What a Difference a Day Makes

This morning we got an early start on our school work. Before 9 a.m. we were at the table, diving into Musikgarten homework. First, the kids had to transcribe some notes, work on memorizing a song's lyrics and play a tune a couple of different ways on their glockenspiel.

We were on our third or fourth go through on the glock song when I hear the sound letting me know I had new email. I hopped over to the computer to find this:

Thank you for being one of the first families to attend the (Shoreline Home Education Exchange) Q & A yesterday. Because you have completed that prerequisite, I am happy to let you know we have unexpected openings for your students beginning next week. If you are still interested in the program, please let me know as soon as possible as I need to fill the spots before Friday.

Huh wha??? Srsly?!?!?!

I could hardly believe my eyes. When I first contacted and expressed interest in the program, I was told the wait list was around 100. Yesterday, the program director said there was a lengthy list but was more encouraging, saying that the list does have movement. But egad, we never expected this!!!

I immediately shot back a "What do we need to do to make this happen?" email, followed by a call about 5 minutes later since I hadn't heard back on the email.

So our morning's schedule changed - we wound up ripping up to Shoreline (it's a half hour away) and picking up enrollment forms. When the woman at the front desk handed me the Kisky family folder, I felt like we'd been awarded Golden Tickets from the middle of a Wonka bar!

As we left, a man in the lobby saw me clutching enrollment forms and asked, "Are you checking into the program?" I told him we were. "This is a great place!" he said with enthusiasm. Not that we needed any more sell on HEE, but it didn't hurt to hear that.

So we have a small stack of paperwork to return tomorrow, including a release from Seattle Public Schools, since that's where we live. This afternoon, Christian went in to the Seattle Public Schools main office in Sodo to get them to sign off. I figured that would go one of two ways - it would be quick and simple, no problem-o, or it would get complicated and ugly real quick. (Districts don't have to let you go, and if they were smart, they'd try to keep students within their boundaries, because where there are students, a money trail follows.)

Yeah, well, there was no "please stay" plea, or even a "why are you leaving?" In fact, Christian didn't even fill out the blank on the form where you're supposed to list your reason for asking for a get me out of here exception and didn't bother to ask. They just signed off on it, so long. Really, that just sums up one of the many, many things that's wrong with SPS. At least when it comes to the admin side of things, they just don't seem to give a rat's arse about keeping students and parents engaged.

Tomorrow afternoon I'll be dropping the papers off at their office and hopefully we'll be signed, sealed and delivered shortly thereafter. ...

So what does all this mean? Too early to tell. At the very least it should mean we will be able to be reimbursed for some of our education related expenses. It will also give us access to the great library there, and the free curriculum resources, and another community to connect with. Beyond that, time will tell. ...

When I was describing the facility to a friend today, I told her taking the tour of the place was like being on a game show. It felt like, "Behind this door is ...!" and there kept being more doors with even more fabulous "prizes."

CREEPY CITRUS: Part of our music homework this a.m. was listening to the British nursery rhyme "Oranges and Lemons" on our Musikgarten British Isles CD. Teacher Nancy says the song is as widely known as "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" across the pond.

We listened to the CD version several times and the kids first sang along and then played along on their glockenspiels. The lyrics (in the CD version) are:

Oranges and Lemons say the bells of St. Clement's
Brick bats and tiles say the bells of St. Gile's
Pancakes and fritters say the bells of St. Peter's
Kettles and pans say the bells of St. Anne's
Bull's eyes and targets say the bells of St. Margaret's
You owe me 5 farthings say the bells of St. Martin's
When will yu pay me? say the bells of old Bailey
When I grow rich say the bells of Shoreditch
Pray when will that be? say the bells of Stepney
I'm sure I don't know, say the great bell of Bow

We did a little research and found out that all of the lines end with the name of a famous church in London. I explained what brick bats, fritters and farthings are to the kids. I then went online and played a couple of other versions for the kids, including the one with the sinister ending not found on the Musikgarten CD. In this alternative version the song ends:

Here comes a candle to light you to bed
And here comes a chopper to chop off your head!

Well, um, YIKES! CJ, got a kick out of the murderous version. I think Annabelle was a little freaked out.

Come lesson time, the kids played a game to the tune of "Oranges and Lemons" ("It wasn't the creepy part, CJ assures me). They also got some new sheet music and a "cool paper pretend magnifying glass." Teacher Nancy asked the kids to use the glass to hone in on certain note patterns found in the song.

The kids played and sang "Mouse, Mousie" as a group with Nancy conducting. They sounded pretty good!

SPINNING WHEELS: From music it was off to the races to yoga.
What a bad trip that was. With ZERO notice, I was horrified to find our exit off the Viaduct to Sodo closed. That meant I had to drive southbound all the way to damn near Georgetown (an extra 5+ minutes at freeway speed) to try to head east. I finally made my way partially eastward and I hoped to hop up to the south end of Beacon Hill but guess what? Yup, THAT connection was closed too. So I had to take surface streets all the way back up to Sodo and head up Beacon Hill and then head a few miles southward again. Good times. Amazingly, we were only like 3 minutes late (probably because I always leave 15 minutes early).

We went tearing into yoga to find it was a substitute teacher (frankly, had I known that we probably would have stayed home!) and they were just spreading the mats out. So we didn't miss a thing.

On the way home, guess what? There was another road closure with no notice and our only options were to get on I5 northbound or southbound. During rush hour. So not awesome. It was a parking lot. I exited as soon as possible and we wound up taking the scenic route home. We drove under the Convention Center, which the kids thought was cool.

The Monday After

WHAT A WEEKEND: I'll readily admit that today was definitely not the most academic day in the history of MPA. However, I will say that I think we more than made of for it this weekend. Saturday and Sunday were chock full o' field trips and enriching activities.

We started Saturday morning off at the Fishermen's Terminal Fall Festival. There, the kids got some exercise jumping around a bouncy house. They worked on their hammering skills while building wooden boats. They got some art in thanks to the nifty spin art machines where the applied paint to spinning Frisbees. Annabelle also got her face painted and she decorated an oyster shell. As we walked around, we could hear the music of Inochi Taiko, Japanese drummers.

They learned a bit about boat safety from Coastie, the remote control mini tug boat. They got to see a number of exotic looking starfish and learn the difference between radial symmetry from experts with an oceanography group. And last but not least, they got to catch some real live fish!

From there, we raced south a few miles to the huge party that was the South Lake Union Park debut. Sunny skies brought thousands of people to the event. The park is AMAZING. I can't wait to go back and explore it when I don't have to share it with several thousand other people.

We were thrilled that Bubbleman was in the entertainment lineup. He put on a nearly hour long show that the crowd of all ages absolutely loved. I loved how he makes it a point to underscore how his props are all "cheap toys" and most are made from cleverly recycled materials.
We were able to tour the magnificent schooner Adventuress. Built in Maine in 1913, it is a floating work of art. (There's a neat history of the vessel on the Sound Experience Web site.) The kids really liked being in the belly of the ship, where they could check out the bunks and the galley.SUNDAY FUNDAY: Sunday afternoon we headed to Seattle Center to check out the science club session at the Children's Museum. The theme of the afternoon was "Robots in Space." Christian sat in with the kids. He tells me the session started with the leaders discussing what functions robots might have in space. After not too much talk, kids were turned loose to use recycled materials to create their own space robot.

CJ made his in short order. He took a couple of old plastic tubs, stacked them one on top of the other, put a piece of pink netted fabric in a void between the tubs for the robot's brain, turned them upside down and then taped them to an oversized square of foil and called it good. He was done long before the other kids.

Annabelle, on the other hand, was making an elaborate contraption and was not done when the leaders said it was time to finish up and show and share. She went into a full on crazy meltdown the likes of which I've never seen her do in public, ever. It was awful. I had to pick her up and carry her out of the room. After a very short, stern talk and telling her she had she one second go get her act together, we went back in the room and she was able to fully participate in the show and share part of the program.

CJ did a really great job of explaining and demonstrating how his robot worked. The kids in the class really liked it and gave him lots of kudos.


After the class was over, we checked out some of the kids' favorite spots in the Children's Museum. Afterward, we walked over to EMP, where the kids spent several minuted dancing in front of the video screen, bathed in stage lights. There are more photos of our weekend here.

For their writing assignment today, I had the kids recap their weekend, listing at least three things we did.

LUSCIOUS LUNCH: This afternoon, Christian cleaned the trout the kids caught on Saturday. Then, he fried them up for lunch. Annabelle was eager to sample her bounty, although she was a bit wary when she saw that they had been cooked eyes and all. ... But she took some bites anyway.
CJ wanted absolutely no part of the fish, no how, no way.

JAW DROPPER: As I've previously noted on these pages, I've been searching far and wide for places we might be able to augment our experience. Last week, I was reading up on Shoreline School District's Home Education Exchange. I got an email inviting us to a Q&A session with the program's director, so Christian and I went this morning. Boy am I glad we did.

The gentleman leading the Q&A was HEE program director Ron Jones. He has been with the Shoreline School District since 1974. It's clear his passion for his job hasn't waned over those years. He's a big advocate for home schooling; his own children were all homeschooled.

Mr. Jones spent about 20 minutes going over the history of the HEE program and its ins and outs. There are a couple of clear pros regarding the Shoreline system. One is that they don't have a required amount of seat time for students. You can be in their program and take no workshops there, if that's your choice. (You do just have to make weekly contact with a HEE advisor.) Mr. Jones said the HEE's role is to provide resources home school parents would have a hard time providing/procuring on their own. After he took us on a tour of the facility, I'd have to say they've succeeded in a huge way.

We saw their gorgeous gymnasium with a big stage and a cool climbing wall. There's a commercial kitchen where cooking classes are taught. There's a cafe, where kids, parents and staff eat - complete with tablecloths and a big fair-style popcorn cart that people are welcome to help themselves to. There's a home ec class with multiple sewing machines and huge tables for laying out projects. There's an art room complete with a kiln. There's a well equipped science lab. There's a room just for the robotic LEGO program. There's a video viewing area. There's a library that's more than twice the size of the Magnolia library. There's a curriculum resource room where workbooks and textbooks are for the taking. There's a RECORDING studio. Oh, and there's a great music room. It just went on and on and on.

Given all this, it probably won't surprise you to know that there's a looooooong waiting list to get into the program. They can only accommodate around 120 students; they're at that number with another 100 wanting to get in. However, Mr. Jones encouraged us not to be too discouraged. There's a possibility they might add another staffer, and families do come and go.

This is something we'll definitely be keep our eyes on in the months to come.

SOFTWARE CONSULTANT: This morning, Rick stayed with the kids while Christian and I were being wowed in Shoreline.

Annabelle reported to me that during their time together, she gave Rick a hand with a Photoshop project. I wasn't sure what to make of that, but when Rick stopped by tonight, he volunteered that, sure enough, Annabelle did show him some ins and outs of Photoshop, and helped him design a flyer. He said he was "weirded out" by how well she was navigating through the program and using its tools. "She knows more about Photoshop than most people I know," he assessed.

WHEN MATH ATTACKS: This afternoon we test drove a multiplication tables teaching tool for which I'd read multiple rave reviews. Called Timez Attack, it's by Big Brainz. In a nutshell, the player navigates his way through a kind of medieval looking world and along the way he or she has to solve multiplication problems to gain access to new areas. Multiplication is also used to defeat the bosses who would stand in your way.
CJ didn't really enjoy the game today because he is still new to multiplication and he wasn't able to answer the questions as easily or quickly as he would have liked to.

The action in the game was a bit too intense for Annabelle's taste, so I found her a multiplication lesson on Scholastic's Web site.

She played "Max's Math Adventure." It was about an amazing multiplying machine. The story started off ...

"Put 3 apples in the hole
Then press "2" on the control.
Out come 2 groups of 3 —
6 apples in all, don't you see?"

After reading about the machine, Annabelle had to solve some word problems related to the story.

MAGNOLIA MATTERS: This afternoon Bee had ballet and while she was there, CJ and I did some shopping and he had some time to play in the park.

I am happy to note that today CJ was able to make it 3 rings across the dangling ring apparatus - which is 2 further than he usually gets! I would love to see him make it all the way across within a month or so. I know he can do it!

Bee's on those rings in this photo, which was taken right before she let go and hit her butt on the wood ledge behind her. :/

From the community center it was on to the library. The kids needed to turn in their completed Summer Reading Program certificates in order to claim their prizes!

They were rewarded with new books (CJ chose a Thomas and Friends title while Bee went for a Captain Underpants book). And their certificates were signed by the librarian, and now they're good for free admission to the Burke Museum. Cool!

Testing 1-2-3

IT'S A WRAP: This morning Annabelle gave Kirby a bath. Afterward, because Kirby was shivering so pathetically, she wrapped the dog in a fleece blanket. Annabelle had her arms wrapped around Kirby and was cooing to her, "My burrito. My burrito," or so I thought. I asked her if she was calling Kirby a burrito because she was wrapped up.

Annabelle looked at me like I was slightly mad and said, "Um, I was saying 'my perrito.' Perrito means 'little dog' in Spanish."

Oh.

TAKE YOUR PLACES: During the course of my recent research into various curriculum available to home schoolers, I came across the Web site for the Calvert School. While I am not going to be buying their curriculum, I was happy to avail myself to their free assessments designed to help parents determine which K-3 grade level curriculum is appropriate for their children. I want to know if we're on the mark - or way, way off. I chose their third grade level test for language arts.

This morning I administered (oh, so official sounding!) the test to the kids. To this adjudicator's eyes, they both passed with little trouble. Although, I will admit, that CJ might run into some trouble with other standardized test scorers. He just thinks of things in, well, non-standard ways. For instance, in one part of the test the kids had to read a several-paragraph- long story about a group of kids walking through a snowy park. Then they had to answer multiple choice comprehension questions about it. No problem there. A couple of pages later, there was a part of the test with a picture of a little kid rolling a snowball in a snowy field. They were to write four sentences about it. Annabelle wrote, "The boy is makeing a snow ball. He is going to probly make a snowman. I wonder what those ice blocks are for. Maybe an igloo?"

However, although it was (for the test's purposes) a completely independent "problem," CJ thought he had to tie the picture into the story he'd read a couple of pages ago and so he worked hard to write about what he'd read. "They like to play with snow. I like snow too. They found foot prints. They made foot prints." I asked CJ what his story's title would be and he said, "The Return of the Snow Kids."

The test we did today made me recall a meeting with his kindergarten "team" and them sharing some test results to us and on one section they were telling us that CJ was "wrong" or having a hard time with the test because he was trying to make connections that weren't there. I remember Christian and I thinking (and saying), "Hmm. Well in a way, shouldn't he get EXTRA credit for trying to make connections instead of being docked for it?"


But I guess god FORBID someone thinks outside the standardized test box.

SOMETHING'S FISHY: Tomorrow we'll head down to Fisherman's Terminal at the foot of our hill to the annual Fishermen's Fall Festival. There, the kids will be able to catch a live trout, build a wooden boat, bounce around in an inflatable and more.

In preparation of the celebration, I showed the kids a cool music video, "Salmon Dance" by the Chemical Brothers. Entertaining and educational, "I really liked the hip hop fish," said Annabelle.
I also found a wonderful educational activity book for the kids on the Salmon Homecoming Alliance Web site. (SHA is a Seattle based non profit spawned by the Salmon Homecoming Celebration and Salmon Resource Forum. There is an annual event hosted by the Seattle Aquarium and the Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission.) The booklet (a downloadable PDF) included a board game - The Great Salmon Life Cycle Race. At the starting line the kids were salmon eggs and as they progressed along the salmon shaped playfield, they grew and encountered all sorts of obstacles that keep the vast majority of salmon from returning to their birthplaces to spawn.

The booklet also had a page explaining what salmon mean to Native Americans, and a couple of pages describing what a watershed is and how it works. After reading that, we took a quiz about watersheds, which the kids took. They also completed a cool word scramble about Native American guardian spirits. It had cool masks next to the scrambled words (such as bear, goat, raven and eagle).

When we were talking about the salmon's predators, I just HAD to show the kids the classic commercial for canned salmon from John West. I've probably seen the clip a hundred times, but I still laugh every time.




BY THE NUMBERS: With the language arts out of the way, we turned our assessment attention to math. For that, we turned to the folks at Singapore.

Why Singapore math? Well, one thing it has going for it is that it's NOT the math Seattle Public Schools is using district wide with rather abysmal results. However, it IS the math that's used in ONE school in the entire district. And that ONE school repeatedly outperforms the others in math achievement. (Check out this enlightening article by Bruce Ramsey about the Singapore success at Schmitz Park.)

Singapore Math has a whole slew of placement tests on their Web site so you can make sure you get the right textbook and workbook for the grade level for your student(s). your student is at (yes, I know, bad grammar).

For the kids, I used the post first grade/entry to second grade test (PDF here). It was a good exercise for ME because while it's obvious that the kids can do all the computations that were required, once in awhile (during story problems) they had a hard time figuring out what exactly was being asked of them. Lesson learned: we need to do more story problems.

SOUNDTRACK: We listened to quite a bit of music this afternoon as the kids were working on their math assessments. First up was Martin Leung, pianist extraordinaire playing music from Super Mario Bros. Of course all of us were distracted to the point of not being able to do math ...



After that, I switched to classic classical music, including Beethoven's "Moonlight Sonata", "Ode to Joy" and "Fur Elise"; Mozart's "Air on G String," and Vivaldi's Fall requiem.

SNEAK PEEK: Late this afternoon we went out for some exercise. CJ and Annabelle set a quick pace over to Lawton. Once there, we got a good look at the latest activity at the new city park adjacent to Lawton Elementary. Lookin' good! It has a forest theme, with faux boulders and stumps. It has a lovely view of Greenwood, Phinney Ridge and the canal in Ballard. We can't wait until it opens!

Food, Friend, Frustration and Fun

FORT MAGNOLIA: This morning after breakfast, the kids were suspiciously quiet in the bedroom. I went in to check on them and found them both on CJ's bed, beneath several blankets and a couple of pillows. They had built a fort, reported Annabelle. It looked really comfortable - I wouldn't have minded invading their fort.

NO COMPRENDE: Near the end of Wednesday morning's science class, we learned that the kids would have some homework to go along with the class. I liked that idea. Their teacher gave them each a couple of worksheets comprising a reading comprehension exercise. We've done exercises like it dozens and dozens of times before. But today was a new day, and apparently all that we learned before had gone far, far out the window.

The kids both read through the passage (about recycling and conserving resources) quickly. It was the whole answer-questions-thingee they had trouble with. And for both of them, the trouble down one to one factor - they weren't really reading the questions. And if you don't read the questions, how can you answer them?

So, an exercise that should have taken 15 minutes tops took NINETY minutes, I kid you not. It was miserable for all of us.

After a break of about an hour, I found a couple of similar reading comprehension lessons in a workbook and asked CJ to read the passage, read the questions and answer the questions. He did it quickly and really well, just like I knew he could.

PLAY WITH YOUR FOOD: We scored a box of rare SCRABBLE Cheez-Its at the store yesterday, so during the midday snack time I ordered the kids to play with their food. (More specifically, I told them they couldn't eat a Cheez-It if they hadn't used it to spell a word.)

They were motivated and capable. Many words were created and consumed.

Speaking of food, tonight I made cheeseburgers and fries for dinner because I wanted to jog their memories regarding the episode of Food-Tech we saw last night that taught us lots about how those foods are made. And my plan worked - during dinner Christian and I quizzed the kids about hamburger, ketchup, cheese, tomatoes, potatoes, ketchup and so on. I was happy to hear each of them had retained quite a few factoids from the program.

I think it's the first time I've ever made fries for the kids, as I figure they get them more often than they need to (once a week or so) when we eat out. They loved the fries and seemed amazed they could be made at home. ;)

STORYBOARD: For the past couple of days, CJ has been entranced by a book from Rick and Ken's tweens/teens. It's a board book with vinyl character cut outs he can move about from page to page.

I fondly recall playing with Colorforms in my youth for hours on end. I loved a Peanuts' themed set in particular.

The set CJ has latched onto is not Snoopy. Rather, it's South Park. :o
While it may not be entirely age appropriate, what IS great about it is that CJ is creating all sorts of storyboards and storylines with the set. He and Annabelle used it to act out scene after scene this morning, with CJ directing and scripting most of the dialogue. I liked it because it was almost 100 percent imagination (at their tender age, they don't yet know all the South Park characters and their mannerisms, so they mostly had to wing it).

I will, however, admit that at one point I heard Annabelle say, "OMG, you killed Kenny!"

COOKIES AND COMPANY: This afternoon we had the pleasure of having CJ's favorite kindergarten classmate over for a quick visit.

It was her first visit to our house, so we gave her and her mother the 3-minute tour.

Earlier in the day we had made some sugar cookies for frosting during her visit.

We spent about a half hour drizzling and spreading the frosting on the cookies. Afterward, the kids had some free play.

UNDER MY SPELL: In their recent writings, it seems obvious to me that the kids need to get back into some spelling lists. The kids have been tripped up recently trying to spell could-would-should and some of those pesky wh- words where the h is silent (like in "where"!).

So after dinner they had to earn their dessert by participating in a mini spelling bee. I think they actually enjoyed their dessert more having had to earn it.

First of Fall

THE AUTUMN LEAVES: It may say Fall on our calendars now, but the trees in our neighborhood aren't ready to say goodbye to summer. Most of them are still leafed out in green.

We had a fall-related art project to complete and we needed some leaves that were turning. We ended up walking up to Bay View park to find some (which made the kids happy, of course).

While we were there, we happened upon a 7 year old girl on the playground and CJ and Annabelle played with her for at least 20 minutes. I was especially happy to see CJ completely involved for that amount of time. He plays with other kids frequently, but often he's kind of in and out of the action. Today not only did he stay engaged, he was going along with her story line (instead of trying to dictate it). Yay for CJ!

When we came home, the kids picked pairs of leaves to glue together to form butterfly wings and antennae and then rolled up a single leaf to make the butterflies' bodies.

HIGHLINE FIRST TIME: This morning was the first session of K-3 hands on science at the Highligh Homeschool Center in the Highline School District (in the south Burien/Seatac area).

We got there a good 20 minutes early, so we read and listened to a book/CD in the car: "The Dinosaur Who Lived in My Backyard." It was a more realistic take on humans living with dinosaurs than the book we read yesterday ("If the Dinosaurs Came Back). For instance, the author B.G. Hennessy) says the dino "would have made my whole neighborhood shake like pudding" but it also had some silliness (like dinos playing hide and seek). Overall, for whatever reason, it was a yawner. The kids didn't care much for it and neither did I.

While waiting, we also looked around the grounds a bit and noticed a couple of portables with signs on them that said "CBS." I asked the kids what they thought those letters stood for.

Annabelle popped off with 'Cubs Bearian Society," which I thought was pretty clever and cute. CJ took a couple of minutes and came up with "Cold Baseball Solution." Interesting. :)

Once inside we found our classroom and were the first to arrive. We chatted with the teacher for a few minutes and were soon joined by two other boys and two other girls. Annabelle was the youngest by a couple of years. As the kids were sharing their names and ages with one another, the teacher interjected that Annabelle was "5 going on 35."

Today was all about class rules and expectations. Mrs. Powers told the class that respect, honesty, integrity and compassion were guiding principles on campus. Everyone talked about what those words meant. We also talked about what we will be covering in the weeks to come and what the kids would like to learn more about. At that Annabelle immediately declared, "Dissecting animals. I want to dissect animals!"

For the past two days she's going on and on about animal innards, so I shouldn't have been surprised at her request. I will admit I did cringe, however, wondering if there were any card-carrying PETA members in our midst. ...

I would definitely deem our first session a success and we're looking forward to next week, when the kids get to dive into some science.

LONG WAY HOME: I purposely didn't hop right back on the freeway toward home when class was over. I figure, if we're going to be south of town once a week, we might as well explore some new territory.

Today, we passed several signs saying they pointed toward parks, but the first two we followed wound up leading us nowhere (I probably didn't stay the course long enough). However, the third time was the charm - we found ourselves in a neighborhood I'd never seen or even heard of - Redondo Beach. It's in west Federal Way, along Puget Sound. It's mostly residential, but there's a Salty's restaurant and a few small storefronts. There were several fishermen at the end of a pier (you can see the pier beyond the boat launch in the photo below). It's a gorgeous spot.

At the entrance to the pier, there was a large map showing Puget Sound. I had the kids find our location at Redondo Beach, and our home in Magnolia on it. The poster also had a list of ways we could all work to help keep Puget Sound clean, which I had the kids read aloud.

We walked on the floating boat dock and on the boardwalk, and the kids ran up and down the beach for a bit. And as luck would have it, there was a play park across the street from the beach. Bonus!When we were back in familiar territory (the viaduct through Seattle) ...

the kids read and listened to another book (with an accompanying CD), "George Washington's Cows."

A clever concept with charming pictures, it tells about George Washington's cows, (who are dressed in lavender gowns and sleep on cushions of silk), his hogs (who are delighted to help with household chores), and his sheep (scholars with advanced degrees). It's such an odd scene Washington decided to leave the farm and take up politics.

ON THE INSIDE: When we got home, I made good on a promise to Annabelle, and found a few Web sites where she could do some virtual dissecting.

The first I found was by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. It was just a colored line drawing where the user could check and uncheck boxes to see different frog parts. I saw that it dated back to 1995, and while I'm sure it was hot stuff in its day, it was showing its age in 2010.

Fortunately, I found a much newer, more sophisticated one from McGraw Hill Higher Education. There was actual video of a real live dead frog. The dissection was broken down into several sections, and after each segment it switched to an interactive format where Annabelle got to "use" a scalpel, scissors and tweezers.

After the frogs, she was wanting to see the inner workings of a worm. We found Virtual Worm from the folks at Worm Watch Canada. In case you were wondering, "WormWatch is a science based education program that makes learning about the soil ecosystem fun. It is also part of a national volunteer monitoring program used to identify ecological changes that may be affecting our environment."

SAY CHEESEBURGER: This evening the History Channel had a great hour-long show all about how cheeseburgers and fries are made. Food Tech took us on a virtual field trip to a barn and slaughterhouse for the ground beef; to a bread factory in California for the buns; to Wisconsin to see how American cheese is made and to a plant that process cucumbers into pickles. We also saw a lettuce processing plant in Salinas, California and onion seeds being grown and harvested in Parma, Idaho. We learned that potatoes grow year round in Florida and California and saw a plant that pumps out 36 million fries A DAY. We even got to see how tomatoes are turned into ketchup. One billion pounds of tomatoes are processed a year at a DelMonte plant in California. We even got to see a ketchup sample going down a viscosity test ramp, where they test its flow (distance covered in a certain amount of time).

We saw so many cool robots and conveyor belts at the farms and factories. It was a great show.

Slightly nauseating factoid: Americans ate over 7 billion cheeseburgers last year.

So Long, Summer

WATCHING WEATHER: To commemorate the changing of the seasons from summer to fall, Annabelle made this Cloud Top Weather God. Each of its four targets is a different season. The middle one (in the belly button) is fall, the one on its right hip is summer. Its left hip is winter and the small one just right of its mouth "is spring, of course," she says.

OOH LA LA: A couple of months ago, Annabelle, CJ and I all worked together to try to French braid Annabelle's hair. I failed miserably. I'd like to blame it on trying to rush to make sure we got to ballet on time, but really, it was mostly just me being klutzy and lame and trying to make it more difficult that it is.

I figured I'd give it a go again this morning. Annabelle and I found a tutorial on YouTube and while it was far from perfect, we got it on the first try this time! Sweet victory!

BY THE NUMBERS: Annabelle did a couple of "maths" (as they call it in England) exercises in the "Alien Cookbook" on BBC. Mostly it involved working with counting by .25/quarters (like the fraction, not the coins).

CJ did "Number Jumbler." His challenge was to do some mental math - adding icons representing various multiples of 10s with icons representing some value of ones. For instance, 50 and 20 and 20 and 10 and 3. I was so impressed - he added them all quickly and correctly, and even though we haven't practiced rounding up or down to the nearest 10 before this afternoon, he caught on to that immediately and got all those right, too. Once he completed the online challenge, there was a "print" option. By selecting that, it spit out a "Rounding to the nearest 10p" worksheet, which he completed in no time flat. "I'm glad I woke up on the smart side of the bed today," he said, in reference to his not-so-smart side of the bed he got up on yesterday.

WHAT IF?: This morning the kids read a book by Bernard Most called "If the Dinosaurs Came Back." The book was full of fanciful ideas about all the wonderful things dinos' return would entail, like more work for dentists (what with all those teeth), new ways of transportation and recreation (riding a dino to work or skiing down its back), and so on.

I asked the kids if they thought any of that would really happen if dinosaurs roamed the earth today. They were quick to say "no." So, as a very short writing assignment, I asked them to finish the phrase "If the dinosaurs came back," and told them they could write something nonsensical, like the book's author, or they could be realists.

Bee went for silly, writing, "If the dinosaurs came back, they wood make good briges."

CJ, the realist, wrote, "If the dinosaurs came back, they wood destroy billdings."

One thing their sentences had in common was misspelling "wood." That prompted a short spelling list for them to practice: Would, could, should.

MORE MUSIC: This morning and early afternoon, we worked on finishing up the music homework for the week. The kids each had to draw a picture representing their favorite part of the song "London Bridge." CJ chose "build it up with sticks and stones" and Annabelle's was "build it up with gold and silver."
The kids were also tasked with bringing something to class today that is from or represents England. Annabelle remembered "London Bridge" is in her Xylofun songbook, so she took that. CJ took some Cadbury chocolate.

ORDER: Today there was a request on one of the homeschool email lists I'm on looking for ideas for art projects. I have discovered many, many such Web sites over the course of the past year and I'm happy to share them. So, I hopped to my Web browser and opened my Homeschool folder in my Favorites folder and YIKES! There are hundreds and hundreds of links there, in no particular order.

Having an enormous list of Favorites isn't all that helpful if I can't find what I want quickly and efficiently. So I spent about an hour early this morning trying to get them in order by category. (Arts, Science, Math, Reading, Language Arts, General, Alternative Learning). I'm about halfway there.

RETIRING: This afternoon on the way home from yoga, we were waiting for a red light to change and found ourselves right next to Ken Griffey Jr's larger than life portrait on the west side of Safeco Field.

Of course, Junior was smart and left the sinking ship early in the season. So now there's a "Thanks, Junior!" banner across the top of his picture. The kids asked why that was there and I told them it was because Junior retired.

CJ asked what "retired" meant and (oversimplifying) I told him it's when someone decides to quit their job and not to work any more.

Annabelle said, "I wish Daddy would retire so he could be home with us every day."

Wouldn't that be nice? :)

OPEN AT LAST: We beat feet right out of music today, because we wanted to make a stop before yoga. Finally, after months of driving by seeing construction equipment and fences keeping us out, the new playground next to the Jefferson Community Center was finally open.


There was even sunshine for the occasion. The play structures are made by Kompan, which seems to be what Seattle Parks & Rec is putting in all their new installs.

CJ especially loved the mushroom/toadstool type pedastals. I think they reminded him of a Mario game.

The 3-D shapes are cool to look at and a challenge to climb. Annabelle caught some air spinning on the sail-like apparatus.
BEHIND THE MASK: I get free samples pretty regularly. Today's surprise - a couple of free samples of All Bran. For whatever reason, the box also contained a sleep mask. Not sure how a blackout mask and bran are tied together, but we'll take it! As I pointed out to the kids, it will make a perfect mask for playing hide and go seek!

YOU SCREAM, I SCREAM: We all scream for ice cream! Imagine the excitement in our car when tonight we crossed paths with an ice cream truck. We've heard ice cream trucks ("Turkey in the Straw" anyone?) in the 'hood from time to time this summer, but we've never actually laid eyes on one - until tonight!

We were leaving the Magnolia Village Pub after a really good (per usual) dinner and lo and behold, a beat up white Jeep with pictures of frozen treats on the side coming down the hill fast, toward us. Naturally, I flipped a U-turn and we set off after it. It came to a quick stop at the curb, but not to sell ice cream. No, this ice cream man was scoring some free furniture left on the side of the road. He threw it in the back of his truck (on top of the fudgsicles, perhaps?). Then he tore off, no music playing and looking like he was making a run for the border rather than seeking customers.

Naturally, we followed. We watched him roll through a stop sign or two and head down Dravus, still no stops and no music playing. I told Christian I figured he was headed for the big sports complex at the foot of our hill. Sure enough, he turned in there and cued up the music.

I thought it fitting that on the final day of summer, we finally caught up with the elusive ice cream man.

Of Wind and Watts

AGAINST THE WIND: Last week we signed up for the President’s Active Lifestyle Award program and we're taking that seriously here at MPA. To that end, we made sure to get our ride/run in this morning when the sun started to peek out from behind the ceiling of clouds.

Our journey down to the waterfront was a bit more difficult than usual as we were running/riding into a strong headwind. Because of the wind blowing toward us, you could smell Puget Sound from a distance today. Our reward for our hard work was that when we go there, there were bona fide waves crashing into the shore. (Usually the waters lap at the beach, and the only time it's more dramatic than that is when there's a bit of wake from a passing Washington State Ferry or departing cruise ship.)
Before we left home, Christian looked up the tide table and discovered that the tide should be fairly low when we headed to Pier/Terminal 91. The tide tables were (of course) right. Beach combing was good.

We found lots of shells (clam, crab and others), and Annabelle even found a sea urchin.

To be honest, when Christian proposed a trip down to the beach, I wasn't that excited about it - I had a playground in mind for the kids. Of course, as it turns out, the beach is a playground (duh, me). The kids happily scampered about, climbing small boulders, walking "planks" (large driftwood) and slipping around on seaweed.

The sun even came out in full force for our playtime. Nice!
HOME EC: I try to sprinkle some life skills lessons into our curriculum every so often, and today that came in the form of teaching Annabelle how to apply an iron-on patch.

She has some jeans with cute embroidered flowers - and a hole in each knee. Rather than throw them out, I told Annabelle we should just add some more embellishments that would do double duty as patches. So we bought a pack of iron on flowers last week and this morning we heated up the iron and stuck them on.

She was thrilled with the look and I was happy that we'll get at least a few more months out of them for just $4.

POP! GOES THE THANK YOU: One of this morning's projects was crafting and writing an overdue Thank You card to Aunt Renee and Uncle Jim for all the super cool stuff they brought the kids a couple of weeks ago. One of the gifts was the awesome Encyclopedia Prehistorica - Dinosaurs.

The publisher of the unparalleled pop up book is Candlewick Press, and on their Web site there is an activity kit you can download. The "kit" is a PDF that gives you the template to create your own pop up T-Rex card. I thought that would be perfect for the thank yous.

The kids first colored their dinos, then cut them out. Then it was time to fold and the pop up face to the body background. They were pretty pleased with the effect!

BRAIN FREEZE: This afternoon the glue had dried on their pop up cards, so I asked the kids to write "Thank you" on the front of them. Annabelle quickly did so in her signature curlicue letters. CJ, hmm, well that was a different story. You would have thought I asked him to raise the Titanic. He managed a T in short order but then he just seized up.

Let me assure you, "thank" is a word he knows how to spell. I suggested a dictionary, but when you can't get past T, that doesn't help much. I asked him to close his eyes and write it (that almost always works) but not today. He really wasn't plugged in. I told him to go to his room and ponder it, instructing him to get a Magna Doodle out of the drawer and try to write it. He was back out less than a minute later saying, "I don't know what a Magna Doodle or a drawer is."

OMG. At that, I told him he was on his own and to let me know when he had "thank" written on a Magna Doodle. He finally managed to find a drawer, a Magna Doodle and write "tank."

I asked him to read it to me, and of course he saw it as "Thank." I asked him to read it again, sounding out each letter. He finally caught his mistake and spelled it right. I think the whole ordeal took about 30 minutes. Egad. Needless to say, the rest of the day was spent sans video games and YouTube for him. Time to plug the brain into reality, CJ.

ACROSS THE POND: This year, the kids have homework for their Musikgarten class. This week's assignment included instructions to find the British Isles on a globe, which they did with little trouble.

They also had to color flags for England, Ireland, Wales and Scotland. We all agreed that Wales, with its big dragon, has the coolest flag.

WATTS UP: This afternoon during Bee's ballet, CeeJ, Christian and I walked to the Magnolia Library. We returned a few items, checked more than a few out, and picked up an item on hold. We'd been waiting months for our turn to use a "Kill A Watt."

The device is a meter you plug household appliances into to see how many watts of electricity they're using.

We started with the big screen TV. It took only 1 watt of power when it was plugged in but off. Once on, that wattage shot up to 209.

My computer and its peripherals (monitor, printer, cable modem, router and sound system) drew 26.5 watts when plugged in but off; while running it used 136.

The Wii drew .5 watts when plugged in but not on. When we fired it up, it drew 15 watts.

We suspected the fridge would be the biggest energy vampire and we were right. It ranged from 106 to 428 watts, depending on what was running at the time.ROLL OUT: Late this afternoon we watched a few minutes of the six-hour roll out of the space shuttle Discovery. Attached to its booster rockets, Discovery was upright during its 3.4-mile journey from the Vehicle Assembly Building to Launch Pad 39A at NASA's Kennedy Space Center. NASA reports the vehicle was moving at about 3 MPH. I told the kids that if they were there, they would be able to walk right along side it and keep up. That they were as fast as the space shuttle (at least today!) seemed to impress them.

Discovery is set to launch Nov. 1 as mission STS-133. (Photo credit: NASA, naturally)

TOP CHEFS: For a few days last week, the pizza that CJ and Annabelle had their hands in making last September was featured on the front page of Morguefile, a Web site where I park some of the photos I figure other writers might be able to use. Nice work, guys!