First Christmas

BY DAWN'S EARLY LIGHT: Long before Annabelle was even up today, CJ was poring over the latest "Highlights" magazine (thanks, G&G). He spent a good half hour reading and then finally he moved over to the table to take on a "hidden picture" puzzle. It was still so darn dark out, I had to monkey with a floor lamp to get some light shining in his direction.

TOUGH AUDIENCE: This morning a special "Mickey's Adventure in Wonderland" was on the Disney Channel. CJ kinda sorta watched the whole show. Apparently he was none too impressed. As the credits rolled he yelled, "You mean I've wasted 60 minutes of my life watching this?!"

LOL!

GOLDFISH GEOGRAPHY: This afternoon both kids took a virtual trip around the world with a goldfish as a tour guide. Earlier in the day I'd bought them some Pepperidge Farm Goldfish as a snack, which reminded them that they have enjoyed tooling around the PFGoldfish.com Web site in the past.

While some games are pure silly ("Operation Underpants" comes to mind), others had some educational value. For instance, Annabelle spent the bulk of her time playing "World Treasures," which required some geography knowledge. The player has to play detective as one of the goldfish collects souvenirs and four of his souvenirs are missing. The detective has to scour the globe using goldfish provided clues to find the missing treasure.

HAIKU REDUX: I kept our writing assignment today short. I asked the kids to write a haiku about Christmas. I was happy they were each able to recall what a haiku is and how it's crafted.

Annabelle:
Christmas toys for all
A time of year for giving
No taking away

CJ:
Christmas is so fun
Decorations on the walls
It is like winter

YEAR IN REVIEW: We received a Christmas card from the family of the kid's BYB (best yoga buddy). It included a "first annual" family letter. CJ was especially intrigued by it, and took it upon himself to read it out loud to us.

He and Annabelle were very flattered to learn they had been named in the letter as a highlight of their BYB's year. Nice. :)LATE REPORT: I neglected to report that this past weekend the kids went to another play. This time it was "Red Riding Hood & The 3 Little Pigs," performed by the Fremont Players at Hale's Palladium.

The play was billed as a British Panto, which the Fremont Players described as a production with a 300-some year history in Britain. This type of play is apparently always put on around the holidays, always based on a fairy tale, and interactive play is the norm. (For instance, the audience is encouraged to boo the villain, cheer for the hero and if a character says, 'Oh yes I am,' the audience is expected to reply, 'Oh no you're not.') Men often play women and vice versa.
Christian and Kennedy took the kids and all four thought it was a great show. There was lots of slapstick and even a live band accompanying the performance. Cool! Sounds like it's going to have to become a MPA holiday tradition!

ROUND ONE: Christmas started for us tonight. We had a Christmas dinner with Kennedy, whom we are going to miss on Christmas Eve and Day proper. We had a lovely vegetable lasagna and there were presents, much to the kids' delight (the presents part, I mean; the veggie lasagna, notsomuch).

The kids were happy to receive some Pluto Plasma from Ken. They also had tons o' fun playing with other people's gifts - including the (South Park) Kenny mask we got Ken.
And they had lots of fun with the high tech LED candles Ken got us. They conducted spooky tours of their bedroom.
THE MATH WARS RAGE ON: The debate about math (pro and/or con) is still going on on one of the homeschooling email mail lists I read. I'm digging the debate, because people continue to post links to math resources that are of interest. Case in point, today, a gentleman suggested we check out a YouTube video, "Why the other line is likely to move faster." It's short and interesting, and it turns out its author/star/poster is an engineering prof at the University of Illinois. He has a whole bunch of videos on his YouTube channel http://www.youtube.com/user/engineerguyvideo, and his own stand alone Web site, too. We'll definitely be checking out more or Mr. Bill Hammack!