Gettin' Loose

This just in to the MPA newsroom at 7:44 tonight: Annabelle has her first loose tooth! Warning alarms have been heard sounding at Tooth Fairy Central.

Stay tuned for further developments!

MIME TIME: Still wearing her PJs this a.m., I caught Annabelle quietly going through some interesting poses. When I asked what she was doing, she explained she was being a mime.

(Hey, anyone out there besides me remember Shields & Yarnell? I couldn't help myself - I had to Google 'em and found out they're still at it. How 'bout that.)

ONLINE ADVENTURES: Looking for something new and different to do, I pointed my browser to Scholastic's Online Activities and Interactive Learning. I selected the Maggie's Learning Adventure option and found a couple of math exercises that looked good. I also spied a rather unfortunate typo:

Hmm. Maybe the misspelling is on purpose - just part of editing Dan's copy?

The kids each played "Dude's Dilemma" and "Around the World in 80 Seconds," testing their addition, subtraction and multiplication skills. It was fun and really great flash-card like practice.

FLOATING ON AIR: One of Annabelle's favorite things is balloons. She's constantly blowing them up and batting them around the house. This morning one of her balloons got away from her, landing on a plateau she couldn't easily reach. So she found some kind of rod laying around the house and used it to fetch her balloon. "Hey look! I made a simple machine!" She declared.

Later, we played "monkey in the middle" (a/k/a keep away) with the balloon.

SUM MOHR SPELLING: Today we debuted a new list of 26 frequently used words. I had the kids write them twice and then we did a pre-test spelling bee. They did great, with only a couple missteps. CJ, especially, was on fire. ;) I suggested if he got stuck, he try to write the word in the air with his finger. It really seemed to help him out.

PILING ON: Because we already have so many plant starts I don't know what to do with them, we decided the prudent thing to do would be to plant more stuff today. : /

But seriously, CJ had scored a pack of free seeds at Sky Nursery last week (thanks to a Jr. Gardener coupon), and we have to get those going. He chose a hybrid mix of sunflowers, so we'll see what transpires. Sunflowers are so showy - and I think kids, especially, love 'em because there's something sort of magical about a flower that's taller than you. : )

ONLY IN SEATTLE?: I get a daily email offering one hugely discounted Seattle activity a day (for instance, the helicopter ride I bought but we've yet to redeem). Today's special - trapeze lessons. That's right, you too, can be a circus freak, er, I mean circus artist!

Believe it or not, Seattle has not one, not two but at least three circus schools that I know about. Christian and I were talking about the circus school proliferation just this weekend, so I forwarded him the email. He replied that as a result of the email, the lines "He floats through the air with the greatest of ease, the daring young man on the flying trapeze," were going through his head all morning, and noted those are the only lines of the song he knows. I had to imagine those are the only two lines of the song most of us know. So, of course, I had to do some research. I found the Burl Ives version lyrics and it turns out the song's about the trapeze artist stealing a girl away from the songwriter: "He flies through the air with the greatest of ease, The daring young man on the flying trapeze, His movements are graceful, all the girls he does please, And my love he has taken away."

Turns out the 1868 song is about Jules Léotard, the famous French trapeze artist who made his music hall debut in 1861 in London's West End. These days, he's probably most famous for the attire he invented and which bears his name - the leotard.

(In case you're wondering, Léotard died at age 28 - but not from a trapeze fall. An infection did him in.)

GETTING HIS 'GOOGLE' ON: We recently bought three cacti, and CJ is mildly obsessed with them and cacti in general at the moment. This afternoon, he kept demanding to know how many types of cacti there are. "Is it dozens? Hundreds? Thousands?" Yes, probably, maybe ... I was elbow deep in something in the kitchen so I suggested he type in 'cacti how many types' as search terms and see what he could find out searching the Internet. The inquiry turned up dozens of articles, but as we scanned the first three or four, none of them came out and definitively said how many types there are. And the one that did stick in a number ranged from 200 to 2,000. Hmpf. Not very helpful. We'll have to dig deeper, clearly.

The real point of the story is, I do believe this marks the first time CJ has Googled something himself. He's performed similar operations (searching for a YouTube video about video games), but this is the first time he's flown solo on a WWW search. I suspect there will be lots more of this to come, as I'm trying to instill in them the fact that "don't know" isn't a very good answer. Much preferred is, "Don't know, but we can find out. ..."

$TORY $TARTER: I was going to use a Scholastic story starter today, but instead decided to use a line that had been rolling around in my head all morning, that being the Barenaked Ladies' "If I Had a Million Dollars." So when I had some 'alone' time with each of them during swimming lessons today, I asked them to write a couple of sentences about what they'd do if they had a million dollars. Annabelle wrote, "If I had a million dolers, I would buy toys. I would buy action figures for CJ." Sweet. :) Later in the day, during Annabelle's lesson, CJ wrote that if he had a million dollars, he'd buy three more Legendary Pokemon action figures (the ones he needs to complete his collection). Not a bit altruistic, but honest. ;)

Growing Up

MIND YOUR PEAS: First thing this morning, Annabelle exclaimed, "Look at the PEAS!!!!"

I could see why she was so excited - they appeared to have nearly doubled overnight. (They get much bigger and we're going to have to start stringing them up pretty soon!) And the beans are busting out all over, too - to the point we've got a bit of a problem. It's too early to put 'em in the ground, but I think they need bigger pots. So I guess we're going to have to do some kind of intermediary potting.


CJ's apple seed experiment continues to impress us, and Annabelle's watermelon seems to be off to a good start, too. No sign of tomato plants yet, but hopefully something's happening under that potting soil.



WORD UP: It was a little cold outside today, which meant it was a little cold on the main floor of the house too (our basement is still uninsulated, and that makes for a cold main floor on many days). So, we headed upstairs to do some word work - specifically spelling. They both aced the spelling bee we held. So tomorrow, it will be time for a new word list. Onward, upward!


RIGHTEOUS RAILROAD: Part of celebrating women's history month, BrainPOP Jr. is offering a video about Harriet Tubman, a hero of the Underground Railroad. We watched the animated biography twice, and then the kids took two comprehension tests. Fortunately, Super Fail didn't quite make it back, but CJ, especially, could have done a whole lot better on the test. I think I need to talk to CJ about test taking strategies.


One thing I learned in the film is that Harriet Tubman's name was not originally Harriet Tubman. She was born Araminta (Minty) Ross, in Maryland around 1820. Tubman was her married name, but apparently she also chose to change her first name around the time she married a free black man, John Tubman.

We talked about what it meant to be a slave, and how Harriet Tubman took huge risks and broke the law, and how sometimes breaking the law can be the right thing to do.

SPRING TRAINING: For get up/get out/get moving time today, we headed to nearby Bay View Park. The kids played on the playground for about a half hour while I walked Kirby. Then, we moved to the upper park, where the baseball field is.

Crews have been working hard to get the field ready for baseball season. It looked great. There's even a fully enclosed (netted) batting cage. The kids played in the cage for awhile before moving to the field for a simulated inning or two. We really need to remember to take a bat and ball and some mitts with us next time.

WHOOO: Tuesday is yoga day. One of the things the kids learned this afternoon is the owl pose, which Annabelle demonstrates here. I think perhaps it's called the owl because her head is turned around so far. ...

Ground Cover

HERE, FISHY FISHY: I woke up this morning thinking about steelhead. "Isn't March when the steelhead run?" I pondered. Seems like that was the case all the years I live in Clark County. Perusing the Internet, Christian found a chart that backed up my inkling (it showed February and March as the height of steelhead migration season at the locks). So we decided that today we'd take a field trip to the Hiram Chittenden Locks - a couple miles north of our home.

To date, we've always done the shove and shuffle to the locks (translation: Christian and I pushing CeeJ and Bee in strollers). Today, by god, I declared the kids were riding their bikes to and fro - about a 4 mile round trip (our route on the right, in blue).

We struck out in 40-degree temperatures, feeling the chill having been spoiled with nearly 60 degree temps this weekend. We got down to the Locks certain we'd see steelhead galore. Yeah, well, notsomuch. We didn't see so much as a fingerling of any sort. That said, it was still totally worth the trip. Since we were the only ones (and I mean The Only Ones) down at the Locks today, we were easily able to hear the educational audio tracks playing in the underground fish ladders.

On the way home we came across a crew of workers repaving a street near our home. We stopped to watch part of the process, including a roller, a double-trailered truck with hydraulic lifts, and the asphalt spreading machine. It was a fascinating, loud and stinky process. (I can't help worry/wonder about those workers breathing that all day long. That can't be good for you.)

BROWN-EYED GIRL: Annabelle has mentioned from time to time that her eyes feel "blurry" whe she's using the computer. So we thought it prudent, of course, to take her to an optometrist today to see how bad things are or aren't.

Christian took Bee to her eye appointment (she's 20-20, yay!) while CJ & I wandered the Capital Hill block. Happily, we discovered Red Balloon, a great toy store. Within the store was an m&ms station - featuring all sorts of "exotic" colors the kids have never seen before.

When we got home, we took stock of our exotic inventory, and found that we had purchased 14 different colors of m&ms. We made a list of each color and the kids ranked their favorites from 1 to 14. CJ's favorite was dark blue. Bee's was dark pink. Interestingly, both CeeJ and Bee's ranked yellow as their least favorite. Personally, I'd rank teal/aqua as my fave. Christian opted for maroon.

LET IT SNOW: One of the cool things we found at Red Balloon today was Insta-Snow, which says it expands 100 times its original size. I thought it an appropriate purchase since we actually had few hundred snowflakes fall today! It was a test tube with a mystery ingredient. Christian read the fine print and found out it is the same ingredient that are used in ultra absorbent disposable diapers. That took some of the magic out of it. ;)

After the toy store/eye appointment, we made it a point to stop by Cal Anderson Park - a spot we'd never been before. It was deserted in today's frigid temperatures, but it wasn't hard to imagine why Forbes called one of the nation's best parks in 2009. It's an expansive oasis in the middle of a very densely populated neighborhood full of condos and apartments.

CJ & Bee checked out the water volcano, and desperately wished it was upwards of 60 degrees out instead of in the 40s. In addition to the volcano, there were multiple large wading pools that I have to imagine are packed in the summer.

The kids checked out the playground equipment, and on our way out we found a pair of oversized chess boards.

GETTING HIS GEEK ON: We stopped by McMenamins in the Fremont neighborhood for a late lunch, early dinner. While there, because we're nerds, we were discussing the fact that Pi Day (3/14) is coming up. Using French fries, CJ provided a visual for us.

PUZZLE PEOPLE: I got an email today from http://www.download-jigsaw-puzzles.com/, letting me know he'd used a picture I took of an orangutan during a field trip we took to the Woodland Park Zoo recently. So, we gave the easy (100 piece) version of the jigsaw a shot.

Play Day

LET'S PUT ON A SHOW!!: I don't know what you were doing at 7 this morning, but we here at MPA were delving into the dramatic arts.

Weeks ago, I'd checked out a library book called "Small Plays for Special Days." It is a collection of holiday-themed skits. Even though Feb. 14 has past, Annabelle wanted to tackle, "Good Day Giant - a Play for Valentine's Day."

So she (with some help from me) set about making some props. We had to make two signs, two valentines, a giant ogre eye headband, and a sash with the name "Giant" on it. Then we had to make copies of the lines so they each had a script.

Tonight, the kids did the play for their dad. It had several stutters and stops, but they powered through. After they finished and the applause died down, CJ said to me, "You need to give me two sheets of blank paper so we can give Daddy our autographs." : )

COWPOKES: Things are moving right along at Musikgarten. I'm impressed with how quickly the kids are picking up and replicating rhythms, and I don't just mean 4/4 timing - some of the stuff is pretty darn sophisticated.

Before we parents were let in on the action, apparently the kids did some line dancing today. I would have liked to have seen that!

BIG SKY COUNTRY: The weather was gorgeous today and it's supposed to be even nicer tomorrow, so I thought it would be a great time to take a field trip out to Sky Nursery - a place in Shoreline that I've been meaning to visit for about two years now. So, we made the 30 minute drive out there and I'm glad we did. It was a gardener's paradise. :)

We hadn't been there long when Annabelle spied Jr. Gardeners Headquarters. There were a couple of activities there, as well as a place to sign up for the junior gardeners' newsletter (which we did). CJ found a current copy of the newsletter and discovered a coupon for a free packet of seeds in it. Excellent! Of course we couldn't just get one pack. We walked out with carrots, a few kinds of sunflowers, and peppers. We also bought an artichoke start. And a couple of blueberry bushes. And a lemon tree ... (OK, so I went a little cRaZy. At least I wasn't blowing the $ at one of Shoreline's many, many casinos.)

In addition to thousands of kinds of plants (CJ was especially fond of the cacti), the place had lots of cool statuary and other garden art. At the back of the grounds the kids found a bridge over a koi pond, so we hung out there for awhile.

GAMER GEM: CJ would like to share some important information with MPA blog readers regarding Kirby Super Star Ultra for Nintendo DS. "First in the final four is Masked Dedede. Second in the final four: Wham Bam Jewel. Third in the final four: Galacta Knight. Last but not least in the final four - Marx Soul."

I would love to tell you all what this means, exactly, but I'm really not sure.

EXCUSE ME? I was just telling Christian something and Annabelle turned to me and said, "Shh! It's starting!" - 'it' being the Oscar-nominated "Food, Inc." She's keenly interested in watching it. We're about 15 minutes into it and it's riveting.

Go for the Gold

GOOD GRAFFITI: I thought I'd mix up the spelling 'drudgery' today by having the kids go graffiti artist with their words. We headed upstairs and instead of a verbal spelling bee, I had the kids write the words on the glass of the master bedroom door. One tiny slip up aside, they nailed all 24 new (frequently used!) words. Excellent. Time to add some more words to the mix!

PERFECT TENS: We did a couple of math worksheets today dealing with place value. The kids had to figure out how many tens and ones are in a number (for instance 38 would = three tens and eight ones). They had to noodle it for a couple seconds on the first couple ones, but were breezing through by the end.

nASHUnUL gRaMMeR dAE: Turns out today is National Grammar Day. (At which I can't help but wonder, 'Shouldn't EVERY day be grammar day?')

That aside, there's an entertaining Web site that's event central. A highlight is "The King of Ing" by Nancy Wright, winner of the 2010 National Grammar Day contest

I love the King of Ing
He makes me want to sing
Add him to an action word
And it's a gerund... now a thing!

Is that not brilliant?!

Also not to be missed - the playlist of grammatically offensive songs. The Stones' (I Can't Get No) "Satisfaction" is on it of course, as is "Lay Lady Lay."

LIBRARY DAY: Thursday is ballet-and-library day. We had a couple of books that had to go back, so we read 'em quick like this morning. One was "Arctic Thaw" by Peter Lourie. Judging the book by its cover, it appears to be a picture book. But when you open it up, it's more like a National Geographic article - pretty photos but text heavy. This is not a criticism, of course, just an observation.

We also read "The Story Behind the Toilet," a gem of a book by Elizabeth Raum. It outlines the truly fascinating history of toilets, from ancient Egypt to modern day. The kids loved it, and so did I.

Our library stop today ended up being the "exotic" Broadview branch, as it was near Home Depot, a destination of ours today. What a nice library. Nice architecture and a great collection and it was sooooooo quiet! After looking around, I realize why. I was the only one there with kids. : )

This library must have Magical Powers, as there, CJ uncharacteristically had no interest in the DVDs - he was all about the books! I had to take a picture to document this momentous development. (Look, the DVDs are to his immediate right -and he's totally fixated on his [Pokemon] book!)

But back to ballet for a moment. This afternoon, Annabelle wanted to demonstrate her "ballet hands" for me. I was glad she did. :) LITERACY OLYMPICS: Tonight we attended a special event - a Literacy Olympics at the school where CeeJ & Bee's big bro Rick works. The kids were VERY excited about attending.

It started with free hot dogs, and then it was on to fun and games with an Olympic theme. CJ and Annabelle teamed up to complete Olympic-themed tasks, including a word search, and a game where they had to use their bodies to form letter shapes. MEAN MACHINE: Yesterday, I discovered a geek-tastic music video (thanks to reader Undine). For whatever reason, I've always wanted to do some ridiculously over-the-top domino set up knock down. Well these guys (OK Go, with the help of a whole lotta friends, I'm guessing) do that a million times better.

CJ and Annabelle are captivated by it. I have little doubt you will be too ... NOTE: Click on the video quick TWICE so it launches in a new screen (if you don't you're going to miss half the action as half the frame is cut off here in blogger).

Double Dipping

LAVENDER BLUE DAFFODIL-Y: The first thing I did this morning (we're talking 5:30 a.m.) was to head for the daffodils to see if they'd picked up any color from yesterday's experiment. And sure 'nuff, the daffodil CJ had placed in blue water was showing bluish tinges around the perimeter of its outer petals. Exciting stuff!

Sadly, the flower Bee had placed in red water wasn't showing and sign of change this a.m. - and I was not looking forward to telling Sleeping Beauty the bad news once she rolled out of the rack. ...

At 7:30 a.m., CJ, who had been up for over an hour, suddenly recalled yesterday's flower experiment and asked to see his daffodil. By then, it had picked up even more color, with some in evidence of veining on the petals and a few blue tinges on the cupped/interior part of the daffodil (I'll bet there's a name for this part ...) AND Annabelle's flower was now displaying the tiniest twinge of pink on one of its petals (phew!) and as the day wore on, it picked up a few more flecks, but it didn't take on color the way the one in the blue water did. By tonight, CJ's flower was even blue in the stigma/top of the pistil. [BTW, Undiné , I'm counting on you to tell me if I'm mis-IDing plant parts! :-) ]

Naturally, I'm wondering why the daffodil in blue morphed faster and more. My *theory* is because its stem is bigger, perhaps giving a superior avenue for the blue to travel? Any other ideas out there?

SECOND SET: Based on the results of this morning's spelling bee, the kids seem to have mastered the second spelling list thrown at them (in, pin, win, thin, on, pond, fun, run, spin). While that's great news, of course, it occurs to me that these words are not among those they use most frequently when they're writing. I'd much prefer that they mastered words like you, they, what, when, where, because, went, villain, underpants ... you know, words that pop up in almost every bit of writing they do. : )

My friend Linda is a longtime primary teacher and she shared with me that in teaching spelling she has, in fact, concentrated on frequently-used words first, which makes good sense. So I started poking around the Internet and on a Rochester Community School page I found this claim: "Of all the words we read and write, it is estimated that approximately 50% are accounted by 100 highly frequent words." Fortunately, the article includes a table called First Grade Wall Words (for display in a classroom) with 124 commonly-used words. It looks good and I'm going to switch to using it for our next few spelling lists and tests. I gave CeeJ and Bee their first list of 24 today.

STAR SPANGLED SONG: On March 3, 1931, the United States officially adopted "The Star-Spangled Banner" as its national anthem. That's worth talkin' about.

I started our campus conversation about the song by playing a 19th century instrumental version (MP3) of the Star-Spangled Banner, performed on vintage instruments in the National Museum of American History's collection. The anthem was arranged and played as it would have been heard in 1854. I asked the kids if they knew the song and/or its title.

"I recognize it. ... It's the song from Muzzy!" Annabelle guessed, incorrectly. But I had to give her credit. Tonally, it had a very similar sound. As the music progressed, reaching the "and the rockets' red glare ..." part, Annabelle said, "Wait isn't this the song they hold up flags and march?" Getting closer ...

When I played a more contemporary version of the song (Whitney Houston's rousing rendition from Super Bowl XXV, long before she became such a hot mess), the anthem definitely rang a bell - at least with Annabelle. "Don't we hear this at the Mariners' games?" she asked immediately following "Oh say can you see?" "And don't we put our hands over our hearts when we hear this?" Bee continued. Bingo!

"It's the Star Spangled Banner, our national anthem," I told them, before launching into the history of the song. As the Smithsonian's wonderful Web site dedicated to the anthem explains, "On September 14, 1814, U.S. soldiers at Baltimore’s Fort McHenry raised a huge American flag to celebrate a crucial victory over British forces during the War of 1812. The sight of those 'broad stripes and bright stars' inspired Francis Scott Key to write a song* (see below) that eventually became the United States' national anthem."

Fortunately, I found a series of Star Spangled lesson plans and links on the National Endowment for the Humanities Web site. According to the NEH, the original flag inspiring Francis Scott Key to write the Star-Spangled Banner was made by Mary Pickersgill for Fort McHenry. It measured 30 x 42 feet (about one-quarter the size of a basketball court!). Each star was about two feet across. Pickersgill's design became the official U.S. flag on May 1, 1795. With the addition of two stars for Vermont (admitted as the 14th state on March 4, 1791) and Kentucky (admitted as the 15th state on June 1, 1792), this version of the flag lasted 23 years - from presidents George Washington (1789-1797) through James Monroe (1817-1825). Today, the inspirational flag (pictured above) from Fort McHenry hangs in the Smithsonian's American History Museum.

I printed out the first stanza of the anthem (the only one sung at almost all occasions), a copy of Key's original manuscript (photo to the right) as well as a copy of the first printed edition combining words and music (Baltimore: Thomas Carr, 1814, and pictured below). I thought it might be fun for the kids to see the sheet music reproduction because, thanks to Musikgarten, they are becoming familiar with musical notation.

* While we're talking about musical notes and such, I can't help but wonder why so many know Francis Scott Key's name, but virtually no one knows who John Stafford Smith is. Smith (ironically, an Englishman) composed "The Anacreontic Song," which is the tune Keys' poem (originally titled "In Defense of Fort McHenry") was eventually married to, thereby creating the anthem. I couldn't help but notice that even the SMITHSONIAN'S Web site credits Key with writing a song, when in actuality, he wrote a poem, which turned into lyrics. Key did NOT write the music. But I digress ...

During the course of our anthem conversation, we talked about how and why today's flag looks different than the one Francis Scott Key wrote about. And we talked about protocol when singing the national anthem. Then it was time to sing along - we found a karaoke version on YouTube and the kids belted it out (Ideally, I'd insert some screechy outtakes *here.*)

I certainly wish our anthem was as singer friendly as "O Canada."

I think we'll keep practicing the anthem - after all, it's less than 6 weeks to the home opener of the Mariners. It would be cool if they could memorize it before then.

MISSED OUT: Via a Pacific Science Center Facebook post, I learned today is World Maths Day (yes, they use an "s" at the end of Math for some reason). In the worldwide event, students at home and school play against other students from around the globe in live games of mental arithmetic. Each game lasts for 60 seconds and students can play up to 500 games, earning points for each correct answer. The students who answer the most questions appear in the World Maths Hall of Fame.

Apparently more than 2 million students from 37,000 schools in 200 countries registered for today's event. In 2009, participants answered a combined 452,681,681 questions correctly.

Of course, I hopped right to the event Web site from the Facebook post, only to find out that registration was closed. : ( I sure wish I'd known about it sooner (like even yesterday). We would have been all over that. We will definitely have to keep it on the radar for next year!

OFF THE DEEP END: A couple of days ago I got the call that a space had opened up in a "kinder" (ages 4 and 5) swim class, which meant that now Annabelle can get her swim on too! (Regular readers will recall Miss Bee was mighty peeved last week upon learning CJ got to take swim lessons and she didn't because no space was available.)

While stewing on the wait list, Bee had missed the first lesson, where they grouped kids based on swimming ability. So tonight, all the kids made a beeline for their teachers from last week, which left Bee standing alone alongside the pool, not knowing quite where to go. Finally, she talked her way into a group of all boys, and the smallest out of 5 or 6 groups total. It became clear why the group was the smallest. These were the full-on swimming kids. While the two dozen other kinders stayed in 3-foot water, Bee's group migrated to calmer waters - the 5-7 foot deep portion of the pool. Yikes!

I knew that Annabelle had grown quite confident in her abilities when we were at Nonnie & Bops' this past Christmas, but it has been 2.5 months since she'd been in the water, and she's still a rookie when it comes to swimming. That said, she's also stubborn and nearly fearless in the water and so ... it turned out just fine!!! She had a blast. At least three times from all the way across the aquatic center, I could hear her say with confidence, "Oh, I've done that - at my Nonnie and Bops'!" :)

While it's great that Bee's getting in on the action, the bad news is that the opening wasn't for the kinder class held at the same time as CJ's age 6 and up class. So for the next month or so, Wednesdays will mean two trips to and from Ballard. And I'll have to rip dripping wet Bee from the pool at exactly 5:30 so that I can get CJ to Tae Kwon Do on time on Queen Anne at 6. Good times.

On the silver lining side, I realized that this will mean I do get a half hour of one-on-one time with each of them. Today, I chose to use that time working on, well, times, using an idea grampaR suggested in comment on a previous post.

I drew up a table,10 columns wide and 10 rows deep and had them each write the numbers 1-10 across the top margin (X) and 1-10 down the lefthand margin (Y). Then, the task at hand was plugging in the correct answer to X*Y in boxes. CJ saw the potential for patterns emerging all over the place immediately - I mean while he was writing the second number. Bee was really good at recognizing the communitive nature of the table (2x3 = 3x2). And "Schoolhouse Rock" songs sure came in handy for both of them while working on this.

It was a great exercise and we'll reference those tables lots in the days-weeks-months to come.

AMAZING DISCOVERY OF THE DAY: While researching the national anthem, one site listed the Internet Public Library as a resource. My oh MY. Why has no one told me about this before?

On its "about us" page, IPL describes itself as "a public service organization and a learning/teaching environment. To date, thousands of students and volunteer library and information science professionals have been involved in answering reference questions for our 'Ask an IPL2' Librarian service and in designing, building, creating and maintaining the IPL2's collections."

There is an ABUNDANCE of reference information, as well as games, science fair ideas, arts and crafts, cultural information. Fabulous. Really, really fabulous.

THE WHITE STUFF: According to their Facebook profile, it's Oreo's birthday today! (Yes, I'm a Facebook fan of Oreos. It's for the children, I swear.)

You know we here at MPA could not let this momentous occasion go unnoticed. It was of special import to CJ, who has what one might call a passion for Oreos.

It was 1912 when Nabisco introduced their new cookie - two chocolate disks with white stuff in the middle. An Oreo hasn't changed much over the decades, save for a slightly different design on the chocolate disks. (An interesting aside, oddly, even Nabisco isn't sure of the exact genesis of the Oreo's name.)

Naturally, to celebrate this glorious birthday, we had to go buy some gooey Oreo Cakesters and Oreo ice cream. As luck would have it, we had some Golden Oreos and an Oreo-inspired matching shapes game on hand. After dinner, we sang "Happy Birthday" to the Oreo cookie and the kids dug into a sweet treat.

As one might imagine, Weird Al's "The White Stuff" has been running through my head alllll daaaaaaaaay looooooong.

Celebrating Seuss

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MR. GEISEL: March 2 marks the birthday of Theodor (that's right, no 'e' on the end) Seuss Geisel, much more commonly known as Dr. Seuss. Naturally, this meant we had to started the morning by listening to/singing along with the Grinch's theme song (You're a bad banana with a greasy black peel Mister Gri-inch!) sung by Thurl Ravenscroft, the original voice of Tony the Tiger. Oh yeah, nothing like a little Grinch to get one's day off to a sunny start!

We own a copy of Dr. Seuss' "If I Ran the Circus," so the kids and I read that together. It, of course, features that sing-songy, tongue-twisty rhyming style so distinctly Seussian. I made sure to point out to the kids that often Dr. Seuss would bend the rules, making new words as he went along so that his verse would work. For instance, "Why, ladies and gentlemen, youngsters and oldsters, Your heads will quite likely spin right off your shouldsters!"

Thanks to the magic of YouTube, we enjoyed animated versions of several Seuss stories, including Green Eggs and Ham, where the moral of the story is, "It's good to try new things," sums up Annabelle.

"It's a matter of taste," said CJ. "You never know what it will taste like," CJ concluded.

We also watched The Cat in the Hat (part 1 & part 2) where the message is that if you want loads of excitement and fun, you should let strangers in the house while your parents are gone. :-0

I learned a couple of interesting factoids about Dr. Seuss today, including that his father and grandfather were brewers in Massachussets, where Geisel (1904-1991) was born. I also learned that the impetus for Geisel's pen name has its roots in youthful indescretion. While attending Dartmouth College, Geigsel wrote for the school's humor magazine, Jack-o-Lantern, eventually becoming its editor-in-chief. However, when he was caught drinking (and it was the era of Prohibition) he was forced to quit writing for the magazine. His workaround: Writing under the pen name Seuss, his middle name (and his mother's maiden name).

On Seussville, the official Web site of all things Seussian, we found an online game where the kids had to match characters with the title of the Seuss book they "starred" in.
(black and white photo of Ted Geisel above from the Library of Congress)

READ ACROSS AMERICA: Celebrating Dr. Seuss' birthday has morphed into a nationwide event. March 2 is also the National Education Association's "Read Across America" day.

In the course of reading about Read Across America, I found a few more great resources for future reference. They include ReadWriteThink , a partnership of the International Reading Association, the National Council of Teachers of English, and others. There are lesson plans, activities, games, and more on their content rich Web site.

I also discovered Reading Rockets, a national multimedia project that looks at how young kids learn to read, why some struggle, and how adults can help. Its site content includes contests, curriculum ideas, teaching strategies, videos and podcasts (including authors of popular children's books). It just goes wonderfully on and on. (Thankfully, I was able to become a Facebook fan of both sites, so it will be easier for me to a) remember they exist and b) prompt me to check them out more often.

Yet another site we discovered is A to Z Teacher Stuff, featuring thousands of pages and hundreds of lesson plans to explore.

To shine the spotlight even more brightly on reading today, we turned to a BrainPOP video about study and reading skills. The entertaining animated film featured handy tips about how to get the most out of what you're reading (including skimming, taking notes, talking about it with others). Good stuff for the kids to know, for sure.

DAFFYDILS: Last night, while perusing The Columbian newspaper online, I came across a story about an old homestead on Felida (our old stomping grounds!) where around 15,000 daffodils grow on 1 3/4 acres each year. The public is invited to pick them for 50 cents a dozen.

I read the comments about the story, and one writer mentioned, "When we were kids we would put food coloring in the water and the Daffodils would pick some of it up and get stripes in them."

Hmm. That sounded like an interesting (and simple!) experiment for the MPA student body, so as we took our midday walk, I kept an eye out for daffodils growing on city property. Fortunately, I found a pair under a tree in Bayview Park. I hesitated for a moment before picking them (after all, they belong to the whole city, right?), but then I decided that it would be OK of I "worked" for them, so I spent the next 15 minutes pulling ivy off tree trunks. Debt to society paid. :)

We brought the daffodils home, made a clean cut on their stems and CJ chose to put his in blue water. Annabelle chose red (hoping it would actually turn into a pink flower). The flowers have been in the colored water for seven hours now, and they haven't perceptibly changed. But we're not giving up on them yet. We'll see if any magic happens overnight. (It also occurs to me tonight as I re-read the color-striped comment that perhaps they were actually watering the daffodil bulbs in the ground with colored water. Hmm. Maybe I was too quick to pick the daffodils!)

THE LITTLE THINGS: This afternoon I overheard height-challenged Annabelle say, "Darn it! I can't get my banana in the compost bin." CJ immediately stopped what he was doing and said, "Here, let me help you with that," and went in for the assist. Nice.

GREEN FEAST: For dinner tonight, we obviously had to have Green Eggs and Ham. As soon as we got home from yoga, we whipped our kitchen into a green frenzy. First we got the ham steak frying in a pan, and Annabelle slathered a sea of green industrial strength food coloring atop it! The ham went into the warming oven and then it was time to scramble some eggs and flood them with green, too.

Because I had a very strong inkling that CJ would be down with neither green eggs nor ham, I also made some green pancakes for good measure. As it turned out, it's a good thing I did. CJ did give green eggs and ham the tiniest little try, but that was it. On the other hand, Thing 1 asked for seconds!

BTW, if you haven't seen or heard Jesse Jackson read Green Eggs and Ham, you NEED to.

ENEMIES OF THE STATE: I couldn't help but notice the headline "Homeschooling: German Family Gets Political Asylum in U.S." on the front page of Yahoo! news today. It was an interesting article.