Snow Globe

UP ON THE ROOFTOP: Upon upping this morning, we saw that we had become part of a winter wonderland overnight. Except that, um, well it's not winter yet. It's not even Thanksgiving yet. ...There was just a dusting at 6 this a.m., but by midday, there were a couple of inches on the grounds.

THE CRANBERRIES: Still in PJs and wrapped in blankets, this morning the kids took a trip to a cranberry bog in Wisconsin thanks to "Wisconsin Cranberries: Not So Wild Anymore," a video from the Wisconsin State Cranberry Growers.

It was chock full o' facts about the history of cranberries in what's now the United States and made for school-aged kids, so it was really spot on in content and tone. We learned about how cranberries grow (in bogs, not on bushes), about their blossoms (they look like pink popcorn!), that they used to be called crane berries (after the bird), that they're a good source of vitamin C, about how their harvested (wooden hand rakes in days gone bye, and by machines now), and how you can tell fresh cranberries from not-so-fresh (a berry bounce test).

I took a few notes during the film and gave the kids a written quiz afterward . Annabelle had paid very close attention to the film. CJ, well let's just say apparently he wasn't quite as into it. ;)

From Wisconsin, we hopped to the Ocean Spray Web site's kids' pages, where we found a fun pair of animated cartoons, "Wade and Wonderberry." Wade was a speechless pair of hip waders; Wonderberry was a chatty cranberry who wears a cape and has political aspirations. Interesting. Not a lot of educational content in this video, but the kids enjoyed watching it.

THE WHITE STUFF: We spent about an hour outside today. We took Kirby for a walk in the ever-increasing snow, and the kids helped me knock snow off our tropical plants (which really don't like the white stuff).

Annabelle and CJ both spent some time trying to catch snowflakes on their tongues, and they had a very low key snowball 'fight'.

SAVE THE TURKEYS: We ended up enjoying two books today that were definitely in the pro-turkey-life camp.

One was "Twas the Night Before Thanksgiving," by Dav Pilkey of "Captain Underpants" fame. It was a cute story about schoolkids taking a field trip to a turkey farm. Once the host/farmer shows them an ax and explains what's soon going down, the kids figure out a way to appropriate the turkeys off the farm.

The second book we read was "Gracias the Thanksgiving Turkey" is about a Puerto Rican boy living in New York who is given a live turkey for the upcoming Thanksgiving feast. However, the turkey becomes a pet whom he raises with the help of his family and neighbors.
I liked the book because there was a lot of beginning Spanish vocabulary woven into the text (and I couldn't help but notice that CJ and Annabelle knew all of those words thanks to their old friend Dora the Explorer).

VIRTUAL PLAYDATE This afternoon the kids had an online penguin powwow with "Pingazane," their old preschool pal who moved to San Diego. It's fun watching the three of them run around Club Penguin. Granted, it's a poor substitute for hanging out at a park, but it *is* interactive (they can converse in real time and wave at each other and dance together, etc.) to some degree, and it is completely real time, which is great.

APPLES TO APPLES: This evening, Rick came by (in anticipation of watching the Huskies basketball game). Before tipoff he spent some time playing Apples to Apples Jr. with the kids. What a fun game, and great for vocabularly building.