Somber Anniversary

WHAT NOT TO WEAR: I asked Annabelle to get dressed this morning and this is what she came up with - all by herself.

It provided us an excellent opportunity to talk about mixing and matching colors and patterns. Where are Garanimals when you need them?

YESTERDAY ONCE MORE: Regular readers will recall my vow last night to take back my house today after the Sculpey, glue and fondant covered activities of the past few days. And I did clean like a mad woman this morning from 6 to 7:30 or so.

But come 8 o'clock, CJ had only one thing on his mind. He wanted to right a wrong. For whatever reason, he woke up obsessed over the fact his Proto Man action figure has no shield. And I had to agree with him - if you play a Mega Man video game or look at pictures of Proto Man online, the dude ALWAYS has his shield. It's part of whom he is.

And even though I had just put away all sorts of Scupley and tools that could do the trick, I told CJ, "We can make a shield." Oh, and I had to go down to the basement to find a suitable wire to use for a handle for the shield. And wire cutters. And the drill.

Confident after his recent experience with using power tools, CJ insisted he do the drilling, which I thought was great. Then he, Annabelle and I collaborated on the size and shape of the shield. CJ positioned the handle and secured it with more Sculpey and then we baked it for 15 minutes. After it cooled, we placed it in Proto Man's hand and boy oh boy was CJ pleased. It was worth the mess. :)
SLIPPED THE SURLY BONDS OF EARTH: Twenty five years ago today. I'll bet you remember where you were and what you were doing when you heard the space shuttle Challenger exploded shortly after takeoff, killing all seven crew members.

This NASA photo (I'd never seen before today) shows the first sign of trouble - the grey puff of smoke from one of the O-rings on the rocket booster that failed in frigid temperatures. (It's across from the U in United States.) The kids and I watched a short (and not very good) History Channel video about the event and a YouTube video of CNN's live coverage of liftoff and the explosion (which is how I learned on that day 25 years ago).

Then, we turned to the obvious source for news - NASA. They had a very nicely done interactive feature about the Challenger crew, as well as the Columbia shuttle crew and Apollo I's crew.

We also talked about our visit to Kennedy Space Center and I reminded the kids that we visited Memorial Garden, where we saw this plaque ... And the towering memory wall, where all space program crew whose lives were lost in the line of duty are carved into polished black granite and illuminated.

Understandably, the kids were pretty upset after reading and viewing the Challenger info. I suggested they might try to write some haikus to help them express what they were thinking and feeling.

Annabelle wrote:

Twenty five years past
Challenger's final voyage
There was a teacher

CJ wrote:

Shuttle explosion
The Challenger is destroyed
People feel sad now

THE DECIDERS: This evening, the kids started exploring a really great civics education Web site, iCivics. On its "About" page, it explains, "iCivics ... is a web-based education project designed to teach students civics and inspire them to be active participants in our democracy. iCivics is the vision of Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, who is concerned that students are not getting the information and tools they need for civic participation, and that civics teachers need better materials and support."

Neat-o!

Today, we checked out a game called Immigration Nation.

Annabelle was thoughtfully reading each potential immigrant's case and deciding whether or not she could let them into the country. CJ watched for awhile, and soon a mischievous grin crossed his face.

"Let me do it! I can really screw this country up!" he said gleefully. Note to feds: do not hire CJ for an INS position anytime soon.

MEASURING UP: While at Albertson's today, we hit up a Red Box and found a Wii Fit game featuring Nickelodeon characters. Before they could play, they had to enter some vital stats, including their height and weight. Annabelle measured CJ. I love how he's stretching to be taller. That must be some innate human compulsion ...
SWEET STUFF: And because our kitchen wasn't quite trashed enough (again), today we had to make more (from scratch) cupcakes and fondant. For, you see, neither CJ nor Annabelle got ot partake of any of the Yoshi -inspired cupcakes we made yesterday. They disappeared too fast from the buffet table at the art/science expo. Independently and repeatedly last night and today, the kids asked for more custom cupcakes, and I couldn't blame them. And so, I baked them and we decorated them together.


This time Christian even got in on the act. He made a righteous Mario cupcake for CJ.
Annabelle worked long and hard on a Princess Peach cupcake for herself. I'm impressed with her level of confidence in the medium (fondant). She knows what she has to do, dives in and does her best.

Show Time

MORE, MORE, MORE: For the umpteenth day in a row, the Yoshi project consumed us.

Annabelle had to finish her Yoshi - he/she/it was still lacking a mandible until midday. And take it from us, carving Yoshi teeth is no easy task. ...

This morning the kids got the project process photos in order, applied double sided tape to their backs and stuck them on the display board.
Then it was time to make captions for some of the pictures. That was good spelling and writing practice for the kids.
Annabelle also did a diagram with labels on some of Yoshi's bones. CJ typed up a quick explanation of why he designed Yoshi's hinged nose section (so it could be a shield to be lowered in battle).

MIX IT UP: Meanwhile, it the kitchen, we were whipping up some treats to take to the expo tonight. Naturally, we had to carry on with the Yoshi theme, so we made some Nintendo/Mario/Yoshi inspired cupcakes. The cupcakes were mmmost excellent organic free trade dark cocoa. I made a sky blue buttercream frosting and then we used fondant to sculpt Yoshi heads, Super Mario mushrooms and stars.

ON WITH THE SHOW: Mercifully, the Yoshis and the cupcakes all made the 40 minute drive to Shoreline intact. We set up CeeJ and Bee's display and then went to check out other people's creations. There was everything from robots to clothing. Very cool. And we stuck around for a bit of the performing arts portion of the evening, which inspired Annabelle to want to join a drama class.
The Yoshis were a hit and the 2-dozen plus cupcakes disappeared within minutes.
And tonight, we are cranky and exhausted. I cannot wait to clean house tomorrow. The place is absolutely trashed from our art project.

Round and Round

PRETTY IN PINK: A lovely sunrise greeted us this morning. It ranged from deep and light pink to orange. And we got to see some sunshine this afternoon. Hooray!SPINNING WHEELS: We got to work early this a.m. First, we had some science homework to knock out. It was really more play than work, though. The kids made, and then modified, some tops. They also made a couple of "zoomers," which are discs that zip along a lateral string.
Annabelle wasn't having much luck getting hers to zoom, so she turned to sculpture. "Look. It's the Space Needle!" she declared.We also did some more Yoshi work this a.m. Specifically, Annabelle worked on the cranium and top set of teeth. We also compiled in process photos for the display board to go behind the Yoshis. Tomorrow we'll get Annabelle's Yoshi's jawbone glued in, and complete the display board. Oh, and make a bunch of Yoshi-related cupcakes to take to the event tomorrow night. It's going to be a busy day.

SCHOOL LUNCH: Today is the kids' favorite day at their Shoreline school. The last Wednesday of the month is Pizza Wednesday, and we'd preordered a couple of slices for the kids. I think one of the things that makes it extra special is you get to (gasp!) eat in the library!!! The kids made short work of their lunch, so we had 45 minutes to kill before science. It was lovely out so the kids headed out to the playground. Annabelle got caught up in some aliens vs. humans games with some other kids. Meanwhile, CJ was collecting pine cones, which he considered to be a stash of ammunition. Science class was fun, as always. They made more spinning things - this time twirlys (or twirlies?). They were crafted from strategically folded paper and drinking straws. Tonight, they demonstrated them for Christian.

Hearts and Parts

IN THE CARDS: CeeJ and Bee started the morning off my making a couple of get well soon cards for their aunt Renee. I printed out mug shots of each of the kids, and had them cut out hearts to frame their faces. I then showed them how to do an accordion fold with two strips to give the heart face frames a pop out effect when the card was open.

I swear, getting CJ to cut out a heart shape was like asking him to dig a deep bore tunnel under Seattle. I cannot recall exactly how many times he screwed it up - it was somewhere between 5 and 7, I think, each mistake somewhat different than the last. At least we were able to use some of his miscues as decorations for the front of the card.

It took him about an hour, but he did finally finish. Here's the inside of each of their cards.

At noon, we had a brief (5 minutes, tops) visit with Grandma & Grandpa, where we handed over the cards and a bunch of other stuff for them to take up to Renee. CJ and Annabelle walked away with quite a haul themselves - a stack of DVDs, some state stickers and more!

ANATOMY 101: Today, Annabelle's Yoshi got her/his/its rib cage, scapula, and clavicle.

The skeleton project has meant lots of poring over pictures of skeletons lately. Fortunately, we have a cool see-through the human 3-D book that the kids have been studying. They often even take it in the car.Today, CJ told me an elaborate story involving the book and he flipped through page by page, covering the body's various systems.

We also learned about the types of bone breaks - compound (through the skin); simple (a closed fracture); greenstick (common in children, bone breaks on one side only); and comminuted (where the bone breaks in several fragments). Whatever you call it, it hurts!

ACROSS THE POND: CJ spent some time on the BBC's Numeracy (math) Web site today. He was playing a math game (Park the Pods) and initially he was getting all the answers wrong. I walked closer to the computer to listen in, and quickly realized it wasn't a math problem, it was an English problem. For example, the narrator would say, " Count on 2 from 50." That's just not how we word addition problems here Stateside.

SCHEMING: CJ came up with another idea for a video game this afternoon. "I'm going to make a game called 'Skull Killer.' This is the storyline," he started. "There is this evil dark red skull. He's destroying everyone in the city. Only Skull Killer can stop him. He defeated the Dark Skull, but just before the Dark Skull was defeated, he cursed Skull Killer. So Skull Killer has to collect the pieces of the Dark Red Skull before it's too late. If you don't get all the pieces within the time limit, your character will automatically die. Your time limit refills when you complete a level."

At the end of the game, "Now, you get a chat with the Dark Red Skull and Skull Killer once you've collected all the pieces," explained CJ. However, the hero is in for a surprise." CJ says Dark Skull tells Skull Killer, "You fool! You didn't get cursed! I tricked you just so you could bring me back to life (by collecting up all his pieces)! Now I shall kill everyone in the city!

"And the Dark Red Skull is the hardest boss in the game. And the Dark Red Skull is the final boss in the game. His color is dark red," CJ said in conclusion.

LITTLE THINGS: CJ put the finishing touches on his Yoshi tonight. He glued Yoshi's props in place.

AND ALSO: We went to yoga today. It was nice that it wasn't dark at 4:45, when the class started.

Reaching New Heights

Photo from Video Games Live Facebook

WEEKEND REPLAY: Saturday night was a Big Deal - finally time to go to Video Games Live! We've been looking forward to it for months now.

The show was at the gorgeous, historic Paramount Theater. Annabelle had decided long ago to wear her Princess Peach dress, which has been hanging in the closet untouched since Halloween. CJ was dressed in a Super Mario t-shirt. Rick and Ken showed up and told us there was a costume contest. That apparently caught CJ's attention because as we were walking out the door for the show, he had an about face and declared, "I want to wear my Mario costume to help Annabelle win the costume contest." At that, we started scrambling around frantically trying to find its parts (including a stick on moustache). Here's a photo (from Halloween) of them in their costumes.

Walking to the theater, CJ and Annabelle started attracting attention and once inside, they were like mini celebrities, with a number of people coming over and asking to take their pictures or have their pictures taken with them. Rick signed them up for the costume contest; they were to report to a certain part of the lobby at 7 p.m. When we did so, we learned they'd be going backstage (!!!) and then ON stage (!!!!), as the contest would be judged by crowd applause.

Christian went with the kids and Ken, Rick and I headed for our seats.

Christian reports that before they went out onto stage, show producer/host Tommy Tallarico came over to the group and told all those costumed, "You all look great, but here's your winners," and then took CeeJ and Bee's photo with his iPhone. :)

Soon after, the contestants paraded out on stage. CJ and Annabelle roughly in the middle of the pack, both waving to the crowd. All of the costumes were great, not that you could tell it by my crappy video (below). Unfortunately since where I was sitting was pitch black so I couldn't see the camera's buttons, I've only used that camera once before, and I was taping it on the sly as cameras were prohibited. That, AND an usher was standing right in front of me, nearly entirely blocking the kids. At least you can hear CJ & Annabelle introduce themselves. ...

And if you click here, you can get another crappy video of them being named winners. :) They got a great big bag of swag, including a hat, a shirt, a patch, four or so CDs, a show program and more. I was really proud of them - not for winning, but because they did so well on stage. Neither one got stage fright and they did a great job introducing themselves. (So many of the other entrants mumbled their names.)

The kids and Christian finally made their way up to our seats and the show began. One of the first medleys the orchestra played covered music from the Mega Man series (link is to video from the Seattle show shot by someone else). Mega Man is definitely one of CJ and Annabelle's favorite franchises, so that was great. And CJ's current obsessions/subjects of study is the series of Street Fighter games. Imagine how THRILLED he was when they launched into SF songs!

The orchestra was powerful - you could feel the music even in our balcony seats - and the choir hit all the right notes. Vocal soloist Lara was impressive, and her fingers were flying all over the flute when she played a Zelda compilation.

I spent most of my time watching the show, but I also watched CJ and Bee a fair amount. They were having the time of their lives. I wish we could take them to a performance like that every night - but then I suppose it wouldn't be so special. ...

SKYWALKER: I didn't really have an academic game plan today, but as soon as I scooped up a library book, our day just played out rather nicely.

The book was "The Man Who Walked Between the Towers." It was about Philippe Petit's amazing walk on a wire stretched between the Twin Towers in New York City on August 7, 1975.

I recalled seeing a video version of the book on BookFlix, so I cued that up and the kids read along with the paper version. (You can also view it on YouTube. It's worth the 9:50 if you have it to spare.) It told the story of the French street performer who became obsessed with the idea of walking between the World Trade Center towers, 1,340 above the ground. Petit planned the stunt over the course of several years.

He and co-conspirators posed as construction workers to gain access on the evening of Aug. 6. Part of their gear was a 450-pound cable and a custom-made 26-foot long, 55-pound balancing pole. They also had a bow an arrow, which would be used to shoot a guide line from one tower to the other which would then help them stretch the cable between the towers.

Petit was up all night preparing and just after 7:15 a.m., he stepped off the roof of the south tower and out onto the cable. He walked the wire for 45 minutes, crossing back and forth between the towers eight times. He mixed a few tricks and poses in amongst his strolling.

When he did finally step off the wire, he was handcuffed and arrested. (He later called the rough treatment at the hands of ticked off police officers the most dangerous part of his stunt.) However, Petit's "punishment" was being ordered to put on a free performance in a NY park.

The book noted that "Now the towers are gone." At that, both CJ and Annabelle asked, "What happened to them?"

So that led us down the 9/11 path. I wasn't quite ready to show them actual footage from that day, so I was happy to see that BrainPop had an animated feature about that awful day. It did a good job of covering the facts.

After, I turned our attention back toward the wire walker. I wanted the kids to see real photos of him instead of just animation, so I hopped onto YouTube. There I found a short interview with him, which we watched.

From the news interview, we learned about the award (Sundance, Oscar) winning documentary film "Man on Wire" about Petit's feat. I was happy to discover that was available via Netflix's instant play, so we watched that this afternoon. It was fascinating - there was so much great video footage and lovely photo stills from his preparation of that stunt, and the mates that helped him were interesting characters. It was suspenseful and inspiring - definitely worth checking out.

One of the wonderful by-products of watching the documentary was that we got to see lots of footage of the Twin Towers being erected. It was so cool to see the construction and get a better feeling for the scope of the project. What an architectural and engineering marvel. I am glad we all have that appreciation and vision of the World Trade Center Towers now, as 9/11 has so filled our minds with all those HORRIBLE images of what became of them.

And so, in addition to a little math, and some technology, that was the bulk of our academic day - learning about the life and times of a French wire walker. I'm sure LOTS of K-2 classrooms did the same thing today, right? :0

GOING OLD SCHOOL: Much to CJ's delight, today we FINALLY hooked up the very old school Atari 2600 system I bought off shopgoodwill.com. "Wow, it's wood," CJ marveled, checking out the simulated wood grain.

Needless to say, he spent time today checking out classics like Donkey Kong, Ms. Pac Man, Combat, Pinball and even horrible games like E.T. and Gremlins. (A near truism in the video game world: Good movie = bad game.) They are soooooo low-tech looking compared to

CJ mentioned he wants to invite Steve Wiebe over to play Donkey Kong. :)

MORE YOSHI: The work on the Yoshis continued today. (And the day before. And the day before.) Annabelle worked on internal organs for her project.
CJ did a whole lot of painting this weekend and today, most of the work involved getting Yoshi's moving screen/shield/schnoz piece in place.
We also worked on placement of the items (Yoshi and his gear) in the "cockpit.

BACK TO BALLET: After a 3-week winter break, Annabelle was back to ballet today, which made her hap-hap-happy. Christian captured her on his cell phone's video camera through the door on the window during their free dance. She's the one in the Big pink skirt.