April Fool's Day

SILLY TIME: Here's a photo of the completion of our cupcake project we started yesterday. We gave Rick and Ken each a "TV dinner" tray this a.m. Rick took his to work and said he didn't even get to eat one - they were snatched up in the teacher's lounge.

The idea is straight out of "Hello, Cupcake!" In case you're curious, the 'chicken' is a cupcake topped by a donut hole, covered in frosting and then rolled in crushed cornflakes. The 'bone' is marshmallow fondant. The 'potatoes' are just frosted cupcakes with a Starburst candy as the pat of butter and caramel syrup for gravy. The peas and carrots are green runts and orange Starburst cut up.

CHEAP DATE: This morning we went on a field trip to the Pacific Science Center. A cuple of days ago I got an email from Pacific Science Center announcing a sneak preview of a 3D Imax movie called SeaRex. (Which has a very cool Web site, BTW.) In the email it was billed as a movie about "dinosaurs under water." They offered free tickets, and I had a previous email offering members free popcorn. We're all about free stuff, so you know we went. Though it was pouring rain, we parked a ways away in keeping with our free theme. : )

As we approached the Seattle Center campus, we noticed the Space Needle's top was shrouded in clouds.

We got there a few minutes early, so we checked out the exhibits in the foyer of the Boeing Imax theater. The kids played with the Theramin ... and a percussion instrument made out of tubes ... They also sat at a table that made them feel like little kids (or should I say littler kids?). And they played with funhouse mirrors. After awhile we headed down to the theater and got some good seats in the center.

The movie started v-e-r-y s-l-o-w-l-y and I wasn't sure where it was going. I was expecting prehistoric sea monsters right out of the gate. Instead, it was a bunch of actors playing French guys from the 1700s, and then some woman named Julie at a modern day aquarium with some really tall guy in funny clothes lecturing her/narrating. Curious. (At the end of the film, we learned this narrator was Georges Couvier, the father of vertebrate paleontology.)

Eventually, the film got going, there were SeaRex aplenty and the 3D effects were really great. I can say in all certainty creationists would NOT like this film whatsoever, as it give a pretty complete history of the earth from genesis (in the non biblical sense) to present day.

My biggest beef with the film came when there was long shot of a coastline supposedly during the Jurassic period. Problem was, I noticed a tiny movement on the cliffs. Turns out it was a human walking along with a golden retriever. Hmpf. Not too authentic, eh?

SPECIAL DELIVERY: The mailman came bearing gifts today. CJ tore into it and when he got the brown paper wrapping off he said, "Rice in a bag?"

He probably wasn't too disappointed since he likes rice so much, but I told him that I was pretty sure there was something other than what the box said inside. Sure enough, he opened it and found a couple of books, courtesy of Grandma and Grandpa, with a bunch of game codes and cheats. Score!

WE'RE NUMBER ONE: While yesterday was the first day of Major League Baseball, today was the first game on the Mariners 2011 schedule. You know that was cause for celebration in our house. We worked on baseball themed food (Venezuelan hot dogs, garlic fries, and some peanuts and Cracker Jack topped cupcakes). We even made grand salami on rye bread with mustard sandwiches as a nod to Dave Niehaus, the hall of fame broadcaster who was the voice of the Mariners for 34 seasons, until his death last November.

Opening Day

WE'RE TALKING BASEBALL: Today was the first day of the 2011 Major League Baseball season. It has been a long, harsh winter, so this harbinger of spring couldn't be more welcome.

We started our celebration off by reading "Take Me Out the the Ballgame." I picked the book up earlier this week at a used book store for 50 cents. I liked it because it's about a grandma who takes her two baseball lovin' granddaughters to the ball game. (Girls like baseball too!)

After a couple of pages of introducing the characters, this book by Maryann Kovalski just follows the words to the classic song in its title, so we sang it more than read it. As we paged through it, I couldn't help but notice the distinctive blue font on the players' uniforms and the abstract blue birds on their caps. When we were done, I predicted to the kids that the book's publisher was Canadian. I was right - it was published by a Canadian division of Scholastic.

This led to a conversation about Canada's two MLB teams, and my number one memory of the Toronto Blue Jays - the 1993 World Series. And you can't tell that story without talking about Mitch Williams. ...

I told CJ and Annabelle there were two things they should know about Mitch Williams. One was that their dad played baseball with him as a teenager. That impressed them. And the second thing they should know? That his nickname was "Wild Thing."

That made them laugh. I asked them why they supposed his nickname was Wild Thing. CJ guessed that it was because he threw beanballs. I told CJ that was close - that it was because of Williams' famous (infamous?) lack of control at times.

And then I told the kids about my Mitch Williams moment. The year was 1993, and I was on a camping trip. Everyone else had gone to bed and it was just me with the towering trees in nearly pitch darkness. There was snow on the ground and I was shivering over a dying fire, holding a transistor radio, begging the scratchy signal not to completely crap out as I listened to the Jays and the Phillies play game six of the World Series. When I heard that Williams was trotting in from the bullpen for the 9th inning, I was beside myself. "My god, don't the Phillies WANT to win?" I asked the evergreens. Though the Phillies were up 6-5, I knew that was about to change. Williams walked the lead off batter (Rickey Henderson), gave up a single to Paul Molitor, and then Carter brought them in with the shot heard 'round the world (well, at least from Toronto to campsite in the foothills in central Washington).

A GAME OF NUMBERS: One of the reasons I love baseball is because it's so full of stats and numbers. While we didn't get into computing OBPs, RBIs, slugging percentages and such today, we did play a number of Web based, baseball themed math games. First up was FunBrain's Math Baseball. I remember the kids playing this last year, and they had a time with even the easy level. This year we bumped it up to medium difficulty and had the type of problem set to "algebra" (meaning that instead of 4x3=? it might say 4x?=12). They were awarded anything from base hits to home run if they solved the problem. Missing it meant a strike. CJ winded up winning the game, 10 to 3, I do believe.

From there it was on to Batter's Up Baseball, which was very similar to the FunBrain game. Next, we visited Exploratorium's Science of Baseball page. Checking out their Fastball Reaction Time feature, we learned that a 90 mph reaches home plate in about one half a second and that the normal human reaction time is about .2 seconds. In the game, when the player sees "swing batter" on the screen, you are supposed to click your mouse ASAP. The site explained that when you see those words, "a signal in your eye sends a message to a part of your brain that controls your muscles. Your brain must then send a signal to your muscles, telling them to click. Although it takes some time for the signal to travel along each nerve, the major delay in your reaction time occurs at the junction points in between the different nerves involved, and between the nerves and the muscles in your fingers." CJ's way to circumvent the whole process was to click before "swing batter" appeared on the screen. :) Nice try, CeeJ. After a couple of strikes, we three were able to "hit" the ball. On the Exploratorium's "Scientific Slugger" page, we learned that the distance a batted baseball travels depends on two primary factors: the angle at which the ball leaves the bat, and how fast the ball is hit. It explained, "The speed of the ball depends on both the speed of the pitch and the speed of the bat. If the bat is standing still and the ball hits it, the ball will bounce off the bat with most, but not all, of the pitch speed. (Some of the energy is wasted in the friction of deforming the ball, making a sound, etc.) If the ball is standing still and is hit by the bat, it's given a good portion of the bat's speed. Combine the two and you can see that a pitched ball hitting a swinging bat gains a good portion of the sum of both the pitch and the bat speed." I used a pencil and a small bouncy ball to help demonstrate some of the principals, then we played the game on the site that let us adjust the angle of the ball, the strength of the swing, and the pitch's trajectory. We each left the yard a couple of times. ;) Next, we checked out a NPR story on why curveballs are so vexing. We listened to a short podcast called "When What You See Isn't What You Get," and checked out their fascinating visual interactive simulating how a curveball confuses the vision (you really should check it out!).

FROM HEAD TO TOE: Though the Baseball Hall of Fame had lots to explore, we settled upon their page about the history of baseball uniforms. We read about the history of shoes, shocks, pants, belts, patches, jerseys, numbers and names and last but not least, the baseball hat.

I asked the kids which hat they thought was most unlike the ones players wear today. They both chose #1. Then I showed them the Pittsburgh Pirates hats from the mid 1970s to the mid '80s. ;) I pointed out #3, the derby style hat (which never caught on with a Major League Club - surprise!) was the most different, IMHO.

POETRY MOMENT: Inspired by Opening Day and daily emails from Grandpa R featuring baseball haiku, we here at MPA tried writing our own baseball haiku today. First, I had the kids sit on the couch and with the Yankees vs. the Tigers on the big screen, I asked them to blurt out things they see and hear, as well as things they might smell and taste if they were at the ballpark. I wrote the words on a big sheet of craft paper (formerly a grocery sack). I asked them to write one poem that was two 5-7-5 haikus together. It's interesting how CJ & Annabelle's haikus really give a glimpse of what the game experience is from their perspective.

Here are CJ's:

People hit the ball

There are advertisements here

The ball is rough

The pitcher pitches

The stadium has candy

Watch it on TV

And Annabelle's:

The whack of the bat

The ball gets hit really hard

The pitcher throws hard

I love the candy!

There are really good hot dogs

Strike 3, you're out Ms!

I tried my hand at one, too:

Angry manager

Pompous, lazy umpire

Batter kicks the dirt

Mutters, "High, outside"

A fastball sails up and in

Punched out, caught looking

CUPPED CAKES: Last night we started an April Fool's Day-related project. The first step was making cupcakes. I used a recipe out of "Hello Cupcake" and followed it exactly, as it was the first time I've used it. The cupcakes looked good in the oven, and after the appointed baking time and a toothpick coming out clean, I pulled them out of the oven. And then disaster struck - they truly did become cup cakes, their centers completely concave. WTH? I went online to research possible causes. Under cooking, over mixing, baking at the wrong temperature were the top 3 suspects. I knew that none of those applied to me. I also knew that I'd followed the recipe to the letter. I'm always super duper careful to do that when trying a new recipe for the first time. My conclusion - it was a bad recipe, period. And so, I got to remake them this morning. This time I turned to Martha. I knew she wouldn't lead me wrong. Though I have to admit, I was really nervous after mixing the batter. It was runnier than any cake batter I've ever seen before. I though for sure I had another FAIL on my hands. Mercifully, this go round they baked into nice little domes. Phew. This afternoon we began decorating them. CJ and Annabelle were quite helpful. And, as Annabelle pointed out, "It's good to practice on things like this for when we have to do more intense stuff, like birthday cakes." That made me LOL. We were making three different types of decorated cupcakes, and one required a crust of corn flakes. Annabelle smashed 'em ... and CJ helped roll the frosted cupcakes in the flakes. ... I can't show you the finished product until tomorrow, for fear of ruining the surprise for a couple of potential readers.

THERE IS ANOTHER: Though NASA's space shuttle program is near its conclusion, there are other space-related enterprises on the horizon, including Sir Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic Here's a tour of the craft's inside (preceded by a 10 second commercial) By the looks and description of it, it's certainly NOT a vehicle that could get astronauts to the International Space Station. It's strictly a thrill ride - designed to take rich tourists on a five minute flight in zero gravity.

ANCIENT JAPANESE SECRET, HUH?: So today a Facebook post from Kennedy grabbed our attention. It read, "How I've gone 23 years in life not knowing this I have no idea: after dying and being taken back to the main menu screen in the original Super Mario Bros., if you press and hold A and then 'Start' you will start back up at the world where you died as opposed to World 1-1."

Surely that couldn't be true. I mean, all the hours and Hours and HOURS Rick and Ken spent playing Mario. Though there was no Internet back then, we read the Nintendo magazines, even called the Nintendo hotline, and never heard this tip. And we HAVE had the Internet for a solid 15 years now, and CJ and Annabelle are huge Mariophiles, studying up on him for hours on end, and we'd never heard that. Could it be true?! The answer is a resounding YES!!!! This changes EVERYTHING! ;)

Wet Wednesday

HERE AT LAST: We were happy to see the squash seedlings are finally starting to peek up through the soil in the egg carton. It's making a late appearance compared to the chives and cilantro.

READIN' DOWN THE STACK: Knowing we were heading out to Shoreline today, I wanted to round up library books to return there. We did a bit of reading so we'd have more to return. One title was a classic - "The Grouchy Ladybug" by Eric Carle. CJ, especially, liked the tough talking ladybug who really wasn't all that brave. We also read "Dragon Scales and Willow Leaves," a story about twins, one of whom has a very active imagination. For example, he sees dragon scales raining from the sky and vikings standing guard, while his sister sees falling leaves and a stand of corn stalks. The third book we read was "Casey Over There." It is the story of two brothers, one young and living in New York City, the other serving in the Army in France during World War I. They exchange letters, which take a long time to reach one another. The young brother also writes to Uncle Sam, and gets a reply from President Woodrow Wilson.

DIRECTOR'S CHAIR: At one point this morning CJ was jumping on his trampoline and flailing at the air wildly. I asked him what was up. He said he was practicing for "a movie I might make when I'm a grown up." The movie will be called "The Roundhouser." It has a subtitle - 'Starring DMAJOR.' " (Pronounced, duh-major, BTW. Interesting. ...) According to the future Producer/Director/Star, in the ads and trailers it will say, " 'Warning: Contains mild language.' " He continued, "It has half bad words and some real bad words. It also contains blood and violence," although he assures, "Don't worry we're just using fake blood."

Sounds like a blockbuster to me. :0

STILL ROCKIN': We missed science last week "thanks" to the flu, so we were glad to be back to school today. The kids continued their unit on rocks. Today they sorted them in a number of different ways and experimented to see what they'd look like wet.

HOT STUFF: Big news at our place this week has been the first ever image obtained from a spacecraft (Messenger) in orbit about Mercury. The shot was taken at 5:20 am EDT on Mar. 29, 2011. Image Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington

Apparently there are 363 additional images where this came from. We're looking forward to seeing them. I have to admit, I wasn't expecting Mercury to look like the photo above. I wasn't expecting a moon like cratered surface - I was picturing bubbling molten lava-like stuff, since Mercury is so close to the sun. Speaking of which, we talked about building a spacecraft that was going to orbit Mercury. "What would be important to consider?" I asked the kids. They both hit on the Mercury's proximity to the sun and how hot it had to be there, so the craft would have to be able to withstand soaring temps. Annabelle had the genius idea that since it would be so close to the sun, the craft should be solar powered!

SPACE YOUR FACE: Today, we also made time to make sure the kids' mugs are on board what is believed to be the last space shuttle mission ever, STS-135 in June. I uploaded their photo to NASA's Face in Space site.I sent this photo of the kids. If you don't want to upload a photo, you can still send your name via the link above.

BEDTIME STORY: Before he went to bed tonight, CJ and I read a story called "Best and Worst Handhelds" on Yahoo! The subject matter (portable video game systems) was right up his alley. And speaking of video games, today we popped into the Children's Hospital Thrift Store in Shoreline. It was our first trip there. It's not your typical Goodwill - it's mostly relative high end stuff - lots of crystal and designer women's clothes. But back in their one-shelf electronic section, I spied an X Box with a tag on it that said two things: "Works" and "$20". It came with a couple of controllers but no power cord, so we'll have to round one of those up, fingers crossed it actually DOES work. Oh, and it was 30 percent off, so it only set us back $14. It's either the best $14 we've ever spent, or a small donation to a good cause. Time will tell.

Typical Tuesday

SPROUTS: This morning we checked out the seeds the kids planted last week. The egg carton contains three kinds of seeds - chard, cilantro and squash. Most of the egg cups have sprouted by now, but there were three that hadn't. I asked the kids to check out the plantings, look at the corresponding chart they'd made regarding what's planted where, and come up with some observations. Together, they discovered that all of the spots where a squash seed had been planted haven't yet sprouted. Hmm. "What does that mean?" I asked them. They decided it means one of two things. Either there's something wrong with the squash seeds and they're not going to grow or the squash seeds take longer to germinate and we'll be seeing their sprouts soon. Here's hoping it's the latter. BRAIN PAIN: The new math book is challenging the kids more, which is great. Right off the bat it's asking them to add and subtract hundreds without putting pen to paper, by counting the tens and ones mentally. As he brought me his finished assignment to check, CJ said, earnestly, "You don't know how much work it took to get me this far." :)

MORE FUN WITH MAGNETS: Annabelle practically begged to do some magnet experiments today, so I dug the magnet science kit out and we did just that. First, the kids used a magnet to drag a little steel ball through a maze. They had no trouble. Next, the kids each dropped a paperclip into a glass of water. I asked them to guess whether or not they'd be able to drag the magnet through the water using a magnet on the outside of the glass. They didn't think they would. Initially, CJ was using a thick pint glass, and while the paperclip reacted slightly to the magnet, the glass was too thick to actually move it around. Annabelle had a much thinner glass, and she was able to drag her paperclip to and fro. Next, we taped a magnet to the top of a plastic car and the kids held another magnet in their hands. I challenged the kids to push the car forward with the magnet - without touching the magnet, of course. They quickly figured out they needed to use the same pole (say north to north) to push the car forward, and the opposite pole (north to south) to pull the car around. Last but not least, we did a fun experiment using doughnut shape magnets. I told the kids their job was to see if they could make the magnets float by stacking them in the proper orientation. They took turns putting the 'doughnuts' on the pencil pole, and sure 'nough, they levitated the magnets. Pretty darn cool! EVERYBODY POLKA!: The new unit in Musikgarten is about German music. No shortage of material to work with there. Their new unit CD started off with a cuckoo clock song but worked its way up through Strauss, Mozart, Haydn, Bach and more. Good stuff. When I dropped the kids off at music today, I noticed this plaque on the wall for the first time. I think I want to try to make one of these. It would be so easy, with some wire and sheet music and plaques recycled from Goodwill or Value Village. COLUMBIA CITY: We finally made it back to yoga today after missing a couple of weeks due to that darn flu.

We arrived a bit early, so we spent about 15 minutes in the used book store next door to the yoga studio. There, CJ scored something he's been looking for for months - a "Where's Waldo" book. It seems like every household had three of those in the '90s, but try as we might, we couldn't find a single copy in a Goodwill or Value Village for anything.

Naturally, we also picked up a few more books. Four hours after the fact, I think Annabelle's already read them all.

Blues Monday

Richmond Beach Saltwater Park, Shoreline, WA
BLUES CLUES: We cracked the math books first thing to start our school day. While the kids were working away, I decided to put on some music. I started with "Manic Monday" by the Bangles, followed by "Monday, Monday" by the Mamas and the Papas. Then it was a catchy hip hopish tune called "Monday" by Jimmy Dub. Then there was "Monday," a piano piece by Ludovico Einaudi, and lastly it was "Stormy Monday" by Humble Pie. Collectively, we decided that we were not fans of the last track - it went on and on and on (9 minutes worth). I told the kids that that's often the case with the blues - which led into a discussion about what the blues is. I gave them a loose description too largely based on my not really a blues fan perspective. To balance things out, we watched a great BrainPOP video on the topic. It (briefly) covered the history of the blues, including its origin with slaves in the American south more than 200 years ago. We learned that blues tunes are often about work or hardship or pain or love gone wrong.

The video told us that a traditional form is the Twelve Bar Blues, which has three lines of four measures apiece. The lyrics of the first line state the theme. The second line repeats that theme with, perhaps, a slight variation in words and in the third line the chords are changed and the words change - it's perhaps a twist or a punch line. There was an example in the video, and to back that up, I played Elvis singing "Steamroller Blues," which definitely fit the Twelve Bar format, as the first two lines are, "I'm a steamroller baby, I'm gonna roll all over you; I'm a steamroller baby, I'm gonna roll all over you." And the third is, "I'm gonna inject your soul with some sweet rock-n-roll and shoot you full of rhythm and blues." After that, I challenged the kids to write their own Twelve Measure blues tune. I told them to think of something or someone who causes them grief or hardship.

CJ wasted no time penning lines about a situation with his toys that has him down. CJ had Annabelle accompany him. His lyrics, in case you can't make them out, are: "All my Mega Man Retro Roto toys did not come with Build a Bot pieces. Oh my Mega Man Retro Toys did not come with Build a Bot pieces. Oh I hope I don't have to buy two of each one."
Try as she might, Annabelle couldn't think of anything to write about. I told her she's lucky if she doesn't have the blues. :) I suggested maybe it would be easier for her if she wrote a song from someone else's perspective. She decided to give Kirby the dog a voice. She wrote (and sang) "I have doggie bone blues and they're killin' me right now. Oh, I got dog bone blues and they're killin' me right now. At least I'm gonna get one soon. I really want one from a cow."
TAGGERS: It was supposed to rain all day. Mercifully, the forecast was wrong. While Christian and I worked to make sure the south side of the house didn't collapse (longish, "funny" story there involving a completely rotten main support post), the kids played in the alley. At one point I heard CJ say he was doing "water graffiti." I looked and saw Annabelle and he were using the hose nozzle to write letters and words. A bit later he declared "CJ's Service Shop" was open and he washed scooters. SHORELINE SHORE: This afternoon we headed out to Shoreline to check out the Sears Outlet in search of a dishwasher. Since we had to drive that far, we decided to make a bit of a field trip out of it. We headed to a Puget Sound coastal neighborhood on the west end of Shoreline called Richmond Beach. There, we found a terrific park.We had to cross a foot bridge over the railroad tracks to reach the beach. As luck would have it a super long, fast moving freight train was going under just as we crossed. If you look closely at the photo, you can see the train stretches all the way around the point at the right of the picture. Standing watch over the water was "Welcoming Figure," depicting a man and woman in Coast Salish style. The plaque on the statue says the beach was once known as q' q' e' waidet (k-eh k-EH wai dut), for a tobacco like plant growing naturally at the site. Above, CJ looks across at Whidbey Island. As coincidence would have it, the playground at the park was blue, in keeping with today's theme.