Plugging Along

SLOW START: We weren't exactly shooting out of the gate this morning. I had a rough, rough night (what is this, day 7 of the Plague?). It's days like these that make me really appreciate our more-flexible-than-most-of-America schedule.

By a little before 10 the kids were finally dressed and ready to learn. We went right back to math, where the kids knocked out yet another addition exercise with no trouble.

GRAND PLAN: This morning CJ announced his future plans. Building upon yesterday's idea of writing a book about number belts (as he called them), now he has a whole textbook empire planned out. He's not just going to write one book. "I'm going to keep making books until they (presumably students) get past college. Then they have to do it all over again, but this time at my school. And they better have been been paying attention. If they didn't they're so doomed. They have to remember all the things they did. We'll be doing my class for a year. After 10 years of building at my school, then they can go to next one (presumably school). First preschool, then kindergarten then first grad, then second grade, then third grade, then fourth grade, then fifth grade, then sixth grade, then seventh grade then eighth grade, then ninth grade and college."

CRAFTACULAR: Our science to the south was canceled today, so we only had the north class to attend. Beforehand, we headed to Michael's - a mega craft supply store - in Lynnwood, about 5 miles north of our Shoreline science class.

I both love and loathe craft stores. There are so many, many things to ooh and aah over and so many things to spark the imagination. But the stores are crowded, confusing (trying to find what's where), there's never any help on the floor to, well, help, and the lines at the cash register are always horrendous. (So many people buying so many little things.)

We were in search of materials to make Annabelle's crown, amulet and earrings. It took us a half hour of hunting, but we finally found something suitable for our needs. The big score was sparkly gold sheets of foam that we could use to fashion the crown. I drew on the template for Annabelle and she cut it out herself. Then we affixed it to cardboard and glued it into a circular shape. Red and blue "jewels" were hot glued on and voila! The perfect Princess Peach crown!

PAPER+WATER: In today's science session, the kids got to experiment with paper. The first exercise involved 8 or so types of paper (everything from tissue to corrugated cardboard). The challenge was to see how many times they could fold each type and record their results.

After that, they moved to the lab tables where they used eye droppers to drop water on the various papers and see how absorbent they were (tissue) or weren't (wax paper).

TAPPIN OUT TUNES: The kids had some fun (and honed their music skills) playing around with a present I gave Christian for our anniversary. It's a fun little electronic music device called a stylophone or pocket synth. It sounds a bit like a theremin when played. They picked out some of their Musikgarten tunes, and did some freestylin' as well.

VOTE FOR PEDRO: For weeks now, we've been inundated with ads about the upcoming election. I thought it would be worthwhile to have the kids learn a bit more about voting, so they watched a BrainPop video on the topic.

I asked them what they learned and CJ said, "People must have their vote cast in privately. They cannot be seen when voting."

Annabelle added, "You have to be 18. It's not fair."

I'll be glad (I hope) when this election's over. With false arrests, physical attacks and hate speech all around, I've never seen more people behaving badly leading up to an election.