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I couldn't post yesterday because my modem was down. I was getting pretty jittery without my internet fix! Yesterday we took an easy day since it was MLK Jr. Day. I read My Dream of Martin Luther King by Faith Ringgold. Then since last Sat. was Cezanne's birthday, I read Mike Venezia's biography, Paul Cezanne, and we looked at some pictures in a book I have about Cezanne. We made Bull Roarers (More Than Moccasins, Laurie Carlson) and played and sang "Song of Happiness" in From Sea to Shining Sea by Amy Cohn. Then we went to Grandma and Grandpa's house for lunch and played Fast Track (Games for Math, Peggy Kaye).

Today T picked When the Sky is Like Lace by Elinor Lander Horowitz. (E read it to T last night too. Last night the sky really was like lace! And with the full moon, it was perfectly bimulous. But too cold to go outside barefoot in our nightgowns, though I did let them go out in their coats and shoes for a bit, after checking to make sure they weren't wearing any orange, not even underneath.) Then I read the first chapter of The Mystery of the Mammoth Bones by James Cross Giblin, and If You Lived with the Indians of the Northwest Coast by Anne Kamma. E did her math, and T played with the Cuisenaire Rods. They both watched Peep. E started memorizing a new poem, "I Do Not Like the Rat!" from The New Kid on the Block: Poems by Jack Prelutsky:

I praise the hippopotamus,
I celebrate the bat,
I hold the bream in high esteem--
I DO NOT LIKE THE RAT!

I cotton to the octopus,
I tolerate the gnat,
I dote upon the stately swan--
I SHUDDER AT THE RAT!

I value the rhinoceros,
I venerate the cat,
I quite salute the simple newt--
I CANNOT STAND THE RAT!

I gave a suitably dramatic reading, then gave E a Handwriting Worksheet Wizard worksheet with the first verse on it, to copy over. I also asked her which words she didn't know (bream and esteem) and had her write them with their definitions on the back of the page.