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A few days there I was just too lazy to post. And then we took a week's worth of days off for spring break, partly because of my laziness! and partly because we were taking care of E and T's cousin who was on spring break from her school. We finished learning about explorers and did math and some art on GeeArt, and music, too. Umm, also some poetry, from A Kick in the Head by Paul Janeczko. Today, we did a bunch of experiments with water, from Graham Peacock's Water and from Neil Ardley's 101 Great Science Experiments. Oh and one from 365 Simple Science Experiments by E. Richard Churchill et. al. Then E started learning about measuring length with metric units in math, and they helped their Daddy do yard work. Tonight E starts her first real job, taking care of a neighbor's dog while he is out of town--she is very excited.

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T picked out Your New Potty by Joanna Cole, which may be a hopeful sign. Then I read a chapter from James Cross Giblin's The Mystery of the Mammoth Bones, "Raven Brings Fresh Water" (From Sea to Shining Sea--Amy Cohn), and Houses of Wood by Bonnie Shemie. Then E did her math and everyone watched Peep. After lunch, we ran out to the pharmacy while E read It Could Still Be Water by Allan Fowler to T. Then when we got home, E copied out and memorized the 3rd verse of her poem, learning and writing definitions for "value", "venerate", and "salute". (The definition for salute had the word "acknowledge" in it, so she learned that too). Then we put together Dover's Northwest Coast Punch-Out Indian Village by A. G. Smith. (I confess I used scotch tape on the totem poles and the canoe--it doesn't look as nice as glue, but it kept me from swearing in front of the kids, so I think it's a good trade-off). E was able to assemble the longhouse all by herself.

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The Plan was, the PLAN was that I would read a chapter a day from James Cross Giblin's The Mystery of the Mammoth Bones, since it's a bit thick and wordy for a seven-year-old (so I thought), and that would lead into some fossil studying and so forth. But I guess I wasn't remembering how I devoured the whole dinosaur section of James Michener's Centennial when I was in first grade--anyhow E sat right down last night and plowed through 2 more chapters all by herself, so I guess I'll just have to pick up the story tomorrow at Chapter 4, and hope she can fill me in on what's going on...so much for plans!

This morning we went to E's piano lesson, then the library, and we went to Pizza Hut for lunch with one of her Book-It coupons (E: "Did I meet my reading goal, then, Mommy?" Me: "Yes, sweetie, if your reading goal was 'Read constantly', you certainly met it..."). When we got back E traced out and memorized the second verse of her poem, learning and writing definitions for "cotton to", "dote upon" and "stately". I read Clamshell Boy: A Makah Legend by Terri Cohlene and (in anticipation of the arrival of the microscope which I knew was on the porch already) Greg's Microscope by Millicent E. Selsam. She and T watched Peep while I got the microscope unpacked and then we looked at many many small and tiny things. Actually, the microscope we got is really cool; it's called a duoscope, and you can use it as a regular compound microscope, or as a stereo or dissecting microscope, for looking at small solid things, like bugs or rocks, without the use of slides. After that, I let her look through a neat book of mine called Then and Now, which has photos of ancient ruins paired with acetate overlays that show what they might have looked like when new. E's verdict: "I think the new looks much better than the ruins!"

Yesterday she was asking about holograms, because there is one on one of her bookmarks. I tried without success to find a suitable book at the library or a website that wasn't too confusing, but then, oh joy! I remembered that I had bought for them years ago a copy of David Macauley's The Way Things Work--and it has a section about holograms! Yay for the Ann Arbor friends of the library book sale all those years ago--they thought I was crazy buying all those books for my 6 month old! Who's laughing now?

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Today has been one of those days. The kids haven't been exactly uncooperative, but they haven't been enthusiastic, either. Going from activity to activity has seemed like pushing water uphill. But we got a lot accomplished anyway. I guess there's only so much you can expect on a gloomy winter day.

We finished the Hopi Pueblo Village model, and glued some cornmeal all around it on the base to look like desert sand. Since it's Ben Franklin's birthday, we read Aliki's The Many Lives of Benjamin Franklin, and Bryna Stevens' Ben Franklin's Glass Armonica. Then we watched a video of William Zeitler playing "The Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy" from the Nutcracker on an armonica (which it was originally written for) and a short little History Channel bit about the armonica. They also tooled around on a virtual armonica, and we got out the wine glasses and played around with different levels of water to get different pitches and so forth. This really entranced E for a long time, but T didn't like having to keep his fingers wet, so he went back to the virtual version. E did her math, and everyone watched Peep, and then after lunch we explored more homonyms in Allan Fowler's 1-One-Won! and did some reading and experiments with Salvatore Tocci's Experiments With Air. Finally, E copied out her poem, and I made her a Hopi dress (following the very simple directions in More Than Mocassins by Laurie Carlson--only I used some fabric ("Too itchy!"--it figures!) I had instead of a towel.) Oh, and we made pine cone bird feeders and watched birds for a bit. I really don't know how we managed to do so much--some days it works. Today didn't feel like a day that was working, but I guess it couldn't have been that bad.

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This is E's recipe for "A really yummy drink!" that she wanted to make first thing this morning. So I got down the things she couldn't reach and let her at it. Frankly, the "Green Shuger" made it look a bit ghastly, but she was pleased as punch and she and T drank it down happily. Which gave me some time to make chocolate pancakes without starving children pestering me, so she can make her "yummy drink" any time she likes for all of me!

Since it's Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday today, we started out with David A. Adler's A Picture Book of Martin Luther King, Jr., and Martin's Big Words, by Doreen Rappaport. Then T wanted me to read The Amazing Animal Alphabet Book by Roger and Mariko Chouinard. This is a fabulous, super-fun book. It's out of print, but in a just world everyone would have at least one copy. This is my favorite page:



I wish I had a poster of it. This is another good one:


Don't even get me started on the "Kangaroos kissing in kayaks" and the "Frog feeling forlorn". The whole thing is brilliant.

After that fun interlude, we read The Warrior Maiden: A Hopi Legend by Ellen Schecter, and Air is All Around You by Franklyn M. Branley. Then E did her math. After lunch we did a bunch of fun air experiments from 101 Great Science Experiments by Neil Ardley, and E did a Draw Write Now page.

I want to start doing more with poetry, and E really needs to work on her handwriting--she hates it and so whenever she has some writing to do it takes an eternity. So I got a book of fun poems by Jack Prelutsky called The New Kid on the Block, and I used the Handwriting Worksheets Wizard to make handwriting practice sheets of some of the poems. I figure I'll read a poem, have her read it, have her trace it out on the worksheet, copy it again on lined paper, and memorize it. Maybe one a week. If we can, we'll start tomorrow with "Cuckoo!":

The cuckoo in our cuckoo clock
was wedded to an octopus,
she laid a single wooden egg,
and hatched a cuckooclocktopus.

There's some great vocabulary to be found in the poems, too.

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Well, today I decided to bail on my friend Jennifer, who wanted us to go with them to Park Day. But, we got a lot done, so it was good. E read Blizzard! The 1888 Whiteout by Jacqueline A. Ball, I read Terrible Storm by Carol Otis Hurst, and T wanted me to read Kevin Henke's Sheila Rae the Brave and Guess How Much I Love You by Sam McBratney. Then we read the Cherokee legend "Grandmother Spider Steals the Sun" in From Sea to Shining Sea by Amy L. Cohn, and Mounds of Earth and Shell from Bonnie Shemie's Native Dwellings series. We made "birch" baskets (out of paper), a craft I found in Laurie Carlson's More Than Mocassins. Then E did her math. After some Peep, and some lunch, we got back to work with What is the World Made Of? All About Solids, Liquids and Gases by Kathleen Weidner Zoehfeld, and we did a demonstration from 365 Simple Science Experiments by E. Richard Churchill et al, which used a box and some marbles to show how molecules move in solids, liquids and gases. We went to the library and got some books, and E made a birthday card for her basketball coach. Tonight she has basketball practice.

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Yesterday T had a really bad crick or something in his neck, so we didn't go to dance or tumbling and we took it really easy (in fact he and I spent most of the afternoon napping--woe is me). I finished reading Owl At Home by Arnold Lobel, and introduced the concept of atoms with Robert E. Wells' excellent What's Smaller Than a Pygmy Shrew? Then we read Who Were the First North Americans? by Philippa Wingate and Struan Reid, and E did her math. She spent the rest of the day reading (mostly ahead in the Native Americans books: Me: "You know we are going to be reading them all over again in school so T can learn about it" Her: "I don't mind" oh well--I did put them out where she could get to them...)

Today we started with the Cherokee Indians: ...If You Lived With the Cherokee by Peter and Connie Roop, and we read The First Strawberries: A Cherokee Story by Joseph Bruchac. Then we talked about synonyms and antonyms, and looked at two books about opposites: Nina Crews' A High, Low, Near, Far, Loud, Quiet Story and Tana Hoban's Exactly the Opposite, which I loved because it is wordless, so you have to come up with your own antonyms, and sometimes more than one set will work. I had her list synonyms and antonyms for 5 words I wrote in her notebook, and then we read about Mercury by Larry Dane Brimner. After lunch she answered questions about Mercury in her notebook, while I started making a game called Fast Track which I found in Peggy Kaye's Games for Math. E of course was VERY interested in what I was doing as I took care to do it on the same table she was working on, using colorful index cards and colored pencils and pens for the game board. She finished her Mercury questions as quickly as she could so she could help with the game board and then we all played the game. The game is a brilliant, sneaky way to use flash cards for addition and subtraction facts without being boring drill. You advance around the board by completing the math sentence on the card, ie. a card with 2+4=? would let you advance 6 spaces. She had to answer T's cards as well, which was a bonus. They both enjoyed it and we played till we'd all won several times. Tomorrow we will play again with a slightly more difficult set of cards. I need to think if I can come up with a game to practice her note flash cards for piano...

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Yesterday E had a great piano lesson, and then we went to the library for about an hour--they were having storytime and we all checked out books. E wanted the librarian to request a book for her, but the librarian ended up trying to show her how to do it herself on the computer. Not sure how much of it stuck. Then E did a Draw Write Now page and after lunch she had her Habitats class at the zoo.
Today we went first thing to the orthodontist, so I wasn't sure how much school we'd get done, but we actually got back about the time we usually start school. I had E "narrate" from the story she'd been reading in the car, about Jason and the Argonauts from Collier's The Junior Classics Book 3, Myths and Legends. Then I read Gravity is a Mystery and The Beginning of the Earth, both by Franklyn M. Branley. We looked at some cool graphics of the breakup of Pangaea in National Geographic's pop up/moveable book The Earth Pack, and also a cool animation of the same. Then we did an activity called Egg Tectonics, using the shell of a hard-boiled egg to demonstrate the movement of the tectonic plates, and then we cut up the egg to show how it resembles the earth's crust, mantle and core. We also looked at a moveable of how the Himalayas were formed by tectonic action in Rocks & Minerals by Dougal Dixon. All this takes almost longer to type than it actually took to do.
I read a bit of Galen: My Life in Imperial Rome by Marissa Moss, and also the beginning of Spend the Day in Ancient Rome by Linda Honan, and we broke for lunch and Peep. Then E did her math lesson and helped me finish building a paper model of the earth, with a cutaway to show the core (T has already managed to dent it, much to everyone's dismay). Now she is finishing her questions about Venus, and then we're either going to stop or make bullas, a project in the Honan book. So, a pretty full day after all!

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This morning we had to go do our grocery shopping, as I wasn't able to yesterday, due to the party. Jen: "You can make it an educational experience!" Me: "I just want to get the shopping done!" So it wasn't educational. Then home for recess at G's house and lunch, then fortunately for me to not have a total waste of a day, the Early Simple Machines II kit arrived from Lego. As I was sorting through, counting pieces to make sure it was all there, E came in and asked about it. I told her it was a new toy for her and T to make machines and cool things with. I said "You can play with it until it's time to go to your dance class" She said, "What about school?" I said "This is school today." E: "Wow. It sure doesn't look like school." Me: "That's kind of the point"

So there you have it, a little socialization, a little engineering, and some dance and tumbling. Whew!