Plywood, Paper, Pumpkins

PAINTING PUMPKINS: This morning, I struck upon the idea of making three-dimensional paper jack-o-lanterns out of paper plates. Our first step was cutting out a stem for them. Next, I had the kids trace and cut out yellow circles, which would be glued on the concave of one plate to later provide the "illumination" of the jack-o-lantern's inside. Then they each painted the bottom of one plate, solid orange.

While painting his paper pumpkin, CJ became frustrated. He expressed that by declaring, "This is becoming harder than pulling a rabbit out of my ace." (And yes, he said 'ace,' knowing that ass is a 'bad' word.) I have no doubt he gleaned the phrase from one of the video game reviews he has watched on YouTube.
Anyway, I told him I thought the rabbit trick would be a LOT harder than painting the pumpkin. Somehow he managed to get the plate painted.

After they dried, I had the kids flip them over so that they were orange side down, and draw a face on the plate. Then they cut out the features, and we flipped it back over, orange side up and out. We glued the plates together and voila! a painted paper plate pumpkin! (In case you're wondering, CJ's is up top, and Bee's is the one with the heart shaped nose.)

TALKIN' BASEBALL: With the World Series just around the corner, I thought it would be fun to find out a bit more about baseball, or, should I say baseballs?

Today we took a virtual trip to a baseball making factory and learned a lot (thanks to a Discovery Channel "How It's Made - Baseballs" video on YouTube). We found out that baseballs have a cork core surrounded by a rubber casing. This is called the "pill," and it's about 4.5 inches in circumference. The pills are coated with a latex adhesive, and then covered in three layers of wool yarn. Then the yarn covered ball (called 'the center') is coated in glue. Next, two figure-8 or hourglass-shaped pieces of leather are wrapped around it. Then they are hand-sewn together in sweat shops. Er, I mean factories.

The kids were rapt during the whole process, and I have a new appreciation for just how much work goes into making each baseball.

GAME ON: Even though they've beat them game, the kids are still interested in "Kirby's Epic Yarn" and played for about 15 minutes this morning.

Annabelle was having trouble getting the hang of one level and said, "Go ahead without me. I'll catch up."

"How do you know you'll catch up? Don't make promises you can't forgive," advised CJ (rather hysterically). While he was at it, he added, "And stop saying 'Go without me CJ.' I also think it's pretty lame."

Clearly if Annabelle is going to play two player games with CJ, she's going to have to step it up. ;)

While his words might sound harsh, in actuality she does give up too easily, and the way you get better at a game is by playing with or against people who are better than you (I saw this over and over and over when I coached scholastic chess many moons ago).

FOLLOW THROUGH: This afternoon we worked on science homework. The kids answered comprehension questions after reading a story about garbage and recycling from their south science class. For the northern science class, the homework asked them to replicate their lab work of Wednesday, finding different kinds of paper around the house and using various instruments to write on them, then recording their thoughts about which paper they liked writing on best and why.


We also took another look at the completed plywood-related projects they brought home. In class they had each easily snapped a craft (Popsicle) stick in half. The instructor had them glue three sticks together, and today I had them try to snap the 'plywood' they'd made.

"Mom, it's so hard," Annabelle whined.

"Ow, my hands," CJ complained.

Lesson learned - plywood can be really strong.

While on the subject of science, I recalled that in the afternoon class Wednesday, their instructor had tried to show us a YouTube video of a squirrel named Triscuit that visits her house looking for food. We couldn't see it in class because the site was blocked (a lot of schools block YouTube). Be did find it on our own, though. In fact there are two videos of Triscuit the hungry squirrel, here and here.

TECH TIME: We read a couple more chapters of Bill Gates Computer Legend today. In doing so, we learned about the ALTAIR 8800. When Paul Allen saw it on the cover of Popular Electronics in 1974, he knew he and Gates had to hop to it. ALTAIR's maker was still in search of a program to make it work, and Gates and Allen said they had one - though it wasn't true at the time. They did, however, create one over the course of eight weeks, and when they flew to MITS' headquarters in Albuquerque, it ran the first time through.

In April of 1975, Gates and Allen formed Micro-Soft (sic). Allen went to work for MITS full time and Gates dropped out of Harvard to work full time on his new business. To be continued ...

COMMUNITY CARNIVAL: Tonight was an event the kids have been looking forward to for weeks - a little the Halloween carnival at the Magnolia Community Center. Christian took them while I stayed home feeling crappy.

They played a few games, Annabelle decorated a pumpkin and the highlight was their trip through a haunted house, where middle schoolers jumped out from dark corners and startled them. "Oh was that scary. It scared the crap out of me!" CJ reported to me.

REST ASSURED: I realize Annabelle has her PJs on in every photo here. I swear, she did get dressed at some point today - maybe 11 ish?

We've Got the Power

IT'S HERE!!!: This is what CJ looked like for a lot of today.

Since I'm from the "any reading is good reading" school, a couple months ago I ordered him a subscription to Nintendo Power. We finally got our first issue today. "Boy, there are a lot of pages in this book!" he said appreciatively.

He's enjoying it, of course. It reminds me of when Rick and Kennedy were kids in the pre-Internet age. That magazine was their conduit to secrets about Nintendo games they could get nowhere else.

What's funny is CJ has already found a code in it that he didn't know about from his infinite Internet sources, and is all hot to use it. So it really is like the old days.

APPLIED LEARNING: We are still plugging away on our Singapore Math. I'm really glad we bought these books - they are taking the kids through logical steps of learning math. For the past couple of days we've been talking about parts making a whole.

Today, when Annabelle was faced with 14-8, rather than count fingers, she drew up a part-part-whole diagram like we'd seen a few pages prior. Good for her!

MR. BILL: We read more of "Bill Gates Computer Legend" today. Today's chapters were about some of the first computers - things like their size and what kind of functions they performed. We also read about Bill Gates' first forays into programming while at Lakeside, a private high school, where he and Paul Allen were both students. They formed a club called Lakeside Programmers and their first programs were computer games.

And we read about time Gates spent at Harvard. There was a sentence reading, "Even when he was asleep, he dreamed about computers." At that I stopped and turned to CJ and said, "Hmm. Who does that remind you of?" He smiled broadly and said, "Me."

Eventually, Gates dropped out of college. According to a quote from a New York Time story, "I loved my years at college and, in many respects, I regretted leaving. I only did it because I had an idea that couldn't wait."

I'd say Gates made the right decision.

There was one caption in the book that really surprised me. It was under a relatively recent photo of Gates looking over students' shoulders as they used PCs. The caption said, "This is how children at school today learn to use computers. Gates is eager to give money to schools to buy computers, perhaps because when the children grow up, they will buy all his products!"

Yikes - so much for altruism.

BEWITCHING: For our art project today, we went back to Bruce Blitz for some cartooning. Today's exercise was drawing a witch, whose nose and chin were formed by a letter W.

CJ wasn't feelin' it today. You can tell by his coloring job. I decided to draw along with the kids today, but I don't think I'm going to do that again. I think that adds some pressure. They don't expect theirs to look exactly like the "professional" one on the TV or computer, but when I'm drawing and mine does pretty much look like that, I think they feel theirs is lacking, and that's not the case.

LIVE, FROM MARS: Ok, not really Mars - at least not yet. But thanks to a new Web cam, we can now take a live look inside the clean room at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., to watch the next Mars rover, "Curiosity," being built.

Technicians are working from approximately 8 a.m. to 11:00 p.m. PDT Monday through Friday. Curiosity is about the size of a car - 10 feet long (excluding the arm) 9 feet wide and 7 feet tall. It is expected to launch sometime between Nov. 25–Dec. 18 of 2011 and arrive at Mars in August of 2012.

On the site you can even chat with others in the room watching (there were 505 people when I popped in), and someone from NASA is monitoring the chat and answering questions.


FRIENDLY: This afternoon, we met CJ's BFF from kindergarten at the city park adjacent to her school. CJ and his pal always pick right up where they left off.


They played for about 90 minutes and had all sorts of fun. Annabelle played with them some, but she also worked the greater playground, finding new friends. Lo and behold, one of the people she met was a just turned 6-year-old girl with long dark blonde/light brown hair and brown eyes named Annabelle.


In the 'small world' category, we'd already met this Annabelle once before, in a Fred Meyer in Greenwood. We were shopping and heard a mom call for her daughter Annabelle and we ended up talking to them there, and then crossed paths again today, in Magnolia.


At the park, both CeeJ and Bee did a whole bunch of spinning today. CJ's not a huge fan of it - today he was doing it because his friend wanted him to. By the time we left, CJ was a bit green around the gills and complained that his friend 'made' him spin. I told him he can't blame his decisions and actions on other people's suggestions and that he needs to stick up for himself and stick to his guns. These are life skills we will, no doubt, be working a lot more on in the days-weeks-months-years to come.

Points South and North

FOLLOWING DIRECTIONS: Our double duty science day started down south. During the first half of our Highline district class, we reviewed past homework (about a landfill and a recycling plant) and read a story having to do with the kids' new homework - about trash collectors' jobs.

Then, we changed direction. The teacher brought out compasses for everyone and we talked (in very general terms) about what a compass is, how it works, and how it's used. Then we went on a (very short) field trip to the parking lot. The kids spent some time walking in different directions, making attempts at figuring out which direction was which. I don't think they mastered navigation by compass today, but they did have fun.

JUST BEAT IT: The kids have probably spent an hour a day playing "Kirby's Epic Yarn" since Annabelle got it on Monday, her birthday.

At 4:04 p.m. today, they beat the game. I was working at my computer, looked up and saw them standing in front of the TV, watching the game credits roll and them basking in the glory of it all.

I'm happy for them but, um, I don't think my 6 and 7 year old should be able to beat a Nintendo Wii game in three hours time. The game cost $50 damn dollars. For that much, I expect HOURS of challenge and entertainment, not three stinkin' hours.

PAPER PUSHERS: In our Shoreline science (northern) class this afternoon, we learned about all sorts of paper (cardstock, corrugated cardboard, chipboard, newsprint, corrugated paper, wax paper, paper towel, facial tissue, etc.) and their various properties.

The lab table time was spent using a pencil, crayon and marker to write on each of the different kinds of paper, and the kids had to rate each paper/implement combination as either Good, OK, or Bad. That went down without incident.

Overall, I would rate CJ's attention to cues during that class as just barely "OK" today. Not his worst, but certainly not his best. Annabelle, on the other hand, seemed to have a comment for EVERYTHING. That's mostly fine when we're at home learning about things, but when it's in a room with 12 other students, it needs to be reigned in a bit.

STORY PROBLEM BANDIT: This afternoon CJ an Annabelle were enjoying the unseasonably mild temps and sunshine playing outside. Not sure how it started but CJ was a bank robber/cowboy and Annabelle was an elephant-riding cowboy.

At one point I heard CJ say to Annabelle, "There are six banks. If I rob two banks, how many banks to do I have left to rob?"

"Four!" Bee quickly replied.

Too funny.

CJ APPLESEED: When outside this afternoon, I pointed out CJ's apple seed-turned-tiny-tree to him. He was pretty impressed with how much larger than a seed it is now, but wondered how long it will take it to become a fully blown tree. "Years and years" was as specific as I got with him.

BILL BIO: Our "reading while trapped in the car" book of the day was "Bill Gates Computer Legend" by Sara Barton-Wood.

We read about Bill's early life (his elementary, middle and high school). Right off the bat, the biographer said "mildly autistic" because Gates was a big rocker when he was young (in his crib and on a rocking horse) and he reportedly still rocks to this day (sometimes violently) in his desk chair. Interesting.

It's longer than your average picture book, so it's going to take us more than a few moments of car time to finish it.

SEINFELD: We also read a much shorter book today, a title I picked up on impulse during my last library visit. Called "Halloween," it's by and about Jerry Seinfeld. He recounts how the "only really clear thought I had as a kid was 'get candy' " and how even the concept of Halloween is mind-blowing ("Everyone we know is just giving out candy?")

The young Seinfeld had delusions of grandeur that a store bought Superman costume would transform his scrawny frame into a Man of Steel. Not only did that not happen, he suffered further indignity when his mother made him wear a big, cheap corduroy coat over the costume. (CJ thought that was HYSTERICAL.) Seinfeld's description of the horrible cheap costume masks kids wear with their crappy elastic strings was spot-on and so, so funny.

As soon as we finished, CJ said, "Can we re-read this? It's really funny, right?"

He laughed all the way through the second reading, and I have a feeling there will be a third, fourth and a fifth reading, too.

Happily, I also found a great YouTube clip of Seinfeld reading or reciting "Halloween". It's worth a couple minutes of your time if you're in the mood for a chuckle or two and fond memories of Halloweens past.

HIT THE ROAD: What with all the birthday debauchery (cake, cookies, company, cake, cookies company - and more cake) we haven't run in DAYS. We finally got back out there today. We headed for the east edge of Discovery Park, with the zipline in mind.

On the way home, we swung by to gawk at the biggest pumpkins in Magnolia - in the yard of local Realtor Greg Shaw. It's quite a sight to see, and you can see it for yourself during daylight hours thanks to PumpkinCamera.com NEW MOVIE: Today I learned about a new documentary, "Race to Nowhere." According to its Web site, it's about "pressures faced by American schoolchildren and their teachers in a system and culture obsessed with the illusion of achievement, competition and the pressure to perform."

The trailer for Race to Nowhere is intriguing. I'd like to see the whole film.

Tuesday News

MAY THE TOAST BE WITH YOU: I tested the kids' observation skills late morning when I gave them a snack. Before I put the multi grain bread in the toaster, I used one of my new coolest cookie cutters ever to impress an image in the slices.

Not too surprisingly, they did notice the decorations.

"I never knew Yoda's head was so crunchy," Annabelle said as she snacked on hers.

EPIC YARN: For her birthday, Annabelle got a new Wii game, "Kirby's Epic Yarn." It's a super cool, unique looking game where a well known character (Kirby) is turned into yarn and lives in a fabric-y world. It's visually fascinating.

A reviewer for the New York Daily News said " 'Kirby's Epic Yarn' sports most creative level design of any game this year."

Read more: I also like it because it's a true two-player game. In many of the kids' two player game, there's a leader and a tag along (who basically gets dragged along by the leader, who would be CJ). But in this game, the two HAVE to work together as partners and equals. It makes for some interesting - and sometimes terse - exchanges. Such as:

Annabelle: Hey stop treating me like that!
CJ: Well, I was getting you away from King DeDeDe! ... I can do this myself.
Me: No, you have to work together.
CJ: Annabelle's treating me like a loser, Mom.
Annabelle: I keep forgetting (which the right buttons are). I think 1 is 2 and 2 is 1.
CJ: Well figure it out!

See - doesn't that sound like loads of fun and super educational? :) But seriously, it IS good for them, because when they do work together, they are able to accomplish their goals.

ORB EXPERIMENT: The kids had fun experimenting with one of Annabelle's birthday presents today. Called Orbeez, they're tiny, hard plastic-y pellets that, when immersed in water, swell to several times their original size.
It took about three hours for the transformation to take place. Once they're swollen, the balls take on "super ball" type properties - they're a little squishy and super bouncy.
Naturally, I'm curious what these little orbs are made of (and if they're a health hazard), so I checked out the company's Web site. There, under "The Science of Orbeez" tab, we learn Orbeez are superabsorbent polymers made of several smaller molecules joined together. When they're immersed in water, it is absorbed into spaces between the molecules. Orbeez makers tell us these super polymers were invented in the 1940s to help irrigate crops during times of drought. These days, they're found in everything from food packaging to disposable diapers.

NOTEWORTHY: The kids had music this afternoon, so that meant we had to make sure their music homework was done!

One of the things they had to do was practice (for the first time) writing notes on the lines (before they'd been working between the lines only). The kids had no trouble centering them on the lines, but CJ had to start over because he had a whole bunch of notes piggybacked (one nearly on top of another when you look at the staff from top to bottom). They also practiced playing a couple of songs on their glockenspiels. We practiced the songs right handed only, left handed only, and alternating hands.

At the end of class today, during the parent participation part, we played a game where we would have to rhythmically have to pick up a shell and pass it to the person on our left. It sounds simple enough, but when everyone has a shell and is doing the grabbing and passing at the same time, it can get pretty chaotic.

MONSTER TALES: I like to keep a book in the car for times when we're waiting somewhere or on someone. Today's title was (deep breath): "Frankenstein Makes A Sandwich and Other Stories You're Sure to Like, Because They're All About Monsters and Some of Them are also about Food. You Like Food Don't You? Well, All Right Then."

Written and illustrated by Adam Rex (whose Web site is really interesting) it's a quirky collection of stories about famous monsters.

There's Frankie, of course, and a couple of stories the Phantom of the Opera, who is trying to write music but can't get "It's a Small World" out of his head. There's a story called "Bigfoot Can't Believe You Called Him Yeti Just Now," and we can't forget Annabelle's favorite, "Godzilla Pooped on my Honda."

Clearly highbrow humor here. ;)

The pictures a cool and the words are silly, which means we all loved it.

UPWARD DOGS: The kids started a "new" yoga class today. It's at the same place (Lotus Yoga) with the same wonderful teacher (Nicole), but it's the older kids' class (ages 6 and up).

The class is an hour later, which will make our drive a little dicier (rush hour) I suppose, but an upside is that the class is less than half the size of the other one, and they do more advanced moves.

After the class today, I asked the kids how they liked it. Both give it thumbs up and CJ said he liked it a lot better because it wasn't as noisy. So that's a plus.

Happy Birthday to Bee

SHE'S SIX: Happy birthday to Annabelle! Hard to believe she's 6 already. For some reason, that sounds a lot older than 5 to me. ...

The photo of her in PJs is of her emerging from her bedroom on her first day as a 6-year-old. She usually takes one 'friend' to slumber with her, but last night she had a trio, and they migrated to the couch with her. Since she could only carry two, she got creative with the third. ...

Later this afternoon she was cleaned up a bit when it came time for ballet. :)

Really, we celebrated Annabelle's birthday all weekend long. Saturday, Grandma and Grandpa came up and we started decorating Annabelle's cake, and that night she and CJ got to make haunted gingerbread houses with Grandma (while the rest of us lost our minds but watched the Huskies win at Husky Stadium in double OT).

Sunday we played tourists around Seattle, taking the Gparents to the Seattle Pinball Museum, which was a blast (they have a new old Super Mario Pinball machine that is wicked awesome).

Afterward, it was on to the Seattle Art Museum's Olympic Sculpture Park. It was a beautiful day and the views were stunning. Here's a pic of G&G below "Eagle" with the Needle in the background.

WALK WITH THE ANIMALS: Today was one of the Woodland Park Zoo's Homeschool Days. I'd signed us up months ahead of time for this 'special' day.

We got to the zoo a little after 9:30, and entered on the west side as opposed to the main gate to the south.

It was a ghost town, which is great (it makes it much easier to walk around and you don't have to jockey for position to see the animals).

Right off the bat, the kids were entranced by the penguins. A couple of the penguins seemed entranced by them, too - they jumped in the water and swam across, to the window, to check 'em out.Enjoying exhibits all along the way, we made our way toward the south/main entrance, where we were told the bulk of the special homeschool programs were going on. Once we got there, a friendly zoo worker directed us into a building where some educational stuff was going on. There, we found some more friendly workers sitting behind tables talking talking talking and a WHOLE lot of people milling about. Christian and I looked at each other and both decided that we would MUCH rather be out amongst the exotic (to us) animals than in with the masses, looking at laminated photos of zoo animals. So off we went - end of our official Homeschool Day experience.

We walked the whole zoo and had a couple of extra special encounters. One was in the leopard exhibit. There, we found a gorgeous creature enjoying breakfast RIGHT next to the glass.We also were treated to an up-close view of a Western Lowland Gorilla. While we were standing outside the gorilla exhibit, a zoo worker came by and said that particular gorilla (the alpha male of the group, also known as a silverback - lefthand photo below) never comes up to the glass like that. He's 32 years old and "in his prime," according to the zoo worker. The heir apparent male of the group is pictured to the right.


KIR-BEE: We'd been home from the zoo for a couple of minutes when I made a horrifying discovery. In our absence, our dog Kirby had jumped up onto the (low) table where I'd left Annabelle's birthday cake and, well, Kirby had eaten the face, one foot, and one flower petal off it.

Annabelle was mortified, of course, but as I talked her down, I assured her that we could fix it, and, in fact, that Kirby's escapades meant she got to work more with fondant, which she loves.

Mercifully, we were able to salvage it - it being a little model of Annabelle's beloved Pillow Pet bumblebee.

SAY CHEESE: For dinner, we took the kids to Chuck E. Cheese. The "closest" one to our house is in Lynnwood (which is both a curse and a blessing).

The kids have been to a Chuck E. Cheese just once before, when CJ was 3 and Bee was 2, for one of CJ's preschool classmate's birthday. So really, this was pretty much like a first for both of them. They were thrilled when we pulled into the lot.

And so we enjoyed some barely mediocre pizza and the kids totally dug all the games, of course. There were a couple of unique ones, including the booth where you sit on a white bench and "Chuck E." sketches your face. It was pretty fascinating watching the drawing being made, and it was very accurate -right down to the spot of pizza sauce on Annabelle's nose.And there was a little Habitrail type maze for them to climb around in. When we got home we enjoyed reconstructed cake and called it a day.