIKES! There are hundreds and hundreds of links there, in no particular order.

Having an enormous list of Favorites isn't all that helpful if I can't find what I want quickly and efficiently. So I spent about an hour early this morning trying to get them in order by category. (Arts, Science, Math, Reading, Language Arts, General, Alternative Learning). I'm about halfway there.

RETIRING: This afternoon on the way home from yoga, we were waiting for a red light to change and found ourselves right next to Ken Griffey Jr's larger than life portrait on the west side of Safeco Field.

Of course, Junior was smart and left the sinking ship early in the season. So now there's a "Thanks, Junior!" banner across the top of his picture. The kids asked why that was there and I told them it was because Junior retired.

CJ asked what "retired" meant and (oversimplifying) I told him it's when someone decides to quit their job and not to work any more.

Annabelle said, "I wish Daddy would retire so he could be home with us every day."

Wouldn't that be nice? :)

OPEN AT LAST: We beat feet right out of music today, because we wanted to make a stop before yoga. Finally, after months of driving by seeing construction equipment and fences keeping us out, the new playground next to the Jefferson Community Center was finally open.


There was even sunshine for the occasion. The play structures are made by Kompan, which seems to be what Seattle Parks & Rec is putting in all their new installs.

CJ especially loved the mushroom/toadstool type pedastals. I think they reminded him of a Mario game.

The 3-D shapes are cool to look at and a challenge to climb. Annabelle caught some air spinning on the sail-like apparatus.
BEHIND THE MASK: I get free samples pretty regularly. Today's surprise - a couple of free samples of All Bran. For whatever reason, the box also contained a sleep mask. Not sure how a blackout mask and bran are tied together, but we'll take it! As I pointed out to the kids, it will make a perfect mask for playing hide and go seek!

YOU SCREAM, I SCREAM: We all scream for ice cream! Imagine the excitement in our car when tonight we crossed paths with an ice cream truck. We've heard ice cream trucks ("Turkey in the Straw" anyone?) in the 'hood from time to time this summer, but we've never actually laid eyes on one - until tonight!

We were leaving the Magnolia Village Pub after a really good (per usual) dinner and lo and behold, a beat up white Jeep with pictures of frozen treats on the side coming down the hill fast, toward us. Naturally, I flipped a U-turn and we set off after it. It came to a quick stop at the curb, but not to sell ice cream. No, this ice cream man was scoring some free furniture left on the side of the road. He threw it in the back of his truck (on top of the fudgsicles, perhaps?). Then he tore off, no music playing and looking like he was making a run for the border rather than seeking customers.

Naturally, we followed. We watched him roll through a stop sign or two and head down Dravus, still no stops and no music playing. I told Christian I figured he was headed for the big sports complex at the foot of our hill. Sure enough, he turned in there and cued up the music.

I thought it fitting that on the final day of summer, we finally caught up with the elusive ice cream man.