Stately

LAND OF THE LILIPUTIANS: For the past two days the kids and I have spent about a hour at what they call "Hilltop Play Park," but better know to the rest of the world as Ella Bailey Park.
When we were there yesterday, at around 2:30 p.m., CJ and Annabelle were Gulliver-like. The rest of the kids in the park were all toddlers, as kids' CeeJ and Bee's age are in school. Today, I thought we'd go at 9 a.m. and maybe we'd beat the toddler crowd there. We mostly did. (Not that we have anything against toddlers, that's certainly not the case. I just worry about relatively ginormous CeeJ and Bee crushing them, ha ha.)

Today, the kids brought their beloved scooters up to the park and alternated between doing loops around the park and playing on the playground.Kirby and I just walked the whole time - about 50 minutes. The lazy dog has basically been asleep ever since. ;)

MORNING REPORT: The kids did some math this morning, as well as some grammar exercises. For some writing practice, I asked them to write a report about the animal they liked most at the zoo. CJ's response?

"What's a report?"

Aargh. Made me feel like a loser/horrible teacher. I explained a report is a factual account - often a who, what, when, where and why type thing - like a newspaper story. I asked them to include at least five facts in their reports. I asked them to draw upon their memories of the zoo trip first, and if they didn't come up with five facts that way, I instructed them to hop online, find the Point Defiance Zoo Web site, navigate to their animal on the site, and get additional facts that way.

Annabelle wrote: Polar Bears by Annabelle Kisky. Here's where I saw them. Point Defiance Zoo & Aquarium. I'll give you 5 facts. A polar bear has black skin, not pink! Polar bears can swim down 11 feet! Polar bears live in: Chruchill (sic), Manitoba, and Canada. Polar bears feet are like snowshoes. Polar bears have fur that isn't completely soft.

CJ wrote: "Budgie Buddies - A Budgie is a type of bird. I saw them at the Point Defiance Zoo. Budgie is short for budgerigar. They are bright. They each have diffrent (sic) colors. They live in Australia. They like to eat seeds." His handwriting was, as always, so neat.

We'll be doing more reports.

STATES OF CONFUSION: This afternoon we made good use of garage sale and Goodwill finds. First the kids read along while listening to an audio CD of "The Scrambled States of America." (We scored the book and CD at a garage sale last weekend for 50 cents.)

The book is a lot of fun, with wacky characters (oh, those silly states and their quirks!), and having a dramatic reading to go with really brought it to life. We've read the book before, but the kids are nowhere near having the state memorized, so going through it several more times won't hurt.

After that, we played a card game based on the book. (The game was 99 cents at Goodwill.) It was a lot of fun, fast paced, and had solid learning value. Definitely worth 99 cents - and then some. ;)
MINOR MINERS: For the past two days, a 'minor' obsession of the kids' has been the game Minecraft. Wikipedia describes the game as being "about placing blocks to build anything you can imagine. At night monsters come out, make sure to build a shelter before that happens."

Here's Annabelle's character in the game. Isn't she cuuute? I'm not so thrilled with the game. It lags, hangs up, freezes - I basically have to be tech advisor the whole time they're playing.

It's wildly popular with masses of people, and from where I stand I'm not sure why. The graphics aren't great, there's no music ... I'm clearly missing something.

The kids are both begging to buy the latest version. To date, they've been playing a 'classic' free version. At this point I am not inclined to take the plunge.