Flu, Part II

LIGHTNING STRIKES TWICE: Another day, another flu case on campus.

Long before dawn's early light, CJ was losing his lunch - and he hadn't even had breakfast yet. ;)

It was a long day here at MPA, and we got very little done (except, oh, about 5 loads of laundry).
Bee played around on the computer more than usual today, and CJ logged about 17 hours on the couch.

Annabelle and I also got in some Moon Sand playing sessions. Annabelle got to be the white kitty. I was assigned the "Orangey the Bread Holder" character to play with. :/
It's 9:30 now, and I'm happy to report CJ is up off the couch for the first time today and he's playing with Moon Sand with Annabelle and Christian. Yay!

Still hope, Hope, HOPING Annabelle and Christian somehow escape this viral menace.

Bouncing Back

ON THE MEND: While yesterday from 3 p.m. to 6 a.m. today was no tiptoe through the tulips, I do believe I'm on the uptick.

At one point last evening, during the peak of my nauseated stupor, I awoke to find a card (hybrid of front and inside above) on the pillow next to my head. I could still smell the fresh scent of the Mr. Sketch markers on them. :)

You can be sure my first order of business today was going around the house and disinfecting every surface, throwing open windows and doing laundry. I so hope no one else comes down with what I had. It was horrific.

GOING GREEN: Not too late this morning, I realized it was St. Patrick's Day.

I told the kids they were lucky their pajamas had green on them, or they might get pinched. Naturally, CJ wanted to know where this pinching tradition came from. (I've always just accepted it, unquestioningly.) We found an article by the Christian Science Monitor online that explained several St. Patrick's Day traditions, including the fact that the pinching is "an entirely American tradition that probably started in the early 1700s." Supposedly St. Patrick’s partiers thought wearing green made one invisible to leprechauns, who would pinch anyone they could see. So, people began pinching those not wearing green as a reminder that leprechauns were lurking.

I hopped online looking for resources for the kids. I found a few reading and writing exercises on EdHelper.com.

The kids read and answered questions about rainbows and several stories about leprechauns. I also had a couple of drawing worksheets for them to complete. It kept them busy while I was still feeling rather green around the gills.

I played some Irish music on YouTube while they worked. Annabelle couldn't help herself - she just had to dance. Little did she know my camera's video function was rolling ...

Together we read the book "Jamie O'Rourke and the Big Potato," an Irish folk tale retold by Tomie dePaola. Afterward, the kids took an Accelerated Reader quiz for that book, as well as two books we finished yesterday, Ruby Bridges' "Through My Eyes" and "She'll be Comin' Round the Mountain."

YESTERDAY ONCE MORE:For posterity, I'll go ahead and post a few of the things we did yesterday.

Having finally finished "Through My Eyes" by Ruby Bridges, the kids each took a couple of minutes to write her a letter. The address for the Ruby Bridges Foundation is in the book, so we'll mail them there, along with a couple of dollars.

DRIVIN' SIX WHITE HORSES: We got in some Americana learnin' by reading "She'll Be Comin' Round the Mountain," a picture book based on the old song.

Naturally, after reading the story, we had to cue it up on YouTube. I found a great old version by
Ramblin' Tommy Scott. Then my eyes fell upon another video. Made in 1949, it features the "Catfields" and the "McHounds" in the most absurdly violent cartoon I think I've ever seen. It makes Tom & Jerry look like the Teletubbies.

And then somehow we wound up finding another old gem from the same era, by the same animators - "Shortnin' Bread." That's a song that's on the kids' current Musikgarten CD of African American tunes.

The cartoon was complete with a follow the bouncing ball sing-a-long. CJ wanted to know why there were so many typos in the text. I explained to him they weren't typos, they were trying to be authentic sounding to the roots of the song.

UP YONDER: We made it to Shoreline for science class, and as soon as we walked in, we saw our glass art tiles made weeks before were back from the kiln!

I was assuming we'd be able to take them home when they were done, but they were hanging in the front window along with everyone else's tiles in what looks like a semi permanent art installation. Hmm. Guess we won't be getting them for awhile...

The kids were happy with their finished products. Here's CJ's Mega Man ...

and here's Annabelle's self portrait ...
We started a new unit in science class. It's all about rocks. For our first foray into the subject matter, each student had six rocks they had to sort by similarity. We used magnifying glasses to study the rocks and listed their characteristics (smooth, rough, speckled and so on). And we conducted one fun experiment - rubbing rocks together to see what would happen. We did it over both black and white paper, and were amazed by the rock dust we created!

Down and Out

Annabelle, the barefoot ballerina, getting a lift to the car after her lesson on Monday.

SHOO FLU: I'd love to be able to post a diary about today's doings, but it's not in the cards.

This afternoon I was hit was a nasty virus of, shall we say, the intestinal nature. Ugh.

I'm shaky and dehydrated and hoping Hoping HOPING no one else gets it.

"Talk" to you tomorrow. I've got to be better tomorrow, right?

Short Stuff

KERPLUNK: We did math and music first this morning. The kids were pretty quick to plunk out their homework tune - "Willum" a song with African American roots about a man with seven sons. They also copied a few note cards, all featuring E#.

Math is more review - they're down to just a few pages in their math book. They'll be glad when this book is done. They're pretty sick of doing x3 and x2 problems.

AFTERSHOCKS: The earthquake and tsunami that pummeled Japan are still a hot topic around here, of course. The kids have seen the devastating photos and videos on the news and we talk about what happened and what is still going on.

Today, the kids colored a couple of tsunami and earthquake related mini posters.

Annabelle did the one above. You can see she didn't color it so much as edit and embellish it.

CJ colored a page with waves. He called it "Tsunami Row." He said the biggest wave is Super Tsunami, hence the ST on its chest. He also pointed out that he "gave it a mohawk." Interesting. While we didn't have any full fledged natural disasters at MPA today, we did have some WILD weather. We had the hardest, longest hail I've seen in my 45 years. It happened while the kids were at music class. While lightning and thunder were crashing simultaneously overhead, hail was raining down in sheets. Within two minutes the yard, alley, surrounding rooftops - everything - was covered in white pellets the size of peas.

It was SO LOUD! Here's a short video of the beginning of the icy assault.

It was bad for Northwest standards - but nothing compared to this hailstorm in Georgia I found on YouTube. Talk about hailing golfballs - yikes!

And because I'm Facebook friends with the National Weather Service, I learned our area had a severe weather warning. Quoting the warning (issued IN ALL CAPS OF COURSE), "NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE DOPPLER RADAR ALSO INDICATED SOME WEAK ROTATION WITH THE THUNDERSTORMS...THUS THERE IS A POSSIBILITY THAT ONE OF THE STORMS COULD PRODUCE A FUNNEL CLOUD."

Fortunately, we didn't see any twisters!

This one's short. I'm heading out to see DEVO.

American Pi

PUZZLING MORNING: It was my pleasure to announce to the kids early this morning that it was Pi Day! That special day once a year - only and always March 14.

We started by talking about just what Pi is. I had them hold paper plates and trace around the edge or circumference. Then we talked about what diameter means - a straight line from the circle's side to side, passing through its center.

Then, I told them that thousands of years ago, some very smart folks figured out that a circle's circumference is about 3.14 times its diameter. Of course, it's that "about .14" people have fun with. I held up a poster for the kids to read a few dozens of the decimal points. They thought it was hysterical that the number was so long.

(BTW, this picture doesn't show the lines and lines of little numbers that follow it.)

To help cement the concepts introduced, we watched a couple of videos. The first was one about circles and measurements and formulas concerning them. Annabelle said she thought it was a little confusing, so we watched it again, and this time I wrote some notes on our white board during it, and that helped it click for her.

We also watched a kinda weird music video about the number Pi. I think it helped the kids understand how the number goes on and on and on ...

Next, we moved on to work a jigsaw puzzle. But not just any puzzle - it was a two-sided puzzle of a pie with the symbol for Pi on one side, and 3.14 and so on and so on on the other side. It was a small puzzle, but really hard due to the pieces' shapes, especially when working the fruit side, which is what we did first. I challenged the kids to see if we could finish the puzzle before the song "American Pie" finished. It was close, but we fell a couple pieces short of that goal.

After the jigsaw, we did a hands on activity to help illustrate the 3.14 fact. I had the kids wrap a string around the outside (circumference) of a small plate. We cut that, and then I had them take that string and run it back and forth across their plate. How many times did it make it across and back (diameter)?

Three full times - with just a tad bit (.14 etc.) extra!

THE REAL DEAL: Naturally, we HAD to make some pie on Pi Day!
CJ and Annabelle each made their first from-scratch pie crust. The cut butter into flour (that took awhile!) and added a bit of water. After we chilled the dough for awhile, they rolled it out and cut circles to make mini pies.
We filled them with a cooked Cameo apple filling and sealed the edges with a fork. They cooked for about 15 minutes. After the pies cooled, the kids decorated them with Pi symbols (with some added flair) made from glittery gel icing.

The cute little lessons were pretty tasty, too!
PIZZA PIE: For dinner, naturally we had to have pizzas.

I let the kids each make their own personal Pi pie. They even got to try some dough tossing for the first time ...
CJ was a bit timid at first, but after about a minute, he was making some ceiling-scraping tosses!
They topped their dough with some homemade pizza sauce, grated cheese, olives, and Canadian bacon.
CHALK IT UP: This evening I walked into the kids' room to check on them and found Annabelle doodling on their closet-door-blackboard.

I could hardly believe my eyes! AND ONE MORE THING: Happy birthday to Albert Einstein.