Monday of Music and Movement

MERRY CHRISTMOOSE: We don't often do straight up coloring for art lessons here at MPA, but today we made an exception. I got an email from the Seattle Mariners with the latest news, and on their Web site I spied a link to Mariners Holiday Coloring Pages. The images were pretty darn cute and the kids (yes, even CJ) wanted to color one, so that's what they did. They had their choice of several designs, but they both opted to do the lights-in-the-antlers moose.
While he was coloring, CJ started talking about how his coloring and cartooning skills have improved thanks to the (online) Bruce Blitz lessons the kids love. That's really great to hear.

SPACE RACE CONT'D: We spent time last week talking about the space race between the U.S. and the former U.S.S.R. While America and Russia work cooperatively on some space missions (most notably, the International Space Station), the competition is alive and well.

The first headline I read today noted a big blow to the Russia in the space race. I showed the kid the story, about how a rocket carrying three Russian navigation satellites failed to reach orbit.
The satellites were supposed to put a satellite navigation system in place to rival the U.S.'s global Positioning System (GPS). Instead, they wound up off the coast of Hawaii. Bummer, dude.

A programming error is suspected. Pity the poor programmer(s) - sounds like the Russian government is NOT pleased. ...

REPORT CARDS: I spent several hours last night and this morning preparing the kids' monthly progress reports. While it's a lot of work, certainly the time of reflection is well spent. It really helps me hone in to what I want to work on on the upcoming month(s). Our goals for December include more (and faster, in CJ's case) writing and some good ol' fashioned spelling drills.

MATH MADNESS: Per usual, we plugged away at math today. We have reached the end of a chapter and so today's exercise was a longish chapter review.

At different points, each Annabelle and CJ were basically in meltdown mode. CJ was unhappy when he had to write out numbers (like 'four hundred eighty three') and Annabelle freaked out when she (momentarily) forgot how to add and subtract numbers in the hundreds (she for some reason forgot she needed to put the numbers in columns).

Fortunately, the crises passed.

DANCEY DANCE: Today was a "we can watch" day in Bee's ballet class. Yay!
She was a joy to watch, and is clearly the "go to" girl in class when the teacher asks a question of the group and no one else answers. :)


During the free dance (final 4 minutes) portion of the class, they danced to music from The Nutcracker. Annabelle was a twirling dervish.





When the dancing was done Annabelle walked over toward us and CJ jumped up from where he was sitting, ran out to her, put his hands on her shoulders and declared, "Annabelle, you were AWESOME out there!"

The people within earshot all went, "Awwwww," and I heard a couple say, "What a nice brother." :)

UP TO THE CHALLENGE: While hunting down an educational game for Annabelle on the PBS Web site, today I stumbled across several Web pages about "The Video Game Revolution," a program which, according to the site, "examines the evolution and history of the video game industry, from the 1950s through today, the impact of video games on society and culture, and the future of electronic gaming."

Unfortunately we missed the show, when it appeared on PBS, but its Internet presence is fascinating. There are pages and pages of information and interactives we'll be exploring.


Today, we started by taking their "Pop Quiz" about classic video games. CJ passed the first round with flying colors. In the second round he was stymied by some super rare games (I know what he'll be researching for days to come!).


LEGIT: And speaking of video games (as we've been known to do), today history was made when the Grammy nominees were announced. For the first time ever music written for a video game has received Grammy recognition. The song, by composer Christopher Ten, is "Baba Yetu," from the game Civilization IV. I encourage you to give it a listen. You'll be glad you did. :)

Naturally, after listening to it, we wondered what the lyrics (lye-ricks, as the kids keep pronouncing the word) mean.

Naturally, we turned to the Internet for an answer. In a fan forum for the game Civilization IV, we learned that the words "Baba Yetu" mean "Our Father" in Swahili and the song is, in effect, the Lord's Prayer in Swahili. Fascinating.

Apparently they perform the song at the Video Games Live! concerts. We can't wait to hear it at the show we're going to in January!