Birds and Bees

REST STOP: It was a Musikgarten day. The kids learned a new song, which they both sang and played on their glockenspiels, and they played a fun musical game in class. One person would face a wall with their eyes closed and sing, "Who's that tapping on my window? Who's that knocking on my door " while another student came up behind them. The person behind would sing "I am tapping on your window. I am knocking on your door," in response and the one with their eyes closed would have to guess who was singing behind them.

And in their workbooks they practiced writing the rest symbol - a wonky little thing. The teacher suggested they remember zig-zag-zig-c as a guide while writing it.

LET'S GET IT STARTED: At the kids' request, we returned to the Scholastic site today to use their story starter "machine." I had them click on the second-grade level this time (before we've done K-1). CJ's spin ended up with an assignment to "write a funny story about a stubborn penguin who wants to be invisible." Annabelle's spin produced a directive to "list five things you would do if you met a grouchy banana who eats muffins all day." She wrote:

One i wood say hallo ar you haveing a grrochy day?
Two i wonder what he or she wood say naxt.
Three mabe he or she wood greet me ncie becuse i gave he or she a grouchy
hallo.
Four i wonder what he or she was doing all day Five i wood say have a
grouchy day maybee he or shee wood say have a grouchy day back to me

CJ's was shorter: "This stubborn penguin wants to be invisible so no predators can see him. He will go in his invisible machine."

CAST A SPELL: In the "no duh!' moment of the day, while the kids were working on their "story starter" assignments, it occurred to me that it would be easier for them to write their stories if they knew how to spell. ;) (See, I told you it was a "no duh!" moment!) But seriously, I guess I have been banking too heavily on the spelling by osmosis approach. They're both really good readers and we read A LOT, so I figured that would be how they learn to spell. And it does work to a degree, but I'd like to move things forward faster.

So, I hopped online (of course) and did a search for "spelling word lists first grade." The first hit I got was a site I'd never seen before - Super Teacher Worksheets. (BTW, they've got lots of good stuff there, for free. We'll be back for more.)

I printed out one of their first grade level lists and had the kids write each word twice (the words being an, man, can, ran, fan, ten, pen, hen and land). To me, the words seemed too easy, but then again, I'm not 5 years old. ...

When the kids were done, we played spelling bee to help cement the words in their mind. (And can I just say that CJ's handwriting is like textbook fantastic?!) During the spelling bee, however, Mr. CeeJ flubbed 'ten' and 'land' on the first go through, but nailed 'em the second time. We'll do it again tomorrow, and if they ace them, we'll move on to another list. I think I'll use frequent spelling bees with cumulative lists to help them retain the words they're learning to spell as we go along.

MYOB: So we make a run to QFC at around 1 today to get a few things and when we're in the checkout line the cashier asks loudly, "Did school get out early today?" Sigh. I so dread these exchanges. I know he wasn't trying to be rude, but I really don't feel like explaining my kids' present educational path to strangers in grocery stores. (Ironically, I have no problem throwing the doors open via the Internet. Me = weird, clearly.)

Anyway, to his "did school get out early?" inquiry I replied, "Theirs did," thinking that should be enough to shut him up. But no. "So is that private school?" he continues. And I say, "Yeah. Private." (Thinking to myself, "So private, in fact, there are only two students.") And he says, "I thought maybe I didn't get the memo about early dismissal. So where do they go to school?"

Finally, mercifully, Annabelle looks at him and says loudly, "We are home schooled. HOME SCHOOLED," she repeated. "We go to school. At home," she explained, presumably in case he didn't get what that meant.

He quit asking questions after that.

IT'S FOR THE BIRDS: With spring and March just around the corner, we thought it would be an appropriate time to tackle a project we've been sitting on since Christmas Day - assembling birdhouses. Specifically, a GreenBird House. Sized for House and Bewick Wrens, Nuthatches and Titmice, it's made of very heavy stock recycled paper, is 100 percent biodegradable and water resistant.

Shocking as it may sound, before doing any construction, we actually read through all of the directions. : ) It looked simple enough to put together - and it was, once I abandoned the instructions we'd so carefully read ahead of time. I would suggest the folks completely redo the weird perspective and wildly unhelpful illustrations that are printed along with their directions - either that or be a WHOLE lot more wordy, because the drawings were really not helpful at ALL. (In fact, what they should have are PHOTOS of the assembly process.)

Anyway, we did manage to get them together in under five minutes, and the kids had lots of fun decorating them. In poking around their Web site, I found the company has even developed lesson plans to help students connect with the great outdoors. Cool!

APPLES' WAY: About a week ago, CJ, who had just finished eating an apple, approached me with two seeds. "Can we put them in a glass with a wet paper towel and grow an apple tree?" he asked. I said "of course," of course. I've glanced at them a couple of times and saw a whole lot of nothing. In fact, I darn near threw the experiment away yesterday. Glad I didn't, because this afternoon, CJ said, "I want to check on my apple seeds." I told him to go get a stool and climb up onto the kitchen counter to retrieve his jar. He did and low and behold, both seeds had sprouted. So now CJ is thinking we won't have to buy apples at the store any more. :) I told him we'd probably still have to supplement our harvest for awhile. I *think* they're Galas.

We inspected the sprouting seeds and transferred them to a peat pot full of organic potting soil. Hopefully they'll continue to grow!

FUNNY STUFF: Around noon today Annabelle asked, "Why did the whale cross the road? To get to the other tide! Get it? Get it?!?!

Ridin' the Rails

THREE AMIGOS: Here's the thick-as-thieves trio early this morning, having a pow-wow on the couch. Annabelle's watching CJ play his Nintendo DS, and Kirby's there because, well, they're there.

VILLAGE PEOPLE: While Bee had ballet, CJ and I ran errands - first to the post office to mail a letter, and then on to the hardware store to find wood putty. While there we cruised the aisles to kill time. Every once in awhile I'd pull an oddity off a shelf (and there were lots of 'em, from funky mouse traps to weed pullers) and ask CJ what he thought they were. He provided some entertaining answers.

After ballet, I let the kids play in the park adjacent to the community center for some fresh air and exercise.

INSTRUMENTAL: We checked in on BrainPOP Jr. to see what their movie of the week is and found it was about musical instruments. They watched the film and then took both the easy and hard quizzes, acing both the first time through. They also played an instrument matching game, and completed a writing exercise where they had to think of as many musical instruments as they could and then categorize them as one that's plucked or strummed, hit, or blown.

RAIN DANCE: It's been a couple of days since we planted our bean and pea seeds. Today I had the kids water the two dozen pots AND we started some tomatoes! Of course now I'm in panic mode wondering where the hell I'm going to put all these plants a month or so from now ...

QUIZ KIDS: Midday I was looking for something new, exciting and, well, an easy way for me to challenge the kids a bit. I turned to Comcast's On Demand. In scrolling through the ActivityTV selections, I noticed "Trivia and Games" for the first time. There were several listings for "Brain Game" and I randomly picked one. It was just general trivia questions, most of which the kids knew the answers to, but the Big Announcer Voice and the fact that they had a time limit for answering freaked them out a bit (in a good way, I think).

ALL ABOARD!: We had to make a trip to downtown this evening to complete a mystery shopper assignment (shh! don't tell anyone!) and rather than fight rush hour traffic, we decided to pop over to the Seattle Center, park, and then hop on the monorail. However, before leaving home, we boned up on our Monorail history.

Built by Alweg Rapid Transit Systems for the World's Fair in Seattle, the monorail began operating on March 24, 1962. Its initial cost was $3.5 million. During the fair's six months, the monorail carried more than eight million passengers, and already paid for itself. In 1965, the monorail was sold to the City of Seattle for $600,000. These days, it carries about 1.5 million riders a year.

The kids just LOVED the ride. They'd been on the monorail once before, but never in the front seat, and that vantage point was a thrill for them.

The pink and blue are walls of EMP (Paul Allen's Experience Music Project). The monorail runs through a tunnel between the buildings.

Pulling into Westlake Mall, the end of the line.

BREAKING NEWS: CJ would like me to report to blog readers that there is a new puffle in Club Penguin. "He's the color orange. He has two teeth connecting together and his smile looks kind of creepy."

Annabelle's rebuttal: "I think his smile looks kind of happy."

Somehow, CJ managed to see past the "creepy" smile and work his penguin tail off to earn the 800 coins necessary to adopt the new orange puffle, which he has named Carrot.

LEFTOVERS: I forgot to include this in yesterday's round up. At CJ's request/urging/begging, we made peanut butter cookies yesterday evening. I honestly can't remember the last time (it's been years) I made peanut butter cookies. We found a recipe calling for ingredients I had on hand on the Jif Web site. (In fact, there were hundreds and hundreds of recipes there, including some very kid-friendly ones. We'll have to explore the site some more in the future.)

It's amazing how much education you can pack in a cookie making session. The kids measured (including fractions), had to follow directions exactly (which is so important so often in life) and had to obey safety rules (wash your hands, oven = hot, and cookie sheet fresh from oven = hot).

Splashdown

WE GOT THE BEAT: This morning we revisited the online metronome while the kids practiced their glockenspiels. They did waaaaaaay better this week in keeping the tempo. Interestingly, the slow (45 beats per minute) and fast (100 beats per minute) were much easier for them to handle than a mid range (85 BPM).

After the regimented practice time, they did some composing. I had them look out the window and play music they think matched the weather (a dynamic mix of sun, wind rain and clouds at the moment). Then I had them play theme songs for various action figures I put on the table in front of them (everyone from Shredder of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle fame to Kirby of the Nintendo persuasion).

STORY STARTERS: After music, we turned to the Scholastic Web site for some language arts. I introduced the kids to Scholastic's story starters tool. It's a bit like a slot machine. You use your mouse to click on its handle and four windows spin in the middle. They randomly stop and you have to write about whatever wacky thing it is they combine to form. For instance, Annabelle's task was to write about a wet skunk who had a birthday party. CJ was directed to write about going camping with a chicken who had round glasses. The writing is done right there on a template on the Web site, and there's a drawing tool, too. They were pretty proud of themselves when they printed out their finished product. (In fact, as I type this tonight, Annabelle's in her room, using the story starters site for fun!)

Interestingly, CJ didn't hesitate hardly at all when faced with the blank "page" today when it was a computer screen. He dove right in, sounding out words and spelling phonetically. Hmmm.

AIR FORCE: Our fresh air and light exercise was a walk to the neighborhood park, Kirby along, of course. There, I was surprised to see an entire daycare class. I recognize the group - I've seen them out and about before, and I know their daycare is all the way over the hill, in Magnolia Village. That's quite a walk for 3 year old legs! Good for them and their teachers for taking that trek on!

MORE MULTIPLICATION: Since we had so much success in our intro-to-multiplication session yesterday, I figured we should keep it rolling. Today we worked on more multiples of 2s and 5s. No problem! That done, Annabelle flipped one of her (second grade level) worksheets over and found some subtraction problems. Specifically, subtracting a two-digit numbers from another two-digit number, with lots of borrowing involved. We'd never talked about or done that before, but she was game and I'll be darned if she didn't catch right on to the concept.

DIVING IN: This afternoon we started yet another type/session of lessons - swimming! I was able to get CJ signed up for the "Youth Beginners" class, for ages 6 to 16, which was advertised as follows:

We will sort children into groups by ability level on the first day of class. Level 1: Introduction to Water Skills: Getting comfortable with the face in the water and floating and kicking on front, back, and side. Level 2: Fundamental Aquatic Skills: Crawlstroke, turning over front to back, and introduction to side breathing. Level 3: Stroke Development: Crawlstroke with bilateral side breathing, backstroke, whip kick, and diving.

Sounded like it should fit the bill - CJ is definitely a youth and a beginner and definitely Level 1. Well, we get there and it's clear within about 5 seconds that he's the only real beginner in the class. The rest of the kids were crawlstroking and submarine swimming all over the pool. I honestly thought we might be at the wrong place/time. ... (Once back home I checked, and we were in the right place, at least by the book, so to speak.)
This expression says it all ...
Anyway, there were eight kids in CJ's class and a few of them were, shall we say, testing the new teacher/class's boundaries (translation - spazzing out and not listening most of the time). So that made it a bit unpleasant for everyone. I could tell CJ was having a hard time hearing the teacher, which made it harder for him to follow instructions. Plus, there was another class going on, as well as lap swimming and even just open water swimmers and as you might expect the acoustics in the place are harsh, making it a bit of sensory overload for Mr. CJ.

And speaking of unpleasant, Annabelle spent the half hour lesson sitting next to me on the sidelines. You can imagine how thrilled she was with that. Because she's only 5, she couldn't be in the youth beginner class (even though she could have been one of those kids zipping around, swimming under water). Incredulous Annabelle, poolside and peeved about it
"It's so stupid, they didn't even ask the parents how good a swimmer their kid is," she groused to Christian at the dinner table. "They base it on your age, not your intelligence!" she railed. Of course, we told her that in life she'll encounter lots of seemingly stupid rules. Tis the way the world is. ...

CLASS ACT: Last but not least, CJ had Tae Kwon Do this evening, too. I think he'll sleep well tonight!

Getting our Hands Dirty

DIAGNOSTICIANS: This morning I told the kids were were going to play detective. They got excited until I told them that meant we were going to try to figure out what was wrong with my car. ;)

Last night as Annabelle and I pulled up to the curb in front of our house following a library run, white vapor with that distinctive anti-freeze-y smell started billowing out from under my hood. Not good, not good at all ...

It was dark out then and I didn't even bother to take a look at the trouble, saving the "fun" for today.

We trudged up to the car, and before I even popped the hood, I asked the kids, "Do you see any clues around or under my car that might help us? At that, they noticed a couple of dark spots on the ground under my car. I agreed those might be clues, but pointed out that they could be a coincidence - maybe those spots have been there a long time. "How could we try to figure out if they're fresh or not?" I asked. Annabelle suggested touching them to see if they were wet. So, we did, and they were. One clue.

Next, I popped the hood and had the kids come stand on the front bumper and look down into the engine compartment. I pointed out the radiator, and told them it holds water and when your car is running, that water circulates through the engine to keep the engine cool, and if water somehow escapes that system (via a leaky hose or bum radiator, for instance), the hot water could wind up on the ground (like our wet spots) and/or stinky vapor floats up from the car (like the cloud last night). I asked the kids to look around the engine compartment for signs of leaks of radiator fluid. We spotted a few wet spots, including one up nearly as high as the top of the radiator. Hmmm. Clue two.

There weren't any obvious, glaring problems like hoses hanging off or otherwise compromised up high in the engine compartment, so I told the kids the next thing we'd take a look at is the radiator cap. I popped it off, flipped it over and asked the kids if they thought anything looked funny. (I had zeroed in on a rubber gasket right away.) Sure 'nuff, the kids noticed part of the gasket was flat, but part of it was sticking up. By our eyes, it appeared to be very warped and not properly seated in its housing any more. Clue three - and perhaps the culprit!

We reported our findings to Christian, who picked up another cap on his lunch break. And we're happy to report that $10 later, the Honda (220,000 miles and counting) is back on the road again! GROW YOUR OWN: Like the 3,000 other people at Lowe's this weekend, the weekend sunshine propelled us to the gardening department. There, we let the kids pick some seeds out. We hope/dream to have an at least semi-significant garden this year.

This afternoon, we got down and dirty, potting peas and beans. I showed the kids the multi-step process (fill pot with dirt, pour in some water, stir, poke you finger down in the soil, drop some seeds in, cover with dirt, tamp down gently, pour some more water on) and then let them go at it. I didn't hover over them the entire time, so it will be interesting to see what sprouts. :)

PRETZEL PEOPLE: Late this afternoon we made the 40 minute drive down to Columbia City for yoga. Annabelle would like to say "Namaste" to you. :)

Wild for Animals

SIGN OF THE TIMES: I decided today was the day I'd formally introduce the kids to multiplication. We've done lots of addition and subtraction, some work with fractions, symmetry, measuring and more. We are definitely ready to talk about multiplication.

I prefaced the introductory worksheets I had ready by telling them they already do multiplication, all the time. Multiplication is not new and it's no big deal. To illustrate that, I had them sing a couple of Schoolhouse Rock songs. Specifically, we sang "Three is a Magic Number" and "Ready or Not Here I Come," (the latter is about multiplying by 5s).



After that, they were both given a couple of worksheets that dealt with multiplication by 2s or 3s, and they had no trouble with them. In fact, when he finished, CJ said, "This the easiest math homework I've ever done," triumphantly. Clearly our first official foray into multiplication was a smashing success.

TO THE ZOO: We're in our second year of zoo membership, but Christian and I had yet to go to Seattle's Woodland Park Zoo. (Fortunately the kids have been their, thanks to their older brother.) So when Monday dawned sunny and relatively warm, I figured it would be the perfect day to go. Turns out I was right. :) Many of the animals were out sunning themselves and because it was February there were hardly any tourists and no huge school groups (field trips to the zoo are usually scheduled for more predictably warmer months).

Christian had the kids by himself for the first hour or so while I was at the dentist nearby. The three of them spent a fair amount of that time in the zoo's Night Exhibit, as it's permanently closing on March 1 due to budget cuts. Creatures housed there include several kinds of bats, a pair of two toed sloths, tamanduas (small anteaters native to South America), douroucoulis (owl monkeys) and a trio of pygmy lorises (small arboreal primates native to southeast Asia).

In the course of a 4.5 hour visit, we covered the entire zoo grounds, taking it all in. Many of the animals were out in full view, soaking up the sun.

We popped into the zoo's indoor playground for a few minutes. There are animal-related games and toys as well as a pretty massive climbing feature. The place is especially popular on rainy days.

As luck would have it, while we were walking through the "African Savanna" portion of the zoo, the zookeepers were trying to coax a trio of giraffes from the outside exhibit into their "barn" for the night, so we got to be within a couple of feet of the wild-looking creatures.

As always, my favorite animals were the primates.

In all, we were at the zoo for about four hours.

Just before leaving, we checked out the "African Village" exhibit just inside the south gate. There were little huts and a reproduction of a primary school. All in all it was a great day. The zoo is beautiful - they have done a remarkable job with exhibits to try to make them look like the animals' natural habitat instead of that awful prison like look that so many zoos have.

Once home, I asked the kids to write down which animal was their favorite and why. CJ wrote, "My fvoriet anamul is a bear. It was crawling." Annabelle wrote, "My fvowite animls are the flmingos and the elafints. I like the elafints because (it) is big and I liked the flmingos because theay were pink."