Easy Friday

CHECK IT OUT: Today Annabelle had a burning desire to play checkers. It has been about a million years since I've played checkers, but I was willing to give it a shot.

We used a cool Sponge Bob and Patrick set we scored at a garage sale a summer or two ago. Truth be told, I'm not sure we played by all the right rules, but it "felt" right. I was pretty impressed with Annabelle's play and how she, in most instances, knew what the consequences of her moves would be.

That said, in the end, Sponge Bob (that's me) did come out on top.

THEY'VE GOT RHYTHM: I asked the kids what they did at Musikgarten today. Annabelle responded, "We drew circles and colored them in and then put stems and beams on them."

"Oh, so you drew musical notes," I replied.

"We had to make notes to make melody before we could put it into rhythm," she explained.

The parent participation part of today's class involved some rather complex choreography to what sounded like a German beer-drinking song. For a few minutes I felt like I was on "So You Think You Can Dance."

TICKET TREK: Another Friday, another freebie from Starbucks as part of their We-Love-You Fridays for Seattlites. Today's offering - a voucher for free children's admission to the Seattle Aquarium. We have a Starbucks about 8 blocks from our place, and the weather was really nice, so I thought it made sense to walk down and get the vouchers.

We walked eastward, down our hill and crossed the Interbay railyard at Dravus.
We left home about 20 until 2 and arrived to Starbucks at about 10 til. That gave us 10 minutes to kill (the vouchers weren't being passed out until 2 p.m.) So, we spent a few minutes exploring the Interbay Sports Complex, which has a couple of baseball fields, green space and a good sized soccer and football stadium. We've never been to a game there, but I love having the stadium close by. When I'm working out in the yard on weekends, I can hear the crowd and the ref's whistles and, once in awhile, players' shouts. All that is music to this sports fan's ears. :)
Just before 2 we headed over to Starbucks. CJ was happy to see they had a mini Top Pot chocolate doughnut in stock and Annabelle opted for apple juice. So our 'free' aquarium tickets cost a total of $2, but given that regular kids' admission is $11 apiece, we are still $20 ahead for our "trouble."

MEASURING UP: This campus of MPA needs a whole lot of baseboard moulding. In fact, as I think about it, I think only one room - the downstairs bathroom - has moulding. Sigh.

So today, I had the kids help measure the downstairs so that we could figure out just how much moulding we needed to buy. Using and reading the tape measure was good math practice for them - a good demonstration of "real world" math.

Tonight, we're off to Home Depot. Just another wild Friday night for us. ;)

A Study in Colors

THE BLUE PLANET: This morning's email included this surprising (at least to me!) image from Mars.

According to NASA, the photo (taken in April by the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter) shows the west-facing side of an impact crater in the mid-latitudes of Mars' northern hemisphere. The email went on to note that "many of the other features observed in and around this crater are indicative of an ice-rich terrain, which may lend credence to the water formation hypothesis for these gullies. The most notable of these features is scalloped terrain in and around the crater. This type of terrain has been interpreted as a sign of surface caving, perhaps due to sublimation of underlying ice."

Where there's ice, there's water, and where there's water there might be life, eh?

This morning during breakfast Annabelle kept staring at/mulling the Very Official Looking certificate I'd hung on the wall last night after she went to bed. She kept saying, "I'm a part of history!" MARTIN IN THE MORNING: We have a week off between spring ballet session ending and summer starting. What would we do with our Thursday morning? One thing was for certain, we need to swing by a library today. I've got a couple of overdue items :( - including a Scholastic "Storybook Treasures" DVD with four video versions of picture books about civil rights. "March On! The Day My Brother Martin Changed the World," "Martin's Big Words" "Rosa" and "Henry's Freedom Box: A True Story from the Underground Railroad."

When I told CJ we'd be viewing them he asked if it was Martin Luther King's birthday. I told him it wasn't, at which he asked why we were watching it then. I told him I thought every day was a good day to remember MLK and his messages.

The video stories were all closed caption, which I like, because the kids can't help but read along with them.

As the credits for "March On!" rolled, CJ declared, "Black and white people shouldn't judge each other."

Annabelle clarified, "They shouldn't judge them (each other) by color. They should judge by their character."

I guess Martin's message came through loud and clear.

ARTISTS UNITED: Yesterday, I forgot to relate a couple of the "highlights" of our Children's Museum experience. Mostly it involves my mouthy daughter. :) (And where she gets that, I'll never know.)

For instance, at one point we were in the Japanese residence mock up and Annabelle said to a man twice my size, "The sign at the entrance said you're supposed to take your shoes off in here." :0

OK, now Annabelle is absolutely correct. And it wasn't said in a bossy tone, but I think we will all agree that it's rather awkward to have a 5 year old telling a 40 something stranger what to do, don't you think? ... I honestly can't help but cringe when she or CJ does something like that (which, frankly, is semi-regularly) and afterward I almost always agree that they were right, and I appreciate their confidence to speak up, really I do, but I also remind them that it's not necessarily too cool for young children to be telling an adult how to behave.

Later, that same shoe wearing man and his daughter were in our art workshop session. The little girl was painting on the easel next to Annabelle, and Shoe Man came over as the girl was using her brush to apply a giant swath of pitch black paint over about half of her paper. Shoe Man said, "Why don't you try using other colors instead of black?"

At that Annabelle immediately said, "It's her painting. She's the artist. She should be able to do whatever she wants." :0

I'll admit to cringing, but I have to say this time I didn't feel bad for Shoe Man at all. I was with Annabelle and Shoe Man's daughter. As Shoe Dude wordlessly walked away (no doubt thinking unkind thoughts about me and my daughter), I couldn't help but say to the little painter, "You know, black is my favorite color." :)

To the right is Bee's painting of the day. She painted some flowers, a butterfly and a pair of clouds, but what I see is a face (two eyes, a nose, and fuchsia lips).

TWO STOOGES: Yesterday someone on the Seattle Homeschool Group email list posted a notice about a couple of 1.5 hour workshops through Seattle Children's Theatre. One of them - Family Physical Comedy caught my attention immediately. Its description, in part:

We will learn how to trip, fall, do double takes and other comic business, and how to create comic characters and routines. Be sure to come prepared for the grand pie-in-the-face finale!

Since birth, it has been obvious that CJ finds physical comedy hysterical. I asked Christian if he'd be willing to take the class (on June 26) with CeeJ and he happily agreed. Excellent. Can't wait to hear all about it and see what they learn!

And speaking of signing kids up for classes, I put Annabelle down for four special (1.5 hour) ballet dance camps this summer. They're a fun addition to her normal ballet routine.

BOOKIN' IT: I love checking out libraries we've never been to before, so today the Greenwood branch of SPL was on our radar - at least after I called Christian to double check the address I'd written down. It's on the main drag in Greenwood - Greenwood Ave, and I knew it was at about 80th. But I drove the 8000 block twice from the south and didn't see it. Go figure.

The third time (from the north) was the charm. The building doesn't have a big sign (or maybe even any sign) out front. I'm glad we did find it - the architecture and interior decor were (to my eye) modern and very appealing. And as soon as we walked in the kids spied the children's section to the left, so we didn't even make it past the middle of the library!

This library had lots of natural light and in the kids' section were some enormous, stone slabs for the kids to climb and perch on. There was a nice assortment of big books (super sized versions of favorite picture books). CJ read "It Looked Like Spilt Milk" at least twice.

ANOTHER BRAVE SOUL: Today our learning started with Martin Luther King. How perfect that this afternoon, we wound our 'school day' down learning about a Native American who broke color barriers.

At the Greenwood library I spied a picture book with a baseball player on the cover. I was sold at that point. :) But upon closer examination, I found its title was "Louis Sockalexis - Native American Baseball Pioneer." Then I was really intrigued and snatched it up, of course. Once we got home, the kids and I settled on the couch and read Sockalexis' amazing story. I couldn't believe I hadn't heard it before.

The masterfully written book told the tale of a boy who, at the age of 12, fell in love with baseball when he saw some white kids playing the game in 1884. A member of the Penobscot tribe in Maine, Louis became obsessed with the game, using sticks and stones to hone his skills. He ended up attending Holy Cross college on athletic scholarship. A collegiate star in track, football and baseball, he had a .862 slugging percentage and a .441 batting average at Holy Cross.

Sockalexis' talents attracted the attention of Pat Tebeau, manager of the major league Cleveland Spiders. Though Sockalexis faced enormous pressure not to leave the reservation where his family and friends lived, in 1897 he went pro and broke the color barrier in major league baseball.

By July of his rookie year he was batting nearly .400. Unfortunately, Sockalexis broke his ankle (this wasn't in the kids' book, but I read elsewhere it was by drunkenly jumping from a second story window of a brothel) and things were never quite the same afterward. He battled alcoholism and retired in 1899, at the age of 27. He died on Christmas Eve, 1913, at 42.

Sockalexis is long gone, and by the vast majority of baseball fans (myself included, until today), he is unknown. However, his legacy lives on. When Sockalexis played, he was taunted - he was called "chief" and fans used "war cries" whoops and dances to try to intimidate him when he played for the Cleveland Spiders. Today, that team is known as the Cleveland Indians. Not PC by today's standards, but an amazing, enduring tribute to Sockalexis.

OPPOSITIONAL: All. Day. Long. CJ has been asking "opposite" questions. And not your garden variety opposite questions, like "What's the opposite of hot?" or "What's the opposite of hard?" But off the wall stuff like, "What's the opposite of 'G'?" and "What's the opposite of your birthday?"

To the latter I responded, "Um, your death day. The day you die?" with a bit of hesitation. (It's not a very happy answer, but accurate, I'd say.)

The opposite question that that made me laugh out loud came at about 4:30 p.m.. "Mom, what's the opposite of 'opposite'?"

PARTING IMAGE: This has absolutely nothing to do with education, but I couldn't help but use my phone to snap a pic of Pinkerbelle at dinner tonight with her pink lemonade and pink Puffle.

Kids' Stuff

CENTERED: A couple of weeks ago I took advantage of a one-day only offer for a discounted membership at the Seattle Children's Museum. It's right at Seattle Center and, inexplicably, we've never gone there to date. Today, it was time to right that wrong!

Lucky us, Seattle Center is all of six minutes (by car) from our house. I had planned on using metered parking, but as we approached the Center, I noticed that the meters don't start popping up until you're within 6 blocks or so of it. Beyond that, there were strips here and there with free two hour parking. Naturally, I decided that we were more than willing to hike a few extra blocks to save that $6 or so it would have cost to park.

So we parked and headed for the Center House, which houses the museum. Along the way, we stopped and enjoyed the mammoth fountain on the grounds.
Once inside the museum, we checked out their Story Telling Circle (no one in there telling stories today - but it was a colorful space with great murals). Next it was a stroll through the Mountain Forest, where we learned about snags, nurse logs and other habitats in a forest. It was a nice follow up to many of the things we noticed yesterday while hiking Discovery Park.

Next up: the Global Village, where the kids got to explore the cultures, traditions and lifestyles of Ghana, the Philippines and Japan. When CJ was sizing up a Ghanan-style food market, he was aghast at the limited choices available. "Where's the chocolate?" he asked.

He felt much more at home in replica of a Japanese apartment. In the kitchen were KFC and doughnut boxes, and he was absolutely entranced in the replica of a child's room. He studied the toys so carefully, noting all the ones that he had in his room at home (Pokemon, Power Rangers and Hello Kitty, to name three).

At 1:30 we raced out of the Global Village back to the front of the Museum where Curiosity Corner is located. A couple of times a day there are special activities there and this afternoon's was called "Market Twister." It was for kids 6 through 10 and since it was during regular school hours, there were only a couple of kids there (namely, CeeJ and Bee)! So they got lots of attention. :)

The museum's calendar billed "Market Twister" as "a new twist on an old favorite as we twist and turn and learn about the food pyramid." Upon arrival, the museum staffer gave the kids a map to the museum's grocery store and told them to pick out 5 of their favorite foods there. CJ chose a banana, grapes, a big pretzel, ice cream and cheese. Bee chose ice cream, a pretzel and three kinds of fruit. (Guess we need to work on the veggie thing!)

They reported back to the Curiosity Corner with their goods and were instructed to place them on the proper part of the food pyramid (dairy, grains, meat, fruit, vegetables). They did so with no trouble. Then it was time to play Twister, but instead of calling out 'right hand red' type instructions, the board was labeled as food groups rather than colors, so they had to put an appendage on a food group. Annabelle was more into it than CJ, who would dramatically collapse at not too infrequent intervals.
From there, it was on to the Imagination Studio which is a fantastic little art zone. There were big papers on easels with brushes and paints; there was a clay table with tools; a mixed media area (a lot of recycled items that could be cobbled together into a fantastic creation); a chalk zone; and more. The kids both loved it. CJ went right for the clay and took to it like he'd been doing it forever. Annabelle made a beeline for the easel. I was so happy she had the chance to do that - we have little crappy watercolor paints and typing paper at home, but it's just not the same as working with a big sheet hanging on an easel with heavily pigmented colorful tempera paints. Smartly, they only let about a dozen kids in at a time, so it wasn't too crowded and materials were easy to get at. Both kids loved it.

The Imagination Studio alone makes it worth being members. We could - and should - pop down there once a week for one of their staff-guided activities and some time in the art room. The last area we checked out was an exhibit where favorite children's books were larger than life.

We didn't get to see all of the museum today before we had to beat feet back to our car parked in a 2-hour spot, but I think it's OK to leave the kids wanting more!

STRINGED: This morning I brought out a book for our music education. "Zin! Zin! Zin! a Violin!" is a Caldecott Honor book, and when the story begins, a lonely trombone is playing all by itself. Soon, a trumpet joins in (making a duet), the French horn makes it a trio and eventually an entire orchestra is on stage.

Happily, the book (by Lloyd Moss, illustrated by Marjorie Priceman) really came alive for the kids because I had a narrative CD to go along with it, which also included music.

As it turned out, unbeknownst to me, the kids had actually seen the book before - their music teacher Nancy had read it to them. Oh well, they seemed perfectly content hearing it again.

SHROOMS: Since we've got our mushroom growing kit going, I decided today we'd better brush up on mushrooms.

When you last saw the kit, it looked like bare dirt/compost. Here's what's growing on now ...
It's not much to look at yet, but things do appear to be taking shape ...

The kids and I hopped to YouTube in search of more about mushrooms. We found this funky, low tech video "Fungi: A Kingdom All Their Own" - a video of the Oakland Museum of California Natural Sciences Department/Mycological Society of San Francisco. It basically shows this very enthusiastic mushroom lover taking a group through the woods on a mushroom hunt. (BTW, in case you're interested, the Mycological Society of San Francisco has an annual Fungus Fair - visit www.mssf.org for more details.:) )

RESOURCE O-RAMA: While perusing the Children's Museum Web site earlier today, I noticed they had a "Favorite Homeschool Field Trip" badge. I followed the link and it took me to the Homeschool Buyers Co-op site. I'd heard of the co-op before, but haven't used it (and I'm not sure what I'd need it for at this point - there are so many free resources available). I am, however, always on the lookout for field trip ideas, so I checked out their 'field trip finder' feature. Most of the results generated by typing in our zip code and a 25 mile radius are places I knew about, but there were a few new points of interest to keep in mind for future adventures (including a tour of the Seattle Times building - but the kids have to be 8 and older).

While on the Co-Op's site, I couldn't help but notice FREEBIES! listed along the lefthand side. You know I was all over that. One of the things I found there was "Lesson Pathways" a free online curriculum resource for K-5. It looks like something I could spend hours and hours and hours reading, but in the few minutes I glossed over it today, a lot of their lessons look to be links to other Web sites.

For instance, I clicked on "What is a Typical Scientist?" on Lesson Pathways' site and it linked to scientist profiles on another site, The Wild Classroom. The bios included an array of different types of biologists, and other interesting 'ologists' like a glaciologist and a limnologist.

As I explored the awesome Wild Classroom site (including their 'About Us'), I come to find out that they're a Washington (Spokane) based non-profit whose goal is to provide teachers with quality videos for use in their classrooms. Their Web site is content rich - definitely the discovery of the day!

Day of Discovery

I woke up this morning to a burning sensation on my right foot. What the hell is that?, I wondered. Turns out it was the sun streaming through our floor to ceiling window, shining on me. It had been so long since I felt the sun (Florida, to be exact) that I'd damn near forgotten what it feels like.

I decided right then and there that we were going to get out in it. Books and papers could wait for a day. Plus, there's plenty of good learnin' to be had out of doors.

I wanted to get a good long hike in, take in some scenery and, of course, have some points/activities of interest for the kids to enjoy. I decided we'd head to Discovery Park, which is practically in our backyard (just a mile and a half to our west).

Discovery Park is a 534 acre natural area under the Seattle Parks and Rec umbrella. It's the largest city park. Its grounds include most of the former Fort Lawton site. Much of it is on a bluff above Puget Sound. There are fantastic views of the Olympic Mountain ranges and Mt. Rainier, lots of meadows, sand dunes, streams, ponds, lots of trails and and two miles of protected tidal beaches.
We parked at the south lot and walked the trail to the south beach.

Along the way we saw some buildings circa WWII, when Fort Lawton was bustling.

A lot of the south trail skirts a high bluff. There are numerous spots to stop and take in the view. We met a lot of fellow hikers - people of all ages with accents from all over the globe. It's a bit of a hike (nearly two miles) down the beach, but it's worth the effort. Once there, the sound stretches out in front of you, the snow-capped Cascades are to the west and Mt. Rainier was looking especially majestic today, to the east.
It was mostly cloudy the whole time we were there, and the water wasn't as warm as the Atlantic Ocean or Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Florida but that didn't stop the kids from wading in and jumping waves.

Apparently it was lunchtime for a heron. It stood in the shallow water, no more than 15 feet from the kids, watching the water closely for fish. Finally, it struck! We saw it snatch a live fish out of water and chomp it down in about four bites. A real world, Wild Kingdom episode, playing out right in front of us - cool!

We did some beach combing, checking out the structures (some of them very impressive, like this multi roomed cabin) made out of driftwood.
And Annabelle found this 'rowboat' that someone had crafted. Interesting ...
The sun was hidden behind the clouds for most of our adventure, but we enjoyed the fresh air and big vistas ... with one exception on my part.

Truth be told, I was dreading walking one stretch of the trail. I knew that just last week there was a grisly suicide there. A Queen Anne man, father to three very young children, a successful businessman and respected community volunteer sat on a park bench with a beautiful view and shot himself in the head. A suicide note was found at the scene.

Reading his friends' comments posted following news stories about his death, it sounds like his suicide was a complete and utter, inexplicable shock.

When I read the news reports I knew exactly which bench they were talking about. Normally, it's a place you'd sit to marvel over the beauty of this here Big Blue Marble. And today, I saw people doing just that. I couldn't help but wonder if they knew why there was a big wreath propped up next to the bench the were sitting on - the bench were a man's life so abruptly and purposely ended on May 26.

SPACE FACE: Via an email from NASA, I learned today that people are invited to send their face into space via one of the final shuttle missions! All you have to do is upload a digital image via the special Face in Space Web site!

The email linked to a press release which, in part, read:

Visitors to the Face in Space website can upload their portrait to fly with the
astronauts aboard shuttle Discovery's STS-133 mission and/or shuttle Endeavour's
STS-134 mission. Participants will receive special certificates from the
Internet site once the mission is completed.

"The Space Shuttle Program belongs to the public, and we are excited when we can provide an opportunity for people to share the adventure of our missions," said Space Shuttle Program Manager John Shannon. "This website will allow you to be a part of history and participate as we complete our final missions."

Those without a picture can skip the image upload section, and NASA will fly their name. Now, I just have to decide which pictures of the kids I want to include.

NASA is also offering the opportunity to send your name to Mars (on a microchip, carried by its Science Laboratory rover, in 2011).

Doo-blee-ooo-doo

TIMBER!!!!: The sound of chippers and chainsaws rattled round the MPA campus this morning. At first I couldn't figure out exactly where it was coming from - I just knew it was close by. But before too long we had our answer: A logger was framed in our our east side picture windows. He was systematically cutting the branches off two 40-plus foot cedar trees in a neighbor's yard.

"Wow, are they cutting that whole damn thing down?" asked Annabelle. "It's not like it sheds leaves or anything," she added matter-of-factly. :) Her declaration was followed by the more age-appropriate, "How do those guys climb so high?"

We watched as the logger climbed ever skyward and before long he was topping the trees.

Yup. They were cutting the whole damn thing down. Not sure why exactly, though Christian and I surmised it might involve a minor property line skirmish (there appears to be a fence line that jogs around the trees, and maybe a neighbor decided he needed to reclaim that two feet and cutting down the trees was the way to do that). Regardless, it's a bit of shame to see the big cedars go. ... I hope they plant a couple of other trees in place. The world needs more trees, not less.

THANKS AGAIN: The kids participated in an little art and writing project this morning- making thank you cards to Grandma and Grandpa for gifts they were given on Friday. I was impressed by how quickly CJ got his writing done (and done well!). Annabelle lingered over her project, upping the fancy factor. "I made an emoticon," she noted at one point.

SCAT, CAT!: Last week I picked up a library book "When Louis Armstrong Taught Me Scat." Before we read it today, I showed the kids the classic Muppets' video "Mah-Na Mah-Na."

BTW, from a Muppet wiki, we learned today that the song penned by a Piero Umiliani for a documentary about life in Sweden titled Svezia, Inferno e Paradiso (Sweden, Heaven and Hell). Who knew?! The Muppets version first appeared on Sesame Street (episode 0014), performed by Bip Bippadotta and two Anything Muppet backup singers. It went "viral" after the song was performed on the Ed Sullivan show in November of 1969.

After the Muppet videos, I asked the kids, "So, what were they singing about?" And they both responded with something along the lines of "nonsense" and "not even real words." I asked how in the world a person can sing a song without using real words - how silly is that? They both agreed it was kinda silly, but that didn't stop them from liking it! They love "Mah-Na Mah-Na" and I reminded them that last Thursday at the Caspar Babypants concert, during one song where the audience was supposed to echo Caspar's lines, Caspar went on a freak out and started spouting long lines of nonsense which the kids found hysterical. "That," I explained, "was SCAT."

At which, I pulled out "When Louis Armstrong Taught Me Scat" and we began reading it. Beautifully illustrated and fun for the tongue, it's a wonderful read. We all thoroughly dug it. Of course, immediately afterward I had to get on YouTube and find some old video of Louis Armstrong scatting. We found a gem with him singing "Dinah." How wonderful that moments like these are a) preserved and b) so easily available to me to show the kids.

I found a bunch more info about the scat book (including interviews with the author and illustrator) on the Chronicle Books Web site. It was a great enrichment to just reading the book.

CALLING OCCUPANTS (OF INTERPLANETARY CRAFT): The kids saw that BrainPOP's featured movie this week was about aliens, and they practically begged to watch it. :)
I asked the kids what they learned by watching they film. "Aliens do not exist," CJ responded immediately.

"CJ they *might* exist," Annabelle countered.

"Yeah, they might exist. You can tell from UFOs in the sky," CJ conceded.

The film was straightforward and factual, not a bit fanciful. That's probably just as well. It will help balance the kids' education out, since I'd err on the fanciful side when it comes to the existence of aliens. :)

UP ON THE ROOF: The campus beautification continues. Today was spent working on the porch green roof project. I did a little painting of the posts and beams, Christian worked on more framing and got started on the waterproofing. The kids supervised. :)
Before too long, the rooftop will be covered in gravel and dirt and then we plant!!