Jingle Jangle

MORNING GLORY: CJ started his day at 6:30 with about an hour of reading on the couch. I love seeing that, and not having to tell him to stop reading so we can rush off to school. ;)
MUSIC MATTERS: It's Tuesday, which means music class day in our household. The kids finished up their music homework, which consisted of transcribing the music for "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star."

Naturally, Annabelle's headline had artwork, as usual.

Christian had today off since Monday is his usual day off and that was Memorial Day. Since he was home on a Tuesday, Christian had the pleasure of attending the parental participation part of the class. He reports they learned and performed a Bavarian polka. Wish I'd been there to see that!

Here's a picture of the polka pair on their way up the alley after music.

NEW ON THE "TO DO" LIST: Via a homeschool resources email, I learned about the International Center for the History of Electronic Games in Rochester, New York. Based on its Web site, it pretty much looks like a place CJ would design. In fact, he's got a smaller version going in his bedroom!. :) How is it that we'd never heard of this place before?

ICHEG displays video games, other electronic games, and related materials. The center has over a half a million visitors a year. in a variety of ways in The Strong’s National Museum of Play, which hosts nearly 600,000 guests each year and guests can see and play video games, past and present. You can take a mini virtual tour on their Web site. The center even has a 26,000+ item research library. Its collections constitute the largest and most comprehensive public assemblage of electronic games and game-related historical materials in the United States.

We simply must visit some day.

JINGLE BELLS: For the past few days, the kids and I have been talking about jingles - what they are and why they're used. I told them that while I have no stats/science to back it up, I think that jingles used to be used a LOT more in advertisement. Seemingly everything had a jingle back in the day! I speculated that perhaps because now ads are able to pull off so many visual special effects, they don't rely on a musical hook to get your attention. Kind of sad, IMHO. Thirty years from now, people won't be singing a visual effect from 2011 under their breath and/or teaching it to their kids.

CeeJ and Bee seem to delight in the jingles from my childhood and have memorized many of them, including the Freakies Cereal commercial ...

They're still working on mastering the speedy "two all beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions on a sesame seed bun." It is, of course, from the Big Mac jingle circa 1974-76. The kids were super impressed to learn that Christian won a coupon for a free Big Mac as a kid by calling a toll free number and singing that jingle flawlessly in under 5 seconds. I remember my sister Renee and I doing that as well - but I sure don't remember getting a coupon. Bummer for us.

Today, as I served (Nathan's) hot dogs for lunch, I found myself singing "Hot dogs. Armour hot dogs. What kind of kids eat Armour hot dogs? Fat kids, skinny kids, kids who climb on rocks. Tough kids, sissy kids, even kids with chicken pox love hot dogs. Armour hot dogs. The dogs kids love to bite. " YIKES. Those lyrics wouldn't fly on a commercial today, would they? :0

I searched YouTube for the original version of the commercial and couldn't find it. I did find a BUNCH of remakes and knock offs, including a version from The Simpsons (the show is dubbed in Spanish, but oddly the hot dog song is in English). How's that for a successful jingle?

Tomorrow, I'm going to ask the kids to each write their own jingle. Stay tuned.

LAST ONE STANDING: Tonight, the mighty, majestic space shuttle Atlantis slowly made its way from the Vehicle Assembly Building to Launch Pad 39A. I've watched several roll outs past and let me tell you, this is by FAR the largest crowd they've ever had for a roll out. Looks like thousands of space program employees and their friends and family are on hand for this bittersweet moment.

Meanwhile, Endeavour is making her way home, set to land just after 11:30 p.m. our time tonight. Today, NASA released this fantastic shot taken on May 28, before Endeavour left its dock at the International Space Station for the final time. Image Credit: NASA

SAYS WHO?: Late this afternoon we went to Lowe's on a lumber run. By now, all four of us basically despise going there. We've just spent so much of our lives in home improvement stores, we dread going.

As Christian loaded up 2x6s, 2x4s and 4x4s (for railings for exterior staircases), I kept the kids busy playing Simon Says. CJ was pretty bad at it at first, but he caught on and couldn't be fooled after awhile.
TWO THINGS: I forgot to report that yesterday while we were at the Mariners game, the kids were shown on the big screen, dancing to "Shake Your Grove Thing." They were pretty jazzed about that!

And tonight we found out that Kennedy has been accepted into a Masters in Education with Teacher Certification program. He'll start this summer. Yay, Kend!