Suds 'n Stuff

HAIR OF THE DOG: This morning when CJ emerged from the shower, he was dripping wet and a distinctive smell was wafting off him.

Though I knew the answer before I even asked the question, I had to ask ...

"Um, CJ, which shampoo did you use?"

"The yellow stuff!" he answered without hesitation.

I went and retrieved the bottle and showed it to him.

He was both mortified and amused.

Even though there's probably not much difference between puppy shampoo and human shampoo, we went ahead and rinsed his head in the sink.

Of course, shortly thereafter I started singing "Puppy Love."

"Is that a real song?" CJ asked.

Naturally, that led us to YouTube, where I found and played the Donny Osmond version for him. Good Lord, it had been 35 plus years since I heard that. D.O. sounds like a 10-year-old girl and the song is soooooooo sappy. How did that ever get any radio play? ... I can see it being used for a dog food commercial but EGAD.

WELL DONE: After the Shower Incident we settled down into several pages of math (I'm trying to power through the introductory/review chapter to catch up to where we would have been had I ordered the books in early September.

I was SO impressed with CJ's work today. A lot of it had to do with figuring out number patterns, and most of that was filling in missing numbers in a series, like 5, 10, ___, 20, or something similar with hundreds. However, there were a couple of questions that threw a curveball with no warning. One series was 436, 546, ___, ____, ____. And the next was 875, 765, ____, ____, ___. Not so simple as subtracting just 10 or 100. But he didn't miss a beat.

WOOD WORKERS: We didn't have science down south today, but we did have the Shoreline session. The class is working on a weeks long wood and paper unit, and today's lesson was mostly about plywood and how it's made. The kids got some new vocab words for their "word bank" and then it was time to move to the lab tables. There, they got several little thin rectangles of wood and they used glue to stick 'em together and make plywood. Next, they were given a craft stick (a/k/a a Popsicle stick) and were told to break it. Nobody had any trouble snapping it in half. Then they were instructed to stack and glue three craft sticks together. Next week they're going to take a crack at snapping those. (Im' guessing they won't be able to do it. ...)

For their last project they were allowed to build whatever kind of structure they wanted out of craft sticks. Annabelle built a house with mid-century modern lines. CJ, he was VERY excited about the boxing ring he built. And he was extra excited to discover that because he hadn't taken the time to line up his sticks exactly, he'd created steps of a sort leading down from his boxing ring.

One point worth noting - since CJ missed the cue to move to the lab, he was late getting there and the table Annabelle was at didn't have any more seats. "Sorry CeeJ," she said. He took it in stride and found another table and worked there just fine.

FOSSIL HUNT: Because we didn't do our a.m. science, I figured we should get our double dose another way. Specifically, we'd be going to the Burke Museum of Natural History for the first time today.The museum is on the northwest corner of the UW campus. I thought today would be an especially good day to go because it's National Fossil Day. The first annual National Fossil Day, in fact, but there's already a National Fossil Day song thanks to a National Parks Service ranger.

According to the Mission Statement on the NPS Web Site, "National Fossil Day is a celebration organized by the National Park Service to promote public awareness and stewardship of fossils, as well as to foster a greater appreciation of their scientific and educational values."

We were lucky to find street parking and walked a couple blocks over to the campus/museum. We practically had the place to ourselves, and were definitely outnumbered by staffers. (I always like going to places like this after 2:30, a time when school field trips are long gone.) Our admission today was free thanks to CJ & Annabelle successfully completing the Seattle Public Library' Summer Reading Program goals (their certificate of completion was our ticket in).

In honor of fossil day, there was a paleontologist in the lobby with some fossils on a table (including a saber tooth tiger's, well, saber tooth), and a mastodon's molar. Cool! (Unfortunately, they don't allow photography in the museum.)

The museum's permanent exhibits include Life and Times of Washington State, representing 500 million years of our area's history; and Pacific Voices, representing 17 different cultures which have the Pacific Ocean in common. The Native American art they have on display is stunning.

We also checked out the special exhibit - Weaving Heritage. Most of the stuff there was don't touch, but they did have one station where the kids got to try their hand at weaving. Interestingly, CJ was more into it than Annabelle.

We checked out some artwork outside the museum, too.
DIG IT: The campus beautification project continues.

Today's project - plant some shrubs in a new planter box by the front steps.

Annabelle was itching to get in on the action. She helped mix the soils in the box and plant five shrubs.

She was wearing her superhero cape (made a couple of years ago in preschool). No doubt that made the digging go more quickly.