Friday Follies

MUSIC: Good news - we actually remembered the kids' music lesson this morning and were there on time (unlike last week's "oh no!" moment).

Because it's a "Furlough Friday," Christian was able to, once again, sit in on the parent period at the end of class. During this time, the kids were issued chopsticks (yes, regular old chopsticks). They were instructed to use them as practice mallets - soon they will start playing the glockenspiel as part of their lesson/homework. They were shown how to hold the pseduo mallets (palms down, arms held up).

TRADITIONAL TALE: Our educational video this morning was "Little Rooster's Diamond Button." It's a traditional folk tale with Hungarian roots, and various versions known world round (or so its packaging says). It's about a rooster whose diamond button is snatched by an evil king. When the rooster goes to the king's castle to demand its return, the bird is thrown down a well. Fortunately, the rooster has a magical stomach that can hold huge amounts of water, so he swallows up all the water and escapes the well. When the rooster confronts the king again, the bird is thrown into the fire, but smartly uses the well water to extinguish the fire. In a third encounter, the king sends bees after the bird. The rooster swallows the bees, and then releases them back at the king, which wins him the button back. As he takes his leave, the rooster takes all the treasure the king has stolen from the villagers over the years.

The tale was about solving problems and overcoming obstacles, so we talked about the problems rooster faced and how he overcame them and how we have to work to overcome problems in our lives (unfortunately, none of us have a magical stomach).

FLOORS AND MORE: After the folk tale, the family loaded up into the car and headed down to the stadium district/Sodo. There are a number of flooring stores there and I'm tired of looking at OSB on the floor of our not-so-new-anymore entry. For whatever reason, CJ was totally into the expedition (at least at the first store - his enthusiasm waned at future stops). He was peppering the salesman with questions (my favorite: "What's the BEST flooring you have?"

Guess money is no object for Mr. CeeJ!

We found our flooring at our third stop - a beautiful 16x16 inch slate called Peacock. We'll be rockin' the entry tomorrow (and probably the next day. And the next day ...)!

SOLAR POWER: I decided to keep our solar system learning going today by having the kids read and complete the sticker book that Ruthie & Bob were kind enough to give them for Christmas.

After that, we were back to NASA. This time I pointed my Web browser to their StarChild content, specifically, their Solar System pages.

Viewing the info they presented about planets and dwarf planets, comets, the asteroid belt, the moon, and meteoroids served as a review for what we've done and read the last couple of days.

Then, it was time to put our knowledge to the test. We took on "Where, Oh Where Does That Little Object Go?" which required the kids to put the planets in 1-9 order. They got a perfect score! (No doubt building the model yesterday helped, not to mention one of their favorite They Might Be Giants' songs, "How Many Planets?" with lyrics that list the planets in order.)

After they nailed that, we tried "Solar System Shuffle," which was a list of 10 trivia questions about the solar system, including: "This planet moves so fast, it was named after the swift messenger of the ancient Greek gods" and "The greenhouse effect is so strong here that this is the hottest planet." A little tougher than the standard first grade questions, I think. One thing that I talked to them about while they were struggling was the process of elimination. They had 10 questions and were given 10 potential "cards" or answers. So I suggested that they answer the ones they knew for sure first, and then that would narrow down their choices when it came to the ones they weren't so sure about. As I was explaining this, I realized just how often in one's life that the process of elimination is used, so I think that information was probably even more valuable than the stuff they learned about the solar system today.

In they end they did well on "Solar System Shuffle." They got a solid B (80 percent).
MAS MUZZY: This afternoon we unearthed some of the Muzzy video tapes I scored months and months ago in a Seattle Goodwill eBay auction and started watching them (whilst transferring them to a recordable DVD). At first CJ was balking. "I wish this were in English," he complained. But he came around and was soon singing and talking along in Spanish.

EMBRACING DANGER: I leave you with this - a link to an interesting article I found in the Seattle PI's Web site today. Its headline: "Dangerous things parents should let their kids do." The opening paragraph: "Play with a pocket knife. Break glass. Throw things from a moving car. Drive a nail. Find a beehive. Glue your fingers together with superglue." I found myself nodding in agreement while reading it.

The Whole World in Their Hands

INSPIRATION: This morning we had some show on the TV (I'll admit, I was Interneting and Interviewing someone for a story, so my attention to the kids was less than 100 percent). I gather the show was about wildlife in need of sustenance, because at it's conclusion CJ vowed, "I'm going to make a leaf restaurant. I'll it call CJ’s Bistro La Leaf, and if I see a panda coming, I’ll serve them bamboo. Animals who are hungry, walking down the street with no leafs to eat, I'll feed them in my restaurant."

SOLAR FLAIR: The kids staged a conspiracy of the best sorts this morning. They suggested that instead of the regular morning stuff, we tackle a project out of the Magic School Bus Secret of the Solar System kit. I thought that sounded like a great idea, and so we rolled up our sleeves and dove in. On today's to do list: Constructing a solar system. And not just any solar system - OUR solar system. Clearly, lives were hanging in the balance. :)

First step, we sized up the Styrofoam balls included in the kit. And while there were 4 or so different sizes, much to our chagrin, we weren't happy with their representative scale based on what we know about the actual planets' sizes. So we had protracted, pained discussions about which foam ball should be which planet.

Once we agreed on an order we could live with, I opened up the mini paint pails, armed each kid with a brush, and they were instructed to paint 'em to spec (the spec being a chart of the solar system we'd posted on the wall in front of us). They took their jobs seriously and handled the planets gingerly. As the worlds dried, they watched "The Price is Right" and ate raisins (I'm sure that's what our solar system's "creators" did, too).

Once the planets were safe to handle, one by one we punched holes in them (avoiding lifeforms, of course), and attached them to the sun with wires of varying lengths (based, of course, on the planets' distance from the sun).

It was a ton of fun and the finished product was super cool and something the kids were proud of - and as I looked at it, I couldn't help but get a little sad. Why, you ask? Well, because we made it from a kit we'd bought at Goodwill. And while the kit had been opened before, it was clearly never used. And there's just no way a kid wouldn't want to do at least some of what's in the kit. There are numerous potential projects, all appealing in their own way, but all require some degree of help from an adult. So, I could only surmise that the kit's original owner didn't have a Big Person around who would take the time to help them out. And that made me a little sad.

JUMP FOR JOY: Early this a.m. I moved the mini trampoline out of the kids' bedroom and put it in the middle of the living room floor. I figured if it were there, it would get used, and get used it did. Annabelle had a protracted jumping session, complete with an original song to go with. "I really like the song I made up," she said. "Maybe we could have a radio station of our own and have it go all over the world. And sometimes it might even be in commercials," she suggested.

Annabelle also expressed the desire to have someone filming her act. (Which reminds me, we need to figure out how to download movies from the little movie camera we gave the kids for Christmas.) CJ hopped on for a jump several times throughout the day, which was another rainy, dreary day, so it's good that the kids are getting some exercise in nonetheless. And, of course, Kirby had to use it as her bed for a good part of the day - she has to be in the center of where the action is or might be. For awhile the trampoline was a portal to the "Dark Signer" world (the Dark Signers are the bad guys on Yu-Gi-Oh, one of the cartoons CJ watches from time to time.

CLASS REUNION: We were invited to a Befriended buddies reunion at one of the classmates' houses today and we were happy to be able to attend.

The kids had a rollickin' good time. CJ and the host were immediately engaged in sword play - ranging from Camelot to Captain Jack Sparrow. They were both trying to be Careful and Conscientious but they were also both excited 6 year olds, so they wound up being pirates wearing their mommies' sunglasses. As I told them, only stupid pirates wind up with eye patches. :) All in all, it was a good 2 hours that went too quickly.

THE BLUEST SKIES YOU'VE EVER SEEN: On our way home from dinner out this evening, we stopped at Albertsons. The family went in while I stayed with the car. (I feel like I've spent 28 percent of my adult life in some sort of store. Any chance I have to beg out, I do.) Anywho, I turned the radio to AM and hoped to find a Huskies game or something. Instead, I found myself listening to the oldies station, having been sucked in by "Mr. Sandman." And up next: Perry Como crooning, "The bluest skies you've ever seen are in Seattle." It was funny, because believe it or not, I'd had a (Facebook-based) conversation with a friend my age about this song just a couple of days ago.

The song was from a show "Here Come the Brides," which aired on ABC from 1968 to 1970. The television show was based on "Seven Brides for Seven Brothers," which was, apparently, loosely based upon the "Mercer Girls," or Asa Mercer's efforts to bring civilization to Seattle in the 1860s by importing marriageable women from the East Coast.

I know you will want to know that Bobby Sherman and David Soul were two of "Here Comes the Brides" stars.

And can I just go on record as saying that it feels like I haven't seen blue sky here in Seattle since 2009. ...

Know When to Fold 'em

SOMETIMES YOU FEEL LIKE A NUT, SOMETIMES YOU DON'T: As she's eating coconut yogurt this morning, Annabelle asks, "Is coconut a fruit?" Hmm. Good question. My first thought is that well, no, it's a nut. And as I poked around on the Internet for the real answer, the first two tidbits of wisdom I found said that it was a nut (not a fruit). However, in continuing on to Wikipedia (which I know can be suspect), I read:

"Botanically, the coconut (meaning the fruit) is a drupe, not a true nut. Like other
fruits it has three layers: exocarp, mesocarp and endocarp. The exocarp and
mesocarp together make up the husk, and the mesocarp is composed of fibers called coir. Coconuts sold in the shops of non-tropical countries often have had the husk removed. The endocarp or shell is the hardest part of the coconut. The shell has three germination pores (stoma) or eyes that are clearly visible on its outside surface once the husk is removed."

Hmm. So it says it's not a true nut, that it's a drupe (a word new to me) but that it is a fruit. Confusing, confusing. I prefer short, easy answers. ;)

UP, UP & AWAY: We started out our morning by making a paper airplane, a project I found on our cable provider's OnDemand/Activity TV feature. Our teacher was "paper airplane guru Michael LaFosse," who was sporting a horrible rug, might I note.

Anywho, it may not sound like a very academic endeavor at first glance, but as it turns out, it was a really great brain building exercise. First, we had to measure and cut paper to a 6x6-inch square. Then we had to follow well over a dozen folding steps EXACTLY in order and precisely in order to be successful. (While folding the paper into various configurations, we noted that at times it was a diamond, a hexagon, a triangle and so on.)

The neat thing about this activity is that at its conclusion there was a test of whether or not we did a good job. Another thing that made it more fun is that this particular design (called a "Stacked Over Logan") is made to be flown by stacking multiple planes atop one another and launching them at the same time. So in this instance, if one of us screwed up, our whole mission could have gone down! Fortunately, our "Stacked Logans" took flight, and their interesting construct made them fly in a way much different than the standard paper airplane.

MATH CURSE: After our successful airplane exercise, I figured we'd better check out a "Reading Rainbow" episode that was overdue for return to the library. The featured book was "Math Curse," and in it, the story's protagonist realized that everything, everywhere involved math and she couldn't escape that fact.

After the story ended, "Reading Rainbow" host Levar Burton pointed out that when a person realizes that math is used to solve problems, they then view math as a cure and not a curse. Very true!

The program went on to demonstrate how math is used for organization (using FedEx shipping as an example), for sizing (clothing and shoes were shown), in design and construction, in food preparation and service (following a recipe, portioning), and even something as simple as feeding a parking meter (figuring out how much time you need and then how many and which coins you have to insert to buy that much time).

It was all good stuff, and I think that taking the time to consider why we do math is time well spent - instead of just churning out important instead of just doing more math worksheets was a good use of our time.

DANCE PARTY: I told the kids they had to stay in their room and be quiet while I made a phone call to interview someone for a story I'm working on for The Columbian. (Yes, I still do that once in a blue moon.) I set them up with a nice quiet computer game and a nice quiet workbook.

Yeah, well that lasted about 10 minutes. Somehow that morphed into a DANCE PARTY! They had hopped to the jukebox portion of the Nickelodeon Web site and were taking turns playing DJ - when they weren't dancing frenetically (and LOUDLY). "This is so exciting, I can't stop!" CJ shouted as I opened the door to give them holy hell for not keeping it down. "This feels like fun!" he added, getting down with his bad self.

At that point, I'd concluded my call so I let them continue their rave. However, when a song from "Dora the Explorer" streamed through the speakers, CJ complained, "Not funky enough, right Annabelle?"

"Right!" she agreed, skipping to another selection more to their liking.

OUT AND ABOUT: It wasn't raining and I really wanted to get Kirby and the kids out for some fresh air. The Killer Koyote is still living in "our" park, so we went over the hill to Magnolia Village where we returned some library materials, walked a couple of blocks down to the park by the community center. We had the place to ourselves.

As usual, CJ and Annabelle played so well together. They're quite a team. First they took turns giving each other trolley rides. Afterward, CJ was very encouraging and helpful as Annabelle attempted some of the park obstacles that are just a tad too big for her.

We were lucky to get our expedition in when we did. It started raining as we left the park.

After the park, we walked back to the library and checked out more stuff - including DVDs (what a surprise!). This photo of CJ really captures the library experience for him. He's flanked on both sides by the shelves where kids' DVDs were kept. :)

DREAMWEAVER: At one point today CJ shared, "(Last night) I had a dream about going to the beach. It had very (sic) lots and lots of people. It was very hot. There were so much (sic) people I couldn't count them all. It was a bad dream about getting washed out (to sea) that made me wake up. ... That's why I ended up upstairs."

It occurs to me that I haven't ever asked either of the kids what they dream about. I should do that at least once in awhile. It also occurs to me that it would be an interesting exercise to have them log their dreams from time to time.

We've Gone Nuts!

SKY WRITING: First thing this a.m. we headed up the spiral staircase for some math practice. Months ago I'd bought some markers made specifically for writing on windows. I bought them because I recalled CJ's former occupational therapist (and present yoga teacher) had told me that writing on vertical surfaces is good for developing kids' fine motor skills.

First I reviewed the ones, tens and hundreds place values concept with the kids. Then I dictated math problems and had them write down the three-digit numbers and add two three-digit numbers together. I'll be darned if CJ didn't nail each and every one without the need for a prompt of any kind (even when it came to carrying a 1!)

Annabelle wasn't quite as quick to remember the process (we've only done math like that once before), but buy the third problem she was totally up to speed.

NUTTY FOR NUTCRACKERS: A couple of weeks ago at the library, I scored a couple of Nutcracker books as well as a Nutcracker movie. I decided today was the day we were gonna dive on in. I didn't know what I was getting into. ...
We started with "The Nutcracker and the Mouse King," a big, beautiful book that was seemingly every word of the (long and rather bizarre) Ernst Theodor Amadeus Hoffmann classic tale. Freaky characters included Godfather Drosselmeier (a toymaker with a wig of spun white glass and a patch over his missing right eye) and the seven-headed Mouse King (as if a one headed mouse threatening to eat you isn't creepy enough).

The ink illustrations in this book are colorful and captivating, which was a good thing, considering it took us a full hour to read.

Up next, we screened "The Secret of the Nutcracker."
Boy oh boy, was it quite a departure from the traditional Nutcracker story and the Nutcracker ballet. It centered on a girl named Clara (the name of the main charachter Marie's doll in The Nutcracker story/balled). It took place during WWII, and Clara's father was a POW in a Nazi camp.

Clara lived with her two brothers and her mother somewhere rural and snowy (the movie was filmed in Alberta, Canada). She met a mystical character/creature named Drosselmeyer, who was a human/owl hybrid who befriends and looks over Clara, bringing her gifts filled with magic and hope (including an enchanted dollhouse, which was an element in both books, as well).

In the books, the Mouse King and his army of mice were the creepy nemesis. In the movie, Clara and her family were attacked by creatures that looked like humans wearing a black bear taxidermy over their heads and backs. Oh, and the "bears" were wearing Nazi uniforms. Did I mention it was weird?

Annabelle was totally into the movie; CJ, not as much. However, he kept an eye on it while playing Time Travel Elvii with the Elvis dolls.

After the movie, we read the second book. Published in 2009, it's a retelling of ETA Hoffmann's Nutcracker, this time by an English professor John Cech. It stuck pretty darn close to the original story; the differences were few and far between.

As we wrapped up our 5-hour Nutcracker-related marathon, it occured to me how pleased I am that our current schedule allows this type of learning to take place. Instead of being interrupted or distracted by a rigid standard school schedule (for instance morning recess, set literacy, math, art, PE, etc. times, a rigid lunch schedule, and so on ), we are free to really delve in depth into a topic, letting things take as long as they take and not feeling pressured to move along just because we have to, well, move along.

THE DOG ATE MY PIZZA: At midday I tried to sneak in a shower and maybe, just maybe, five minutes of peace. I have the kids all set up with lunch, water, and a program (the Nutcracker movie) to watch. What could go wrong? ...

Yeah, well, I'm barely wet when Annabelle bursts in the door shouting, "Kirby ate my pizza!"

So I towel off and assess the damage. Fortunately, I was able to cut the canine bite mark out of Annabelle's slice and calm was restored to the campus.

YOGA A GO-GO: Shortly after The Nutcracker activities wound down, it was time to head out to yoga. It occurs to me that at some point I should ask the yoga teacher if there is an older kids' session that maybe we should switch to. As things stand now, during yoga CJ looks like Gulliver and the rest of the class (almost always all girls) look like Lilliputians.

MUZZY's NOT FUZZY: On the long drive (40 minutes) home from yoga, I had the kids listen to the soundtrack from the Muzzy DVDs they watched a few days back. Though they were entirely in Spanish, I'll be darned if they recall what each and every song was about, almost verbatim. I was really impressed.

LIVE! FROM OUR NEIGHBORHOOD: As we were coming home from yoga tonight (around 5:30), I passed the scene of the coyote attack (the place we fondly call our park!). KIRO TV was there with satellite truck and lights. So we turned on channel 7 and sure 'nuff, there's a reporter standing in the park, talking about last night's attack, and how just seconds after pulling up to the park this afternoon, the TV crew spotted a coyote again. They're not sure it's "the" coyote though, as the prevailing wisdom seems to be there are probably a couple of them in the 'hood. A shot I took of the coyote who visited our yard a few weeks back. Apparently he likes our neighborhood a LOT.

I know that there was a Seattle Police Department squad car parked 5 houses down from us all afternoon today, apparently on coyote watch. I'm really not sure why - they can't shoot the thing (unless/until it goes after human flesh) and somehow I'm doubting SPD can relocate one. Like that's covered in the training academy. As proof of my point, KIRO's report included footage of one burly female officer trying to entice the coyote with meat on a leash. That's right, MEAT ON A FREAKING LEASH. Um, what, pray tell, is the plan for when the coyote comes after the bait? Are you going to cuff it and escort it to the police cruiser? No, wait, after it eats the meat, you can hook the leash to the doggie's collar. ...

I told Christian at this point, I don't even want them to catch the damn thing(s), because as long as there's a cop parked on our street, staking it out, the number of burglaries in our neighborhood is BOUND to go down!

DINNER MUSIC: During dinnertime, I thought we simply had to listen to some of Tchakofski's Nutcracker. The first passage I selected was the enchanting and very familair Flower Waltz, performed by the Osaka Philharmonic Orchestra, Eiji Oue conducting. Afterward, Annabelle asked to hear some Mouse King music, so I found the music from Act I, Scene 7 of the ballet: The Battle Between the Nutcracker & the Mouse King. Naturally, there was a marked contrast in tone and tempo between the two pieces. It was clear the latter was written with a battle in mind. There were lots of snare drums, cymbal clashes and other battlefield-like sounds.

After dinner I spied CJ in a corner, quietly playing with the Nutcracker books. "Oh no! Now the Nutcracker Prophecy has been changed!" he declared before mumbling something about there now being two Mouse Kings and that, clearly, meant Big Trouble and upset the balance of the Nutcracker Universe.

DOH!: It was well into this afternoon when I realized that it was Seattle Home School Group's park play day. So, I guess we're not going this week again. So we'll have to go next week. Really. I mean it. ...

Space Cadets

WORD PLAY: This morning's language arts lesson started with a couple of worksheets where the kids had to fill in missing letters to make words. We've been playing "hangman" a bit as of late and the worksheets were kind of cut from that same cloth. I figure it helps with their spelling.

One of the words Annabelle had to figure out/complete was "teacher." When she figured it out, she said, "Hey Mom, this is what you are in Magnolia Preparatory Academy - a teacher. But nobody else knows that you're a teacher. You're a mom and you are our teacher."

While they were working on their alphabet and spelling stuff, I played songs like the Jackson 5's "ABC" and several tracks from They Might Be Giants' "Here Come the ABCs."

After CJ filled in a letter to finish a list of words, he was supposed to write a sentence using the mystery letter from each word. So for the first go round he'd filled in the letters c-h-a-i-r, and he wrote a sentence: "Someone sat on the chair." On the flipside of that worksheet, the letters he filled in were d-e-s-k. He immediately decided his second sentence would be "Someone sat on the desk." "Very clever," he appraised out loud. "That way I can just look on the other side (of the sheet) for the words" (he'd already spelled).

The kids each also did a couple of alphabetizing exercises. They're both still at the stage where they have to sing the ABCs out loud while doing it, but that's OK, at least they can do it! It's an important skill because knowing how to alphabetize allows you to use a dictionary and encyclopedias and the library - all of which are avenues to so many other answers.

SPACE CASE: It had been awhile since we've done any space-related studies, so this morning I busted out "About Space," a 40-page nonfiction book in the "We Both Read" series. It is designed so that the parent is supposed to read the lefthand page (it's longer and the vocabulary is more challenging), while the child reads the righthand page. Yeah, well, my kids weren't getting off that easy. There was no reason they couldn't read both pages. So CJ got to tackle "my" part, including page 17: "Uranus and Neptune have similar atmospheres composed primarily of hydrogen and helium gases. However, Uranus is unique because of how it is tilted on its axis. It lies almost on its side in relation to the sun. When the sun rises at its north pole, it stays up for 42 Earth years before it sets."

Nothing too heady for a first grader there, no siree.

The book was great - really comprehensive compared to most space-y books for audiences their age. It covered everything from definining a universe, galaxy and solar system to info about each of our solar system's planets, a fair-and-balanced explanation of why Pluto was kicked to the curb planet-status wise, plus info about the moon landing, astronauts and space stations.

Next, we moved over to the computer, where I had a couple of NASA videos cued up. "Ooh, NASA's 'Our World!' " Annabelle enthused as soon as she saw the title screen. The kids know and enjoy all of the videos they've seen in the Our World series.

Today's first video was about how astronauts sleep in space, a topic touched on in the book we just read and something the kids were both very curious about. Next was a film on gravity.

Afterward, it was back to the couch for another book, "One Giant Leap." Though it was non-fiction, but it had the look and tone of a kids' (fiction) picturebook. It introduced readers to a young boy named Neil Armstrong, a lad who loved books and music and, more than anything else, planes and flying. Young Neil, it said, was slow to make friends and a hard worker. Often when he slept, he dreamt that he was holding his breath and floating up over the earth, looking down. Readers learn that Neil went on to realize his dreams - he became a pilot (at 16), a fighter pilot, a test pilot, an astronaut and then the first man to set foot on the moon. It was a great read and offered such a fresh perspective - introducing a heroic American icon/astronaut as a very normal kid in Ohio. I would think it would make many readers think, "Hey, I could do that ..."

I liked that the two books included some common elements/themes, but that they were presented in different ways. I think that helps reinforce the concepts.

MOONWALK: I recently discovered a really cute online tool where you can put yourself or anyone into an astronaut suit and then watch them crump, pop, lock and more on the moon or Mars. I did videos for CJ and Annabelle and they're hysterical (once you follow the link, you have to click on the green "Watch this ..." button).

EVENING ANTICS: Tonight the guys went to Tae Kwon Do and Bee and I did our home work(out). After we finished, while waiting for CeeJ and Christian, Annabelle and I played an online word game, "Wild Word Garden." The challenge was to spell 3, 4, 5 and 6-letter words out of a jumble of six letters. Annabelle mostly watched, but she did chime in with a few word ideas. She also chimed in with a fair amount of criticism. You know, helpful stuff like, "You aren't thinking very fast!!!" Just callin' it like she sees it, no doubt. Can't fault her for that.

Though it was a game, it really was an exercise almost identical to a couple of worksheets the kids completed this morning - but it was a lot more fun (colorful graphics, a timer to add excitement, that sort of thing).

KILLER ON THE LOOSE: In other news, "our" coyote (the one that was in our yard a few weeks back) got a neighbor's dog tonight (and by neighbor, I mean on our street, just one block down). Annabelle cried when she saw it on the news. I explained to her that's just the "Wild Kingdom" at work. The coyote isn't mean or bad, it's just trying to stay alive and following its instincts. The attack happened in the park we frequent several times a week. ...