Sharks, Shuttles and Such

TAKE NOTE: The curriculum has been building toward today for a few weeks now. First the kids were introduced to the musical staff, then they got to play around with it in various formats (a huge version on the floor, a poster size, a placemat size). But today they actually wrote notes on a staff. (Does that make them composers?)

During the parent participation part, we all played a suspenseful game. We sat in a circle with our eyes closed and hands behind our backs. One person, carrying a key and a coin, stands up and makes their way around the group, giving the items to someone(s). While they're doing that the group sings, "Here comes Johny, 'round comes he, he's hiding the money and the key." Then the group sings, "Who has money?" and whoever has it sings back, "I have the money." And then we sang, "Who has the key?" and whoever has it sings back, "I have the key."

It sounds kinda lame, but it was fun, I swear. ;)

SHUTTLE PUZZLE: Yesterday at Goodwill, I scored the Best Puzzle Ever for 99 cents. It's of the Space Shuttle and it's no ordinary puzzle. In fact, it's multiple puzzles. There's a big one of the Space Shuttle and one cool feature of that one is it actually has two nose sections (an interior view of the cockpit/crew quarters and an external view). And not only is there an over-sized shuttle puzzle, there's also banner-shaped puzzle that includes illustrations of and information about the shuttle launch, orbiting and landing. And there are even several astronaut cut outs AND a Hubble Telescope cutout. (Did I mention I found it for 99 cents?!) The kids spent well over an hour today assembling it and then playing action/adventure with the astronauts. The brave astronauts were trying to repair the Hubble, but some evil astronauts were trying to thwart them. High drama in orbit!

OOZE AND AAHS: Another Friday, another science session. It was down in Columbia City again today, so about a 35 minute drive for us.

Those who read about CJ's adventure in science class last week will not be surprised to hear that on the way there we had a loooong talk about expectations. I expect him to pay attention. I expect him to use his eyes and ears - to both watch and listen not just to the instructor, but to his classmates too. He assured me he would and that it wouldn't be a repeat of last week.

Yeah, well. ... Talk is cheap. Sigh.

For the first half of the class he was pretty much present in body only. I could tell he wasn't listening to any of the information or directions (and it showed when it came time for him to do something per direction). I actually went over to him more than once to try to get him plugged in, but it really didn't work. Heavy sigh.

With about 20 minutes left in the class his brain kicked in and he was engaged, and after class he was really helpful cleaning up. I suppose I should be grateful for that, but frankly, being engaged 30 percent of the time isn't exactly stellar.

I'm a bit flummoxed because during the first session of these science classes, he was almost entirely engaged the whole time. I'm not sure why things are getting worse, not better. Part of me wonders if it's the change of venue. (The first class was in Ballard. The last two have been in Columbia City.) Who knows ... I do know that he simply has to do better next week. Seriously. I think we might do some practice sessions using "social stories" (reenacting or play acting real life events) between now and then and see if that helps.

OK, enough of my b*tching. In today's class they made two interesting colloids. The first was slime - gloppy stuff that has a huge ooze quotient.

The second concoction was more along the lines of silly putty.

FRIENDLY FRIDAY: After science concluded, we went to the home of one of the kids' friends from yoga for a "play date." (What is it about that term that bugs me? And why do I use it even though it bugs me?)

We were there nearly 2 hours and the kids had a blast playing with her and all of her toys. :)

SHARK TANK: Around dinnertime, the kids watched another "Kenny the Shark" DVD from the library. They're on a big Kenny kick. So big, in fact, that CJ has decided he's going to build an aquarium.

CJ asked Christian how many kinds of sharks there are, and after Googling, Christian told him there are over 400 species. At that, CJ declared, "When I have an aquarium, I'll have all 400 kinds of sharks in it."

Speaking of sharks, you really gotta see this specimen recently discovered off the coast of Greenland. (Photo by Greenland Institute of Natural Resources - which has a great Web site BTW. Just make sure you click on the British flag if your Greenlandic or Danish isn't up to snuff)

This, my friends, is from the Iceland catshark species. It lives at ocean depths ranging from 2,645 to 4,625 feet (800 and 1,410 meters), where it feeds on fish, marine worms, and crustaceans such as lobster and crabs, according to National Geographic.

I wonder if the other sharks make fun of him. Or her. :/

CJ's 'to do' list is growing longer. In addition to establishing an aquarium, he's going to have a chocolate factory and he's going to open a pizza restaurant (that serves breakfast, lunch, dinner and dessert pizzas). He's also going to be a scientist with a research laboratory and he's going to work at Pacific Science Center. He is also going to design video games and make movies (a screenwriter-slash-producer-slash-director). He is NOT, however, going to be an astronaut, he tells me. I asked why and he said he'd be too worried about his space suit getting a hole in it and him losing oxygen.

Another Thursday

THERE IS ANOTHER: You can imagine our excitement this morning when Annabelle discovered that there are actually FIVE painted butterfly larvae in our little container. I think they've acclimated to our house after their harrowing journey here via US Mail. They're starting to move around a lot more.

MAGNETISM: This morning before 8, for whatever reason, CJ asked me if the North Pole and South Pole would stick together. I started thinking and talking about plate tectonics and CJ got a puzzled look on his face. At that, it occurred to me that wasn't what he was asking about at ALL. He was thinking about magnets. Duh.

So we talked about the "opposites attract" saying and how that's true for magnets. (South and north would stick together, while south and south or north and north would repel one another.)

BEFORE BALLET: I swear, for whatever reason, it's always this wild and crazy rush trying to get out the door to ballet. Even though the kids had been up for nearly four damn hours already, come 10 a.m. and time to leave, it was craziness. One of the points of contention today was Annabelle had put on a shirt that she'd clearly worn while painting a few days prior. I asked her to change it and she shot back, "Why do I have to take it off just because of paint? You know, Mom, I AM an artist."

Um, yes. That's nice. Now change your shirt. And then I couldn't get CJ, who was perusing a library book, to get off the couch and toward the door. "Wait! I'm reading this in my mind!" he said rather haughtily. CLASS TIME: We did eventually make it out the door and to lessons. While Bee was in her class, CJ and I strolled streets and alleys of "downtown" Magnolia, Kirby along for the jaunt. We reviewed flowers, shrubs and trees we'd IDed yesterday (lots of dogwood, rhododendron and azalea, as well as weary looking tulips). Today, we saw more iris coming to bloom and we even saw a couple of poppy plants. CJ loved their spiky buds and stems.
We made it back to the community center a couple of minutes before Bee was done, so CJ and I took the time to check out the preschooler-produced artwork on the bulletin board. I called CJ's attention to one young man's writing's about Earth Day.

CJ looked at it and immediately said, "I can't read that!!" I told him I knew that he could if he just sounded each word out. And sure enough, he did figure out that the author's message was, "Turn off the lights. Pick up all the garbage and recycle and compost. Sell stuff that you don't need."

The reason I drew CJ's attention to the writing was because I wanted him to see that even if you don't spell every word exactly right, you can still get your message across. [That said, I DO expect him to spell damn near every word right by the time he's middle school age. ;) ]

When Annabelle emerged from ballet, she was wearing her ballet backpack tucked in her tutu, in front of her stomach. She looked like a ballerina kangaroo. (Would that be a balleroona? Or a kangarina?)

BACK TO FLORIDA: For our foray into Florida this a.m., I checked out the great ThinkQuest. We found a few items about about Florida, but none of them were that engaging IMHO.

I poked around some more and we found that the Nationa Parks Service has several Web pages about wildlife in Everglades National Park. CJ and Annabelle spent the most time on the birds page. There, we learned that, like us, Florida has Great Blue Herons, and they also have diminutive counterparts, Little Blue Herons.

NOT SO SLICK: The oil rig disaster in the Gulf of Mexico has been dominating the news, so I thought it would be good to teach the kids a little bit about offshore drilling. I was happy (and surprised) to find that NASA had an eClip video on the topic geared for kids CJ & Annabelle's ages. So, I cued it up. "We LOVE 'Our World' videos!' CJ said as its theme music started.

After that video, we then watched one titled "Offshore Oil Drilling," also a NASA eClip in the 'Our World' series. During the video, there was a demonstration of what happened when oil is introduced into water, including how it moves, spreads, creates slicks and affects wildlife. One thing it showed was how bird feathers become coated and heavy when they're covered in oil.

While the video was a great demonstration, I decided it would be even better to replicate it with the kids (we have water, feathers and though I don't have crude oil, we have motor oil). I assembled our ingredients and the kids poured little shot glasses of motor oil into the water, watched it spread and helped it spread (from NASA we learned that current, waves and wind move the oil spill around).
I had the kids dunk their feathers in the oil and it was a really dramatic demonstration of just how awful it must be for those poor birds who get caught in a slick.

CRASH BANG BOOM: This headline grabbed my attention this morning: "Huge NASA science balloon crashes in Australia." It was a horrible accident while launching a huge NASA balloon loaded with a multi million dollar telescope built to scan the sky at wavelengths invisible to the human eye. It was years in the making and in just seconds, it was destroyed. It damn near took a couple people out, too. I sure hope nothing like this happens during "our" launch. ....

On a much lighter note, I was happy to learn today (via an email from NASA) that Space Shuttle program managers wrapped up their Flight Readiness Review on Wednesday afternoon at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston. "Teams preparing space shuttle Atlantis for its STS-132 mission are not working any significant issues, and the May 14 target launch date will be recommended at next week's agency-level review," said the press release. Phew.

Next Wednesday (May 5), NASA managers will hold a news conference after a Flight Readiness Review, which is a meeting to assess preparations for shuttle Atlantis' STS-132 mission to the International Space Station. "Live status updates, including the start time for the news conference, will be provided during the meeting via the NASA News Twitter feed. To access the feed, go to the nasa.gov homepage or visit: http://www.twitter.com/nasa."

You know we'll be tuning in!

KENNY THE SHARK: Yesterday at the library, the kids chose a couple of "Kenny the Shark" videos. It's about an always hungry shark who walks, talks and lives on land. Mercifully, he doesn't eat the family of humans he lives with ...

I forgot that interspersed in and/or for a few minutes at the end of every Kenny cartoon, there's actually some educational content related to sea life. (The cartoon's on the Discovery Channel, so it make sense it has some educational value.) The DVD they watched today had films about several sea creatures, including a squid. Annabelle informed me that she and CJ learned that squids squirt their ink when they're fighting or under attack. I asked her why she thought they did it. She said it was to trick the attackers. "It's like playing hide and seek and cheating!" analogized Annabelle.

TAKE A LICKING: Of course today the kids were eager to try the lemon iced pops they made yesterday. Annabelle dove right in and gobbled hers up. CJ was a bit more tentative. He had to contemplate it for a minute ...

He came around pretty quickly, though (before it melted!) and said he actually enjoyed it. That made me happy, because he's not exactly adventurous when it comes to introducing new foods to his diet.

Climb Every Mountain

INSIDE THE HELMET: First thing this morning, we spent a little time thinking like Space Shuttle mission specialists. Specifically, we were thinking and talking about water on the Space Shuttle. Having read up about the space missions on multiple occasions, the kids know that cargo space is at a premium and that carrying extra weight up into space is a drag (literally!).

Obviously, astronauts can't live without water, but water is heavy. So conserving and recycling water is a paramount task of theirs.

I visitied the Kennedy Space Center's Web site and there found several Educator Activity Guides. I selected the K-2 level one and found 33 PDF pages of neat-o stuff, including a water conservation exercise called "Washing Your Hands in Space." Our experiment had two parts. First, we were instructed to wash hands with a bowl under the faucet to catch the run off. CJ went through his standard 20 second hand washing routine (he's pretty religious about that, having seen a Voice of Authority poster at the community center telling him that's How to Do It). The runoff in our bowl was very nearly 1 cup of water.

The second part of the experiment was to take one cup of water, immerse a paper towel in it, and use that to wash hands. Annabelle handled that portion of the experiment. After she'd cleaned up, we were to note how much water was left in the measuring cup. Only a trace of water had been used - less than one tenth of a cup. Which means, that using the paper towel approach used only about 1/9th as much water.

We talked about the pros and cons of each method and which would be best for shuttle astronaut. "Hands down" the paper towel approach got our vote because it used so much less water and so it would mean less waste and hauling less water up into orbit on the shuttle.

FOOTSOLDIERS: For weeks now, I've been thinking about taking the kids for an on-foot trek to 'the Village,' or Magnolia proper. We go there all the time (Ace Hardware, for ballet, Albertsons, the post office, the library and more), and it's not that far, but it's also not super close and it's a big hill to climb (and, therefore, not somewhere we'd ride bikes or scooters to).

This morning I decided today would be the day. We were going to walk to the Magnolia library! While it wasn't sunny, it wasn't raining and it looked OK outside and today was a rare day we didn't have any outside commitments. We outfitted ourselves with essentials: a debit card, a water bottle, a grocery bag and a portable radio (the Ms were playing the Royals @ 11:10). We were ascending our stairs just before the first pitch, at 11 a.m.
I reasoned that even though it was bit of the trek, the kids would be buoyed by the fact that we'd be hitting three parks (Bay View, Ella Bailey and West Magnolia) on the way to the library AND on the way back! That's right, SIX, count 'em, SIX park stops today. What's not to like about that?

Our first stop was Bay View Park - barely a block from home. We didn't spend much time there but the kids did climb (and jump off) the big plasticene boulders.

Next, we trudged up, up, up to Ella Bailey (more commonly known as 'Hilltop Play Park' in our home). About halfway there, Annabelle said, "I know I can, I know I can" in the spirit of the Little Blue Engine.

Once we'd 'crested' Ella Bailey, I pointed out to the kids it was all downhill to The Village. Once we made it to the hamlet, we headed south a couple of blocks to hit a secure mailbox, and then we headed further west and north, to the park (West Magnolia Park) next to the community center. Unlike some other parks in our 'hood, this park always has people in it. Today was no exception. There were many babies/toddlers and their moms or nannies there. And then me and my Big Kids. I'm pretty used to this at this point - when we go to a park during the day, all the school aged kids are, well, in school, so it's my "Gulliver" kids and the Lilliputians.

However, I did notice that there was a cute little boy there with curly hair and he had an older sister who was getting two new top teeth. That meant she was definitely beyond kindergarten age. I immediately wondered, "Homeschooler?" and will admit that part of me was wondering if there's some secret "homeschooler handshake" I should know. ...

The kids' mother was on her cell phone and then I was on mine but after I got off my phone she approached me and said, "So I noticed your kids are older ... do you homeschool?" BINGO! I told her we did and she confirmed that she did. She also told me she's active in the Seattle Homeschool Group and I told her we're in the midst of our first SHG activity (the Friday science classes). We talked a bit about parks in the area and bid farewell as we struck out to the library.

We headed north to the library. CJ and I have made the walk from the community center to the library numerous times; for Bee it was a bit of an adventure. When we used the crosswalk across the main drag, Annabelle was especially excited about getting to hold a visibility/safety flag up. The library was pretty darn packed. We didn't stay there long as I'd noticed some not so friendly clouds to the west, and truth be told, I didn't want to have to haul a whole bunch of books home. We did, of course, find a half dozen DVDs the kids felt like they needed to check out.

On the way back eastward, we stopped at West Magnolia Playfield again for a couple minutes. From there, it was on to Albertsons to buy the kids a lunchtime snack and supplies for an afternoon project (CJ wanted to make lemon Popsicles, which is interesting, given that he doesn't like any citrus fruits that I know of. ...)

In Albertson's, CJ charmed the cashier with his tale of and recipe for lemon slushie Popsicles. From there, it was straight uphill for a "good" five blocks. The kids were troupers, though. They didn't complain once. I think it helped that along the way we stopped to check out plants. I feel pretty confident that CJ and Annabelle could ID azaleas, rhododendron and dogwoods on their own (those three are all in full bloom round here).

Finally, we crested the hill (again) and made our way back to Ella Bailey Park. There, we sat at a picnic table and the kids hopped on the treats they selected at Albertsons.

We hadn't been sitting out our picnic table for 60 seconds when a woman came over and said, "Do you remember me?" uhhhhhhhhhhhh. ... "We met at a Seattle Homeschool Group park day," she reminded (thank god). At that, I did, of course, remember her. It was the first (and only) SHG park day we've attended, and it was the first time she'd gone to one, too. It was frigid - maybe February - and we were practically the only ones there!

I asked her how her year was going and she told me that she was "almost done." At that, I couldn't help but wonder how one ever really gets done with learning/school. I have to presume perhaps she has a pretty set curriculum she's following for the grade her child is in, and once you're done with a certain grade level, you're done. Unlike my poor children, who will never be done. ;)

We didn't linger at Ella Bailey Park too long, as the cottony white clouds overhead had been joined by as-far-as-the-eye-can-see blocks of bluish grey clouds screaming "You are going to get sooooooooo wet." We stopped briefly at Bay View park - so very close to home! - but when the wind started kicking up, I told the kids that we were going to head home and arrive triumphant over the rain! No one rains on our parade, doggone it!

And sure enough, we did beat the weather. As we descended the stairs at home, the Mariners and Royals were in the 8th inning and the Ms had regained the lead, 6-5. We were home no more than 5 minutes when the skies opened up and it dumped buckets.

All in all, the trek was a wonderful success and we will undoubtedly undertake it again.

LEMONHEADS: This afternoon we absolutely had to complete a project in the kitchen. For whatever reason, for the past 2 days CJ has been talking about making lemon slushies. When he described the process and the end result (a lemony frozen treat on a stick), it was clear that he actually meant a lemon frozen Popsicle type treat.

During our outing today we bought a big beautiful lemon. I sliced it up and let the kids squeeze the juice into a bowl. During this process we learned that CJ is apparently allergic to lemon juice. He was complaining of his hands itching and burning.

The kids were surprised by how little juice the lemon produced and lamented that it wasn't going to be enough to make more than one treat. I informed them that lemon juice was not going to be the only ingredient. I had them dip their fingers into the juice and taste it and asked them if they thought it tasted good. :) As you might imagine, they found it a tad sour. I asked them how we could make it sweeter. Annabelle suggested sugar. I told her that would work, but that I'd like to suggest organic blue agave syrup as an alternative (which, I'd also like to suggest to readers as a great alternative to granulated sugar. It is a wonderful, tasty, natural sweetener that doesn't cause a big blood sugar spike like other sweeteners).

We put the agave in, stirred it, and I had the kids taste it again. They thought it was much better. I poured the liquid into a clear bowl and asked them if it looked like what they expected it to. CJ said he thought it would be more yellow (it's lemon after all). I told the kids that so much of what they eat and drink has been artificially colored. I asked them if they wanted their treats natural, or if they wanted color. Yeah, well, as you might imagine, they wanted pizazz. So we broke out some yellow and red food coloring. I separated the sweetened lemon juice into two bowls, the kids added the coloring and then we carefully poured them into an ice cube tray. By tomorrow, they should be solid enough for a taste test.

In the meantime, I let the kids take a swig of the leftover juice, of course. Annabelle LOVES lemonade and love Love LOVED the concoction. CJ, "Mr. Water Guy," well not so much. I'll give him mad props for taking a full on taste of it - that alone is so against his character. That said, he didn't like it one bit. "This is why I only drink water," he informed Annabelle and me, a bit haughtily.

WEBINAR SCHEDULED: Note to self - today I registered for "Take Off, Migrate to Another Homeschool Option." It's presented by BrainPOP, and you know how we here at MPA love us some BrainPOP : )

It's scheduled for Wednesday, May 26, 6:30 PM EDT. Here's the Webinar description: "Why do some birds remain on resident grounds for four seasons, while others only survive by wintering in one location and bringing new life into the world at another site? That’s just one of the topics you’ll hear about when homeschooling mom Sue Ferrara, PhD, and BrainPOP's Allisyn Levy team up. Join them as they show you how to “migrate” to a new educational playground and bring new life into your homeschool curriculum."

Florida on Our Minds

BY OUR ESTIMATION: This morning we checked out Scholastic's Max's Math Adventures feature for the first time. Many of the exercises are "beneath" CJ and Annabelle's level, so to speak, but I did find one about estimation that I thought would be a good fit for them. We don't talk about estimation often enough, and it's a math skill that's used a lot in the real world.

During the course of our work, we talked about what a good estimate is as compared to a bad one. Based on his assessment above, when your estimate is off by 100 percent, that's not so hot. ;)
SHUTTLE TALK : Today we read, "What is the Space Shuttle?" on NASA's Web site. It's well written - very succinct covering the basics of the shuttle (its major parts, how it's launched and lands, how many there are, when the shuttle program started and when it will end).

We also visited NASA's Current Missions section. It features info about preparations for STS-132, the launch of the Space Shuttle Atlantis. In this photo, STS-132 crew members are in their orange launch-and-entry suits, inside the slidewire basket as they practice emergency exit procedures at the launch pad. (Image credit: NASA/Jack Pfaller )

We also enjoyed a 56-frame slide show of preparations for the May 14 mission. Lots of great photos and info there (remember to click on 'show captions' if you're going to watch the show, or you won't always know what it is you're looking at).

Here's the official patch of the upcoming Atlantis mission. The mission captain is named Ken Ham, which the kids find amusing. No doubt we'll come home with one of these stickers or patches in tow. I'm thinking between now and May 14, we'll do at least one thing a day that's NASA-related.

DISCOVERY OF THE DAY: As we were boning up on NASA, it occurred to me that we should also be familiarizing ourselves with Florida. (Who knows when, if ever, we'll visit there again?)

So I did a quick Web search for "Florida Lesson Plan." A few clicks later, I wound up discovering that Microsoft has a whole library of lesson plans online. (Who knew?) They didn't have anything on Florida, but the site is a wonderful resource for another day. ...

SUNSHINE STATE: After a few misses, I finally found the goldmine of links to Florida educational info - a "kids corner" list on the official state of Florida site. Yes!

We decided to visit "Online Sunshine" today. It's part of the Florida State Legislature's Web site. And, well, it's pretty lame. Yes, we did learn some facts about Florida (for instance that Juan Ponce de Leon arrived in the area on March 27, 1513 and called it "Pascua Florida" because he arrived during the time of the Feast of Flowers). However, the site's appearance and layout was, well, kinda lame and not engaging. (Their 'games' for instance were static puzzles or list-type tests. Too old school for my tastes. I at least want a little Flash animation, dang it!)Tomorrow, hopefully we'll find something a little snazzier. I guess we could even (gasp) go get a book or two about Florida at the library!
ARTISTIC LICENSE: After lunch Annabelle said she'd like to paint. I helped her get the watercolor supplies out and she went at it. After she was done, I asked her to tell me about her painting. She said, "I was like, um, testing if they (the colors) were going to look nice together. And when I figured out it looked nice together, then I used some more colors to see if they looked good together. When I knew all the colors looked good, I decided to put some new colors in and then sometimes even put the ones that I did first. It was just like a color exploration."

SCOOT!: This afternoon when we were taking Kirby for a lap around the block, the kids decided they wanted to ride their scooters instead of walking. (It's amazing how all of the sudden they are both so proficient on the Razors when it seems like just a few weeks ago they were an accident waiting to happen.) So they scooted along at a good pace. There's probably lots more scooting in our future. And I wonder when it's time to get a skateboard!?

THEY'RE HERE!: As I walked across our deck late this afternoon, I noticed a very small package tucked under our barbecue. Lo and behold, it was the caterpillars we'd ordered a few days prior. Now we're in the butterfly business!

The kids opened the cardboard packaging box gingerly. I think they half expected live Painted Lady larvae or butterflies to come busting out of it. :) However, as it turned out, it's a little self contained cup (food and all) with four live caterpillars. We carefully read the instructions about where to place it and what to expect.

In the coming days, you can expect plenty of updates about the life and times of the larvae.

Out and About

ALLEY CATS: Pretty early this morning we went out to the alley for some recess time. Christian was out there working on the bowling-lane-to-maple-butcherblock-countertop conversion, so I thought it would be nice if we hung out with him for awhile.

The kids raced around on their Razor scooters a bit and I suggested CJ give his Moon Shoes a go. In case you're not familiar with the product, they're like mini trampolines you strap on to your feet.


I also took a short video of Annabelle in the alley, under the canopy of a mammoth willow tree. In it, she's trying to explain how the tree functions like an umbrella when it's raining. But really all you can hear is CJ in the background, clomping around on his Moon Shoes.

GRAMMAR GORILLA: Back inside, the kids did a couple of math worksheets and some reading for comprehension. They asked to play FunBrain, and I gave it the thumbs up. They both started with The Grammar Gorillas. As the game explains, "Our friends, the Grammar Gorillas, need help identifying parts of speech. If you click on the right word in the sentence, our friends get a banana. And you know, a gorilla with a banana is a gorilla with appeal."

For their first round, they started with the beginner level (nouns and verbs only). After acing that, they moved onto advanced (nouns, verbs, adverbs, adjectives, prepositions, conjunctions). They did well with that, too. (Thank god for "Schoolhouse Rock.")

MONSTER MAKER: Around midday, Annabelle said she wanted to draw a monster. I suggested that as an alternative she might like to use some of the craft supplies we have to create one. She was all over that and spent the next 45 minutes or so gluing googly eyes, feathers and pompoms to a page.

TRAIL MIX : Early afternoon we decided to take a mini field trip to the west shore of Lake Union. It's maybe 5 minutes from our house by car, and for whatever reason, we've never even been there. We loaded up the bikes and the kids rode on the nice, flat wide sidewalk while we trotted along side. We passed business after business related to the water (yacht dealers, moorage places, ) and saw a good number of houseboats.

Along the trail, once in awhile we'd encounter words in the concrete underfoot or plaques along the waterfront. Wonder how the houseboat dwellers like this one (right).

We had a nice view of Gasworks Park at one point.

When we reached Mercer or the southern shore of Lake Union, we were disappointed to find the park there completely gated off. The good news is, the park is being extensively renovated. It looks like this current phase of construction is supposed to be completed by the end of this summer.

On our way back toward the car, Christian noticed a sculpture of sorts. Embedded in the sidewalk were the words, "Stop, look and LISTEN." And so, we did. The pipe on the left was engraved "storm water" and when you stuck your ear up to it, you could hear the running water. The right side was another line to listen to. Sculpture with a soundtrack - pretty cool!

We'll definitely be back to this trail in the future - though we'll likely stay away on weekends when it just has to get super crowded given its proximity to the water, all the restaurants, lake cruise operators, boat rentals and so on.

WHALE TALE: This afternoon I was feeling like we hadn't done quite enough "schooly" stuff so I fired up Comcast's OnDemand and looked for a little something.

We settled on an origami project - whipping up a little whale. It was pretty simple as far as the number of steps it required and the directions to follow, but for whatever reason, the kids weren't at their best when it came to precision folding and creasing today. It all turned out OK in the end, however.

SWINGING IN THE RAIN: Late this afternoon, CJ asked to go outside and play. It was raining lightly and we'd already had two protracted exercise/play sessions outside today. However, I didn't hesitate in saying, "OK!" Because really, on most days, I think most of us spend way too much time inside. Spending a good part of the day outside is a good thing.

So out we went. I did a few little tasks around the yard and he ran around. It started raining a little harder and soon we found ourselves sitting on our swinging couch, enjoying the scenery and some conversation (about Donkey Kong, of course). The boughs of the towering cedar tree and the canopy over the couch kept us dry and we had a nice time. I think we need to hang around outside in the rain more often. :)

In fact, just this weekend I was reading about "nature deficit disorder" on the Children & Nature Network's Web site.

Children & Nature Network is building a movement to reconnect children and nature. Their Web site is full of articles and resources to that end. It's definitely worth a look. They even have a toolkit online for starting a Nature Club for Families. Cool! Maybe I could do that in my spare time. ;)