Fry Day

OH WHAT A BEAUTIFUL MORNING - NOT: First thing this morning (around 5:21 ish), I bent over, turned on the powerstrip, flipped on the backup power source and then pushed the 'on' button on my hard drive.

Right then and there, my day took a turn for the worse. For you see, Windows would not load; my computer is fried. Ah yes, happy birthday to me.

So this is being posted from an unfamiliar to me PC and keyboard, and my camera interface and graphics software is different. So that's my excuse for today's post being sub par. But we battle on.

Annabelle's artwork above was drawn a few days ago, when she wasn't able to get to a Web site she was seeking. She's the one saying "UG." CJ's on the right of the picture, working happily on the computer in his room, watching YouTube. Annabelle says I'm on the left. You can see that even Kirby's confused by the computer trouble.

As of this writing, poor Christian is moving heaven and earth trying to get my PC up and running.

NOT SO GREAT: While working on her "Haunted Mansion" story, Annabelle was trying to write the word 'great.' She had the G and the R and was proud of herself for remembering that 'when two vowels go walking, the first one does the talking.'

Problem is, that's not always true. ... For example, in 'great,' the second vowel does the talking. Craziness, our language.

"I guess 'great' isn't so great," summed up CJ.

ANOTHER DAY, ANOTHER PARK: In our never ending quest to break the 'homeschoolers lack social interactions' stereotype, today brought another park day with some more friends (the ones Annabelle introduced herself to at Discovery Park awhile back).

It was a gorgeous day. The kids had fun and the skies over downtown were as clear as I've seen them since we moved here some 4+ years ago.CJ got adventurous today, improvising an obstacle course for himself and eventually he mustered up the courage to complete it. The hardest part was doing a crabwalk over 6 or so foot high ladder/monkey bars to that he could touch the final flag. He was pretty proud when he got to it.STICKER SITUATION: We stopped at Whole Foods today to get some special Free Trade organic cocoa for Annabelle's bday cake. As we checked out, she asked the cashier for a sticker. The cashier gave her a whole sheet of them, which was nice.

In the car, Annabelle asked CJ if he'd like a sticker. He said 'no thank you.' That didn't set well with Annabelle, who thinks EVERYONE should have stickers. She rebuked CJ saying, "All you want is water and cookies. You can't just live on water and cookies!"

I'm guessing CJ begs to differ. And, frankly, he could live a lot longer on water and cookies than Annabelle could live on stickers.

DESIGN TEAM: Annabelle's birthday is bearing down on us (Monday) and that means there has to be a ridiculous cake. She has decided she would like her Pillow Pet atop a flower. Can do.

With her guidance and feedback, I made a conceptual drawing today. I had her choose the flower's colors, and we talked about where to use what kind of frosting, and how we were going to make the wings and the antennae. Tonight I'll bake the cake and tomorrow we'll start making some of the elements (sculpting the bee, making it's cookie wings, etc.).

BOOTIFUL: Our quick craft of the day involved taking some fiberfill, tracing around the kids' hands, cutting it out, affixing some googly eyes and sticking on a construction paper mouth. Instant super not spooky ghost. :)

Short Story

PAIR O' 'PUMKINS': Our art project of today was borne out of crap I was trying to clear off my dining room table. (If that's not inspirational, what is? har har)


We had some orange wrapping tissue scraps and some green card stock. Rather than put it in recycling, I thought we should turn it into fine art. I recalled doing something with tissue paper and wax paper back in the early 1970s, when I was CeeJ and Bee's age. So we gave it a go.

First, the kids cut and tore the tissue paper.

Then, they cut out pumpkin outlines.


Next, we arranged the orange scraps between sheets of wax paper and then ironed them, to seal the deal, so to speak.


IN REVIEW: Our math this morning was the kids' first math "test" of the year. It was the review problems for Chapter 1 of their Singapore Math.


Annabelle was perfect on everything except still needs a little more time to get used to fill-in-the-blank patterns (she gets 3 out of 4 right, but gets pretty darn confused once in awhile). She'll have her "lightbulb" moment soon, though, I'm sure.


CJ aced his test and he was very proud. He loves seeing a big A+ on his work.


CONNECTING: This afternoon we were invited over to the Ballard home of a Seattle Homeschool Group member with a boy and a girl a couple years older than CJ and Annabelle. We went up to a nice undeveloped park by their house. It's completly forested, with just a couple of benches and some stairs as far as hard structure. When we got there, CJ said, "Where's the park?!" (Translation - where's the play structure?)


Despite the lack of plastic and bent metal, the kids had fun. They climbed hillsides and forged trails.

TOP SECRET: Tonight we four went on a mystery shopping assignment to an Italian restaurant.

The kids are getting to be veterans at mystery shopping. They know to keep their mouths closed (so as not to blow our cover) and their eyes and ears open when we're on assignment. :)

It was fun, free and pretty tasty.

I spent most of tonight writing our review, which is why this blog post is so short.

Suds 'n Stuff

HAIR OF THE DOG: This morning when CJ emerged from the shower, he was dripping wet and a distinctive smell was wafting off him.

Though I knew the answer before I even asked the question, I had to ask ...

"Um, CJ, which shampoo did you use?"

"The yellow stuff!" he answered without hesitation.

I went and retrieved the bottle and showed it to him.

He was both mortified and amused.

Even though there's probably not much difference between puppy shampoo and human shampoo, we went ahead and rinsed his head in the sink.

Of course, shortly thereafter I started singing "Puppy Love."

"Is that a real song?" CJ asked.

Naturally, that led us to YouTube, where I found and played the Donny Osmond version for him. Good Lord, it had been 35 plus years since I heard that. D.O. sounds like a 10-year-old girl and the song is soooooooo sappy. How did that ever get any radio play? ... I can see it being used for a dog food commercial but EGAD.

WELL DONE: After the Shower Incident we settled down into several pages of math (I'm trying to power through the introductory/review chapter to catch up to where we would have been had I ordered the books in early September.

I was SO impressed with CJ's work today. A lot of it had to do with figuring out number patterns, and most of that was filling in missing numbers in a series, like 5, 10, ___, 20, or something similar with hundreds. However, there were a couple of questions that threw a curveball with no warning. One series was 436, 546, ___, ____, ____. And the next was 875, 765, ____, ____, ___. Not so simple as subtracting just 10 or 100. But he didn't miss a beat.

WOOD WORKERS: We didn't have science down south today, but we did have the Shoreline session. The class is working on a weeks long wood and paper unit, and today's lesson was mostly about plywood and how it's made. The kids got some new vocab words for their "word bank" and then it was time to move to the lab tables. There, they got several little thin rectangles of wood and they used glue to stick 'em together and make plywood. Next, they were given a craft stick (a/k/a a Popsicle stick) and were told to break it. Nobody had any trouble snapping it in half. Then they were instructed to stack and glue three craft sticks together. Next week they're going to take a crack at snapping those. (Im' guessing they won't be able to do it. ...)

For their last project they were allowed to build whatever kind of structure they wanted out of craft sticks. Annabelle built a house with mid-century modern lines. CJ, he was VERY excited about the boxing ring he built. And he was extra excited to discover that because he hadn't taken the time to line up his sticks exactly, he'd created steps of a sort leading down from his boxing ring.

One point worth noting - since CJ missed the cue to move to the lab, he was late getting there and the table Annabelle was at didn't have any more seats. "Sorry CeeJ," she said. He took it in stride and found another table and worked there just fine.

FOSSIL HUNT: Because we didn't do our a.m. science, I figured we should get our double dose another way. Specifically, we'd be going to the Burke Museum of Natural History for the first time today.The museum is on the northwest corner of the UW campus. I thought today would be an especially good day to go because it's National Fossil Day. The first annual National Fossil Day, in fact, but there's already a National Fossil Day song thanks to a National Parks Service ranger.

According to the Mission Statement on the NPS Web Site, "National Fossil Day is a celebration organized by the National Park Service to promote public awareness and stewardship of fossils, as well as to foster a greater appreciation of their scientific and educational values."

We were lucky to find street parking and walked a couple blocks over to the campus/museum. We practically had the place to ourselves, and were definitely outnumbered by staffers. (I always like going to places like this after 2:30, a time when school field trips are long gone.) Our admission today was free thanks to CJ & Annabelle successfully completing the Seattle Public Library' Summer Reading Program goals (their certificate of completion was our ticket in).

In honor of fossil day, there was a paleontologist in the lobby with some fossils on a table (including a saber tooth tiger's, well, saber tooth), and a mastodon's molar. Cool! (Unfortunately, they don't allow photography in the museum.)

The museum's permanent exhibits include Life and Times of Washington State, representing 500 million years of our area's history; and Pacific Voices, representing 17 different cultures which have the Pacific Ocean in common. The Native American art they have on display is stunning.

We also checked out the special exhibit - Weaving Heritage. Most of the stuff there was don't touch, but they did have one station where the kids got to try their hand at weaving. Interestingly, CJ was more into it than Annabelle.

We checked out some artwork outside the museum, too.
DIG IT: The campus beautification project continues.

Today's project - plant some shrubs in a new planter box by the front steps.

Annabelle was itching to get in on the action. She helped mix the soils in the box and plant five shrubs.

She was wearing her superhero cape (made a couple of years ago in preschool). No doubt that made the digging go more quickly.

Scratching the Surface

SOWING THE SEEDS: We're hoping that fall temperatures stay moderate here at MPA, as today we planted a huge patch of grass seed. We're hoping it germinates and grows, filling in around the new paver path we installed this past weekend.

The kids helped me find and select the seed at Lowe's today, and Annabelle helped spread it all and work it into the earth.

Don't know what's going on in your neck of the woods, but here in the Emerald City, plants are confused. Roses, begonias and flowering shrubs are sporting new blossoms due to the wet but mild September. Meanwhile, pumpkins and tomatoes are green, suffering from a long, relatively cold summer.

COUNT THEM IN: I'm going to try to get the kids to make a Halloween-y craft every day this month. Today's undertaking was a cartoon, with the kids' favorite cartooning teacher Bruce Blitz leading the lesson. We usually use Comcast OnDemand for his drawing lessons, but today we used the Activity TV Web site. It actually worked better - I was able to freeze frame more precisely on the PC.

Today, they were drawing a Dracula.
They were both really happy with their finished products, which is why I like these tutorials. They boost the kids' self confidence about their drawing ability, and that's a good thing.

WRITE ON: The kids both wrote another short installment of their "Haunted Mansion" stories today.

SPRINGTIME: The last couple of weeks, the kids (and CJ most especially) have rediscovered the joy of jumping on their mini trampoline. It's funny, CJ will even roll it from room to room, so he can jump where and when he feels like it.

Today, Annabelle was providing an inspiring jumping soundtrack for him, playing the "Star Wars" theme as CJ sprung himself into space.

BRAIN STEM: This morning via a Facebook post, I learned that BrainPOP has launched a new (free!) "Spotlight on STEM" site.

BrainPOP is "an official founding outreach partner" in the National STEM Video Game Challenge, which President Obama announced not too long ago. The Challenge is designed to build and strengthen interest in STEM skills (science, technology, engineering and math).

Why a video game design competition to promote STEM education? Because game-based learning has emerged as one of the most promising areas of innovation in making STEM topics more engaging for America’s youth, according to the Web site STEMChallenge.org. They report the Federation of American Scientists concluded: "The success of complex video games demonstrates that games can teach higher-order thinking skills such as strategic thinking, interpretative analysis, problem solving, plan formulation and execution, and adaptation to rapid change. These are the skills U.S. employers increasingly seek in workers and new workforce entrants. These are the skills more Americans must have to compete with lower cost knowledge workers in other nations."

They also note that research shows game creation "fosters the development of critical 21st Century and STEM skills including systems thinking, problem solving, iterative design and digital media literacies. A well-designed game is a well-designed system with a delicate balance of goals, constraints, challenges and rewards." Good stuff.

The kids were quite happy to see one of BrainPOP's STEM videos was about video games and how they're made. They watched it twice, then took a quiz and then we did a related vocabulary sheet together.

Some highlights ...
Software: "That's the graphics and animation and stuff in the game," said Annabelle.
"It's how the game is made," said CJ.
Polygon: "It's a flat shape, like triangle square or rectangle." (Bee)
Illusion: "Something that's not real." (CJ)
Texture: "It's how so smooth something is." (Bee)
"Or something that's custom." CJ - which was the point of the video - that unique textures are added to make objects in the game appear more realistic.
Interactive - "You can go along with what you're doing. It's not like a movie. You don't just watch it, you actually play it." (Bee)
Glitch: "We see lots of YouTube videos about glitches. Glitches are mistakes in a game."
Immerse: "This is a tricky one. I'm not very good at adjectives." (Bee, who is pretty darn good at adjectives)

FORTY FOUR: One of the math exercises the kids had today was also a spelling exercise (bonus!). They were given values and had to write them out (for instance 382 = three hundred eighty two).
It was good practice - and it underscored the fact that in many instances, the people who invented our language didn't know what the hell they were doing. Seriously, why is 4 spelled four, but 40 is forty (no u)?. "Whoever it was, I would be mad at them," CJ said of the spelling Powers That Be.

CANDY CONTINUED: Dovetailing on our (virtual) field trip to a candy corn factory Monday, today we checked out a lollipop maker in San Francisco. It was fascinating watching the workers handle huge, heavy logs of colored sugar.

We found this adventure thanks to the amazing Exploratorium Web site (HIGHLY recommended). Since we've been doing so much kitchen work lately, I followed their "Science of Cooking" link, and their their "Candy" link. There, we got "up close and personal" with a sucrose molecule, learning that sugar is sucrose, a molecule composed of 12 atoms of carbon, 22 atoms of hydrogen, and 11 atoms of oxygen, and we got to see what the molecules look like when magnified (kind of rectangular but oblong, with slants at their ends). We used the interactive Candy-o-matic machine to see what happens to sugar at different temperatures. Interesting stuff!

TO THE RESCUE!: This evening we were riveted to the rescue effort underway to extract the 33 Chilean miners from their cave 2040 feet beneath the earth.

We held our breath as the first rescuer descended and were amazed by the live footage as he emerged from the rescue capsule and greeted the trapped miners. We watched the first miner don his pressurized suit, climb into the capsule and make his trip to the earth's surface - somewhere he hasn't been for 69 days.

It felt a bit like watching a moon landing. In fact, NASA was integral in the rescue operation, coaching the Chileans on everything from diet to mental and physical healthcare for the miners.

While we watched the events unfold, Annabelle and Christian constructed a rescue pod for Pikachu (a Pokemon character).

Yummy Monday

YOU SAY TOMATO: Finally, after months and months and months of waiting, we were able to carve into our one and only red and ripe homegrown tomato!

I let the kids have the honors and after the tomato was sliced, Christian and I were actually able to even get each kid to take a bite of the tomato (after reminding them they like ketchup, pizza sauce and spaghetti sauce, all of which have tomatoes as their number one ingredient).

CORNY JOURNEY: This morning, MPA took a virtual field trip to a candy corn manufacturing factory thanks to a great video from the Food Network.

We learned the first candy corn were made in the late 1800s. It was made in the shape of corn kernels in attempt to appeal to the large percentage of Americans involved in agricultural. It's traditional colors (white, orange and yellow) are inspired by the colors found in a kernel of corn, and the pieces are about the size of a kernel.

I asked CJ what he learned after we viewed the video. He said that he learned that vanilla is used as an ingredient and he spouted off some number about how many pounds of candy corn the factory makes each year. (FYI, the National Confectionary Association reports that 20 million pounds of candy corn are sold each year.

Annabelle said she learned that the factory's equipment "that looks like a cement mixer is called a 'pan.' "

We all learned that the factory we saw (Goelitz, in Chicago) uses trays filled with cornstarch as their molds for the candy corn.

After the video, I asked the kids if they knew what cornstarch is. They said 'no,' so I went to get a box to show them. While doing so, I remembered we had some candy corn, so I made a little tray of the corn starch and we used the candy corn to form molds. We talked about the cornstarch - how it was both very dense but very fine.

We didn't have the liquid sugar, corn syrup, vanilla, marshmallow and who knows what else to pour into the molds, so we just pretended, sticking the already solid candy corn down into the starch. (I also had the kids taste just a tiny bit of the cornstarch to see what it tasted like, which wasn't much.)
Next, I had CJ and Annabelle sift the candy corn from the cornstarch.
After they sifted the cornstarch away from the candy corn, we rinsed them and the kids took it upon themselves to do some quality control, and they ate them.

It was a fun, hands-on follow up to the interesting video.

HOT CROSSED BUNS: We spent some time on music homework this morning. Our first assignment was to sing "Hot Crossed Buns." We found several versions on YouTube, including very traditional ones, one with a bit of an Eastern European sound, a reeeeeally long one and a really creepy one one by some art/computer animation student.

The kids also had to sing "Mouse, Mousie," following each note with their fingers.
And then they transcribed it from the sheet music to staff paper.

WITCH CRAFT: Yesterday we started putting a few Halloween decorations up around the house. One of the ones I found was an old witch's face that Kennedy had made in probably first grade. I thought it would be fun for CJ and Annabelle to replicate it.

We studied Ken's prototype and figured we needed two squares - one big black one for her hat and then one smaller, colored one for her face.

I gave the kids two or three steps at a time because I want them to get better at following a series of directions. They did pretty well.

CJ had this to say about his yellow-faced witch: "She has glasses because she can't see very well without her glasses. She has bad plans. She is smiling because she got one plan - it's making something that destroys skulls."

Says Annabelle, "My witch is happy because she likes her black cat and I made little ears for her glasses to rest on.

"I gave my Witchypoo some bangs. Clever idea, huh?"

Here's the trio of witches - CJ's, Bee's and Kennedys, left to right.
OUR FRIEND ARNIE: CJ is quite enamored with Arnie the Doughnut, a character created by author Laurie Keller. He took the book to bed with him last night. I can't recall him doing that with any other book ever.

This morning, I noticed we had two cake doughnuts left over from a 99 cent day old six pack we bought a couple of days ago. Naturally, my thoughts turned to Arnie. ...

I realized that in addition to doughnuts, we have all kinds of sprinkles and even some ready made eyes. All we had to do was whip up some chocolate icing. Time to make some Arnies! :)

When it came time to decorate, I was impressed that CJ knew that Arnie was supposed to have exactly 135 sprinkles on him - a fact he'd gleaned from the book. (Our Arnies didn't have that many.)

After the decorating session, we visited a section of the book's Web site where children have suggested things they'd do with Arnie instead of eating him (PDF here). The kids got a kick out of that, and I think it was good for them to see that kids their age often spell phonetically (CJ especially gets hung up/worried that he can't always spell things correctly).

Tonight Christian read the book to the kids before bedtime. About 15 minutes later CJ was begging him to read it again - backwards (so Arnie would be returned to the bakery from whence he came).

OH, AND: We also continued our work with the Singapore Math book today. So far, so good.