Show Time

EXPO DAY: Yesterday late afternoon, CJ said, "My brain hurts." I instantly thought 'headache' and wondered if he was coming down with something. Turns out he and Annabelle (who says her eyes hurt and her head feels fuzzy) both have a tiny little something. But since they're not feverish and/or runny, I took them to their music class this morning. "The show must go on," I reminded them. I figured they needed the practice, too, as they're performing with their class tonight at the school expo. We went home between music and LEGO class so they could rest up. While there, I put some finishing touches on several dozen Star Wars cookies, and we put the final pieces of the kids' poster together.

This evening we made our THIRD trip to Shoreline for the day. There, we checked out all of the other students' displays - everything from models of the solar system to sewing projects to LEGO robotics. Also on display was the group build project from the kids' LEGO class - the space shuttle on the launch pad. Very cool!

We had a bit to eat and then it was time for the live performances.
CJ and Annabelle and their music classmates performed a couple of numbers involving the xylophone. Here's a crappy, blurry, dark picture of that happening.

Afterward, we watched a series of performances, including piano, trumpet, upright bass, singing, a play (in Spanish) and more. A few videos were screened including an entertaining stop-motion animation short featuring LEGOs and one rather animae looking sci fi short that was technically impressive. CJ and Annabelle both had a great time this evening and can't wait until the next expo.

Every one of the 6-plus dozen Star Wars cookies disappeared. They were much appreciated, so that was nice.

SHARING: This afternoon via a comment on yesterday's blog post, we heard from author Jeanne Walker Harvey, who wrote "My Hands Sing the Blues," about African American artist Romare Bearden. She has started posting collages inspired by Bearden/the book on a blog: http://jeannewalkerharvey.blogspot.com/p/kids-artwork.html . Through the magic of the Internets, she came across our blog post in which I reported that the book prompted CJ and Annabelle to make collages (both of which are still hanging on our wall), and she wanted to know if she could share them in her blog. I told her "Of course!" of course.

OH AND ANOTHER THING: Day before yesterday, I received an email from the Director of Science Communications for Autism Speaks. They'd found a photo of CJ on my Morguefile.com account a few months back and used it for some publication. This time, their communications director was writing to see if they could use other photos of CeeJ for a brochure they're working on regarding science. I told them, "Of course!" of course. So, it's been a regular media blitz for us lately. ;)

SHADOWY FIGURE: First thing we did this a.m. was check the news to see what was up with Punxsutawney Phil. Turns out the groundhog saw his shadow, which supposedly means six more weeks of winter. Tell that to the flowering trees I saw today.

MEASURING UP: As always, science class was loads o' fun today. There were two (count 'em, two!) mini field trips during class. The first was to a courtyard off the lunchroom, where the kids' science teacher had installed a rain gauge. It was a shade of things to come.

One back in the classroom, the kids found out they each were going to build their own rain gauge. Yee-haw! We can hardly start to

The teacher had a prototype, which we took outside (marking the second field trip) and the kids took turnes being the rain. :)

We're looking forward to using the rain gauges at home. So much so, that when we heard there was a low chance of rain this entire weekend, we all were a tad disappointed, if you can believe that!

SOMBER ANNIVERSARY: This is a tough (to put it mildly) week for spaceflight fans. In a span of seven days, this is the 'season' when NASA lost the Apollo 1 astronauts, the Challenger crew and today, the fine folks on board Columbia.

Tonight, we watched a short and bittersweet video featuring several of Columbia's astronauts. CJ, Annabelle and I all cried while watching it. :/ It's so excellent to hear the excitement in the voices of the astronauts- particularly of Ilan Ramon, a colonel in the Israeli army, and  Kalpana Chawlam of India, representing their nations.

Damn, they were all so, SO close to coming home, mission complete. Little did they know, their fate was sealed when they left the launch pad and projectiles flew up damaging their heat shields.

Columbia was the very first oribter launched, STS-1, on Aprl 12, 1981, with just two astronauts aboard.  It was the first American manned space flight since the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project on 15 July 1975.

What a contrast it is watching STS-1 as compared to reliving Columbia's tragic end.

Eyes on the Skies

WINDOW ON THE WORLD: We worked on some science stuff right out of the gate this morning. One of their assignments involved cutting out a picture frame, mounting it on a window and then classifying the types of clouds you see through it.

Today was a cloud bonanza. In the frame above, you see a cumulus cloud, but the sky also offered up cirrus and stratus clouds today. A nice variety.

The kids also did worksheets on reading a thermometer. I appreciated that they were on the Celsius scale, as we should have converted to that a loooooong time ago.

GROWING LIKE GANGBUSTERS: We checked on our Root-Vue today and wowie! They're growing like crazy. CJ and Annabelle will be crunching on carrots soon.

STICKY SITUATION: We continued to put together the kids' "Fun with Photoshop" display. Today's task: mounting each of the enlargements on a like sized piece of foam board - so they have a bit of 'pop' on the display.

Teaching the kids how to mount a photo using spray adhesive was tons of fun, let me tell you. Mercifully, we managed to get it done without completely ruining any of them.

WAITING ROOM: While CJ was in acting class, Annabelle and I had some fun and games. First, we played Yahtzee using a Super Mario themed set. I've never been much of a fan of that game - too much luck, not enough skill involved, IMHO. But it held Annabelle's interest - until some mental math on her part made her realize she wasn't going to win, and then she wanted to quit. About that time a boy from a school in the building came by with a teacher, who was trying to track down the kid's late parent via cell phone. So, the forgotten boy (a cute kid about CJ's age) happily played with Annabelle and our Yahtzee set. He'd never heard of the game before, so I explained some of the rules to him, but mostly he was drawn in by the Mario theme. I'm pretty sure the teacher was happy to have us help entertain the kid while the wayward parent was tracked down. A few minutes later, the dad arrived.

After Yahtzee, we played a game using our Scrabble SLAM! deck of cards. I have no idea what the official rules are - we just each held 7 cards in our hand at a time and took turns making four letter words, having to work with the word that was on the board.

While we were playing a teenaged girl came over and politely interrupted to ask the name of the game we were playing, saying,. "My mom homeschools my 7-year old sister, and I think she'd really like it," the young woman explained. I had to smile and share that we were doing some homeschooling that very minute. I gave her the game name and told her we'd made up our own rules, but that I thought it was still good spelling practice.

MATHS: CeeJ and Bee were introduced to a new challenge today - multiplying double digit numbers. Their eyes just about popped out of their heads initially. I quickly reassured them they could handle this. After all, these problems were just a single digit number times some multiple of 10, 100, or 1,000. I quickly demonstrated just how easy these types of problems are to solve and they got them all right.

Later in the day, we played around with a new math-focused Web site I discovered via a Tweet: Raytheon's Math Moves U.  According to the site's about us section, "Raytheon believes that tomorrow's engineers and technologists need to be excited by and interested in math today." The site is aimed at middle school students, but CJ and Annabelle, who are considerably younger, found it plenty engaging.

They each created profiles on the site, and explored the games section. They had to do some math that, intially, appeared well above their level, but I was able to show them that by breaking it down, it really was stuff they could handle. For instance, one problem involved the info that 720 sheep can be sheared in 9 hours, and they were supposed to provide a ratio in its simplest form expressing that fact. I showed them how to dial it down, first dividing 9 and 720 by 3, and then by further dividing them by 3 again, and they understood that the ratio is 80 sheep in 1 hour.

HATS OFF TO HAM: We can't let the day go by without mentioning super Astrochimp Ham. Today marks the anniversary of his successful spaceflight, in 1961. For his flight in a Mercury capsule atop a Redstone 2, Ham was secured in biopack couch.

His flight was suborbital, and his vital signs and tasks (yes, he had a 'to do' list) were constantly monitored. Ham had a harrowing experience, as his capsule partially lost pressure, but the spacesuit he was wearing saved his skin. 

Ham's heroic flight lasted 16 minutes and 39 seconds. You can read more about it here:

Ham, Space Chimp

Go Go, Godzilla!

THE WORK CONTINUES: The kids are still piecing together their "Fun with Photoshop" display board for a school expo on Thursday night. Today's creation: Godzilla Attacks Seattle!  We took a photo of a 12" toy Godzilla they had, and CJ erased its background. He then moved it onto a cityscape photo I took from the Space Needle a couple years ago. Meanwhile, Annabelle scoured the Internet in search of the perfect photo of a shooting flame. She finally found it. CJ eliminated the background from it and Annabelle moved it over onto the composite of Godzilla and the city and made all the pieces fit. Fun stuff!

HILL HOPPING: Mid-morning we headed for Group Health, a couple of hilltops to the east of here. I had an eye appointment and I suggested Christian take the kids to get a flu shot next door at the same time.

Fortunately for the kids, they had an option of a nasal mist immunization. Apparently CJ politely ("no thank you') declined it when presented with the sprayer the first two times. When he was informed that his only other option was a date with a needle, he managed to accept the mist.

After I was done at the eye dr. (no change in prescription despite 3 years since my last visit - apparently my eyesight isn't fading as precipitiously as I thought it was), we all went to a super neat-o toy store just down the block. The Red Balloon has so many fun things for people of all ages. I could spend hours in there.

The kids love the place for the rainbow of M&M candies. They each got a small bag (four ounces) with several colors of their choice inside.

TENNIS ANYONE?: On Saturday, we wound up playing tennis in windy 40-something degree weather. Today was a tad bit nicer, and so we returned to the courts for another go round.

It was cool to see how much the kids' had retained from their Saturday experience. Today, they really hit the ground running, so to speak. Their strokes were smoother and way more of their balls wound up over the net.

Annabelle still misses a fair number of balls entirely. I would link this to two reasons: 1) She doesn't watch the ball all the way to her racquet and 2) She (almost) never stops talking.

I was surprised by the number of people who stopped to watch us 'play' tennis today. And, in case you are wondering, our 'game' of tennis consists of Christian alternately serving a ball to CJ or Annabelle, and them attempting to hit it back at him. My job is to be the golden retriever, running 'round the court shagging balls. One older couple with a baby in a stroller stood for a good 15 minutes and watched our antics. I know people couldn't have been watching because we were so good, so I can only presume they watched because we were so bad. Oh well, I'm happy we could provide some cheap entertainment. :)

After the tennis, we walked over to the playground where CJ and Annabelle got in a few good rides on the zipline.

WE ARE THE CHAMPIONS: We received news this weekend that we won a contest held by The Wing Dome - one of our favorite restaurants. During Snowmageddeon a couple weeks back, The Wing Dome challenged their Facebook fans to sculpt or create something out of snow that paid tribute to Wing Dome.

So, CJ, Annabelle and I toyed with a few ideas. I tried sculpting some over sized chicken wings out of snow, but quickly gave up. They looked like crap, and Wing Dome's wings are NOT crap. :) So, we went with a much easier approach. We filled squirt bottles with water, added some hardcore red and orange food coloring, shook 'em up and then I looked at The Wing Dome's logo on our 'frequent flier' card while I rather sloppily tried to reproduce it (that colored water came out too fast).

CHECK YOUR INBOX: Annabelle finally checked her email inbox for the first time in a couple of weeks today. There, she found a letter from Congressman Jim McDermott in response to her message to him urging him not to support SOPA and PIPA. Here's how McDermott responded:

Dear Annabelle:


Thank you for contacting me regarding your opposition to H.R. 3261, the Stop Online Piracy Act. I appreciate your taking the time to write to me on this important issue, and I welcome the opportunity to respond.

As you may know, H.R. 3261 would allow the Attorney General or an intellectual-property owner to take legal action against individuals associated with an internet site dedicated to infringing activities (ISDIA). An ISDIA is defined as a website having no significant purpose other than engaging in or facilitating copyright infringement. It would also facilitate legal proceedings taken by the Attorney General and the Department of Justice against foreign nationals that are associated with delinquent d omain names that harm American i nternet users.

I share your concerns about the potential impact this bill could have on free speech, innovation, and creativity. H.R. 3261 was introduced by Rep. Smith on October 26, 2011. Although something must be done about internet piracy, I do not support this legislation or any that will harm the internet, free speech or innovation. The i nternet is an extremely important engine for economic growth, innovation, and communication .

If you are interested in following a particular piece of legislation through the legislative process, the website hosted by the Library of Congress at http://thomas.loc.gov is extremely helpful. It provides a wealth of information about legislation under consideration in the current Congress as well as bills introduced in earlier sessions. The site is called Thomas to honor President Thomas Jefferson and his belief in public access to the workings of government.

Again, thank you for contacting me. I welcome your views, and look forward to hearing from you in the future.

Sincerely,

Jim McDermott
Member of Congress

I would say the letter is quite clearly boilerplate (he probably had several hundreds of emails on the same topic), but fine by me. He responded, he explained his position, and it is well written.

GOING MAINSTREAM: Last night I received an email from Linda Perlstein. She's a writer who lives on Queen Anne hill who just finished a story for Newsweek about urban home schoolers. I'd chatted with Linda a few months back, sharing some resources and some of our experiences with homeschooling. Her story just published, and she gave a link.

It was nice to see a mainstream media story that doesn't paint home schooling parents as a bunch of religious zealots. You can read the story here: http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2012/01/29/why-urban-educated-parents-are-turning-to-diy-education.html

MORE MANIPULATING: We continued our fun with Photoshop project today. The only composite we completed was "Buzzes" - a famous NASA stock shot of Buzz Aldrin on the moon, but CJ and Annabelle introduced Buzz Lightyear into the equation. Good fun.

We took a photo of Buzz Lightyear, knocked the background out and then moved him over to join Aldrin on the moon. As soon as Buzz Lightyear had landed CJ said, "He needs a shadow!" I was impressed by that eye for detail. So the kids learned how to 'borrow' Aldrin's shadow and attach it to Lightyear's feet.

CHECK UP: Today we finally took the time to check on the carrot seeds we planted more than a week ago in our Root-Vue planter. And, guess what ... we've got signs of life! Lots of 'em, in fact. Around a dozen sprouts were to be found!

We're looking forward to seeing what develops. Stay tuned!

GLOWING ORB: This burning orange disk hung in the blue sky today. We came to recognize it as the sun. Hooray! We had to honor its rare appearance by going up to "hilltop playpark" (Ella Bailey Park). There, the kids rode their scooters, Kirby was a freak on a leash, and fun was had by all.

Here, CJ enjoys a sparkling view of Elliott Bay and Mt. Rainier as he rolls 'round the park.

ROCK ME, AMADEUS: Thanks to a Twitter post from a math teacher, I became aware that today is Mozart's birthday.

Given that, we had to focus some time and attention on Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart this morning. We started by watching a BrainPOP video on the classical composer. From it, the kids learned about Mozart's childhood (he was a musical savant on tour for most of his youth). We learned about his work (oer 600 compositions - symphonies, sonatas, operas and more), and his life (including his marriage to Constance, with whom he had six children, only two of whom survived to adulthood).

We listened to "Eine Kleine Nachtmusic" (a VERY cool visual representation of the song is embedded in the link in the title preceding), as well as Requiem in D minor, Mozart's last composition before he died at age in 35. (In fact, Mozart didn't live to finish it - another composer put the final touches on it.)

One other thing I learned today: The composer's baptismal name was Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart.

SAD DAYS: The 27th of January marks the first of three somber remembrances in one week. Forty-five years ago today in 1967 the astronauts of Apollo 1, Gus Grissom, Roger Chaffee, and Ed White were killed on the launch pad in a horrific fire. Together, we read a very well written Scientific American story on the loss.

I walked on that pad - in their footsteps - back in November. While it's also the scene of great triumph (gloriously successful moon missions), for me, the sadness was what was smothering there. Likely the fact that the launch pad is so dilapidated, forlorn and neglected looking today contributes to that melancholy.

Off in a quiet corner, away from the pad, I spied these three benches, engraved with the fallen astronauts' names.

The risks of the mission weren't lost on those three, as evidenced by this 'joke' photo they staged for their supervisors.

As sad as the anniversary is, I was "glad" to see that Apollo 1 was at the top of today's Yahoo! searches. Gone, but not forgotten.

Jan. 28 will mark the anniversary of the shuttle Challenger disaster, while Columbia was lost on Feb. 1.

A historically awful week for the American space flight program, to be sure.

Shopping

MANIPULATION: The kids have a show and tell type night at their north end school next week. For the two event last year, they made some Yoshi statues and wrote and illustrated some really great books ("Gingy and the Windy Day" and "Lolly Learns a Lesson").

This go 'round we kept it simpler. They are just doing a 'Fun with Photoshop' display. They had a couple of things they've created in the past to show - including this cute composite Annabelle did of her Pillow Pet bumblebee and some flowers - which we'll be using.

But most of what will be displayed is brand spanking new. Not surprisingly, most of today's creations were inspired by video games. Perhaps you noticed Donkey Kong atop the Space Needle leading today's blog post? In the first version the kids were working on, they were using an animated DK image they found online, but none of us liked the way that looked, so we ended up doing a photo shoot of a stuffed DK toy they have. Annabelle posed the toy around one of our kitchen lamps.

Then, CJ had to eliminate Annabelle (sorry, Sis!) and the rest of the background, isolating DK, and move him over onto a stock Space Needle shot we had.  

During all of our Photoshopping, the kids used either a track-ball or a Bamboo tablet. CJ MUCH preferred the track-ball. The pen and tablet gave him fits.

Once Donkey Kong was done, we worked through a number of other photos, including this 8-bit dog from the first video game Rick and Ken ever played: "Duck Hunt." Instead of being in an 8-bit field like he is in the game, CJ inserted him into a real world field.

We also had some fun with one of CJ's favorite Internet memes - the Troll Face. CJ found a face that was a big enough file, then we found a Fremont Troll photo that would work.

CJ isolated the Troll face and put it on the Fremont Troll, but it just didn't look cohesive enough. I suggested CJ experiment with some of Photoshop's filters to make the two images fit together better. He settled on a "Stamp" filter that was bold black and white, like the Troll face, and fiddled with the settings a bit to make it acceptable to him.

And last but not least, ever since we saw a silly sign outside a pet shop saying something about "Raiders of the Lost Bark" CJ has wanted to do a composite of Kirby on that movie poster. Well today was the day!

CJ was the one who thought to change the headline on the poster. Before his work, it read "Indiana Jones - the new hero from the creators of JAWS and STAR WARS."

CLASSY: The kids had music this morning. We always get there a few minutes early so they can play around on the instruments.

In LEGO class, CJ continued to work through a kit that's actually a collection of projects (building small animals ranging from a fish to a seahorse and more), while Annabelle put the finishing touches on her rescue helicopter. 

Before class, the kids had a half hour of fun in the gym, where they played prison ball (sounds fun, eh? It's every-man-for-himself dodgeball) and scooted around on square skateboards. Good times!

Measuring Up

BABY IT'S COLD OUTSIDE: After a one-week absence due to snow and ice, we were back to the kids' classes up north today. Specifically art for Annabelle and then science for both of them.

The weather unit continues in science class. Today, each student got a thermometer, and they were able to experiment with them in warm water, ice water and room temperature water. I was happy that the lesson centered on measurements on the celcius scale. 0 = freezing - how easy is that to remember? That, and it's what the overwhelming majority of the rest of the world uses.

The kids each got to make their own thermometers, coloring different zones to delineate temperatures and the 'mercury' was represented by red construction paper.

Toward the end of science class, the Worst Shriek You Ever heard blared. Based on my decades of experience, I knew it to be a fire alarm. ;) CJ and Annabelle, bless their homeschooled little hearts, thought it was Armageddeon.

We all trudged out side as I explained to them it was a fire drill. Nothing to see here - just an exercise to make sure people know how to safely vacate a building.

It was a longish drill, tho, during which the littlest kids in their class really started shivering in their t-shirts in 40-something degree weather.

I was thinking the 'all clear' sound was way overdue about when I heard the sirens in the distance. Their wail grew closer - a fact that wasn't lost on the kids. I pointed out to CeeJ and Bee that we didn't see or smell any smoke and the school *probably* wasn't on fire. Of course, me being me, at that point I also felt compelled to share with them the fact that once when I was about their age, we had a fire drill and, I'll be damned, turned out the school WAS on fire thanks to cafeteria ladies out of control. ...

Fortunately, in today's case, the alarm was tripped by a preschooler who found the red box on the wall just too enticing.

Meanwhile, back to science class. I have to give MAJOR PROPS to the kids' science teacher. While we were outside wondering and freezing, she gathered the kids around and continued to teach. After all, the unit we were working on was weather, and we were out in it. She had the students scan the skies and note the various types of clouds. Fortunately, cirrus, stratus and cumulus clouds were all visible at that time.

When we finally got the all clear signal, we went in and continued the lesson on clouds, happy to be inside and warm.