I wrote this for a homeschool list

Again, in the early morning, the kids alternated between playing with each other and listening to Henry Huggins. They used their balloons from yesterday to help their toy rockets fly. At a later point, they played with the tub of sea animal toys. I overheard something about a hyper swordfish that was leaping out of the ocean. And then T exclaimed that his fish had become a fossil.

B and I talked about abbreviations, because he needed to rewind his tape and the button said "rew".

T couldn't really be bothered with much of Henry Huggins so he wanted to hear something else. We listened to some Laurie Berkener in the main room again. Then, he said he wanted to hear the train song. I wasn't sure which song he was talking about until he indicated that it was the one about the choo choo train coming back. He was talking about a Peggy Lee song on my old standards CD called, “Waiting for the Train to Come in”. He really loves that song because of the train theme and because she uses the word “melancholy” which is a T favorite for some reason. He sings some of the words when I play it.

Here is an excerpt from the the song:
“Waiting for the train to come in...
I'm waiting for my man to come home...
I've waited every hour of every live-long day.
Been so melancholy since he went away.
...
I'm waiting by the depot at the railroad track,
waiting for the choo-choo train to bring him back.”

I love jazz and old standards, so we often listen to that sort of music. Sometimes, we try to guess which instruments are playing. Actually, we went to a short jazz concert this summer that was part of a children's concert series. T is much more interested in that sort of thing than B is. I usually have to bring coloring books for B.

They discovered a box of kids' books, since we still haven't completely unpacked. B tried to read, “Dinosaur Roar!” to T. Then, he looked at the “Make It” book that was previously mentioned. He has plans to make a skull, but he's having a hard time finding his scissors. He uses them so much that I'm always surprised that he can't find them.

After finding the scissors, B set to work to try to make a 3D paper skull. He tried in the past but didn't finish it. T tried the skull but then gave up and worked on paper airplanes instead. T's a perfectionist, however, so he sat with a paper airplane book and complained that his airplane didn't “look right”. In the end, he made a crumpled looking traditional paper airplane but was very pleased to find that he could do a “loop uh loop” with it. So it all ended well.

We then sat and read some books together. I read part of the RS4K Bio I chapter on how protists eat. We had read this about a month ago, but B wanted me to read it again. We looked at the paramecium, which is one of his favorites. He said, “That's the food vacuole.” “How do you know that's what it's called?”, I asked. I don't think he would remember it from the one time I read it last month (or maybe he would, I don't know). He proudly said, “I read it! See! I can read!”

It's funny to me that he can read big words when they relate to something he's interested in, but if I asked him to read a page in a picture book, he'd stumble over words like “was”; he gets tired and frustrated. He simply doesn't have the repetition down to make it easier for him. If I catch him off-guard and ask, "What does that word say?" and it relates to science, he can often read it effortlessly. I'm considering asking him if he'd be open to doing (gasp) flashcards of common words. I never ever thought I'd use flashcards, but if he's open to it, it might help him so that he doesn't have to sound out every word he sees. I thought it might boost his confidence a bit too. We'll see what he says.

So we read the protist chapter, with B recalling how the paramecium digests. Then, we read about amebas, podophyra and didinium. T sat next to us, warbling about how the cell would eat another cell and split into two, followed by, “I saw that on the Zula Katrol!!” The Zula Patrol is a cute, simple science cartoon on PBS that they love. B was very interested in the didinium, because T's nickname for him is “Didi”. He decided that he liked Didinium and we had to find images of it on the Internet. I must admit that the microscopic images of Didinium and the poor paramecium (its prey) were very cool. We talked about what “predatory” meant.

We then read T's choice, “I love trains!” by Philemon Sturges. Both kids read some of the words, with T reciting from memory. B's next choice was “The DK Dinosaur Encyclopedia”. We only read a few pages, because T was getting restless. We read about sauropods and then T Rex. B is vegetarian and normally he gets annoyed by the carnivorous animals but he's been warming up to T Rex. We talked about how scientists can't agree if T Rex hunted or scavenged. T Rex apparently had 57 teeth! B said, “I only have 12 teeth up top. How much are two 12s?” “24”, I replied. We worked out that T Rex had almost twice as many teeth as a grown human. There was a funny moment when he pointed to the drawing of T Rex standing over a disgusting looking carcass and said, “That's disgusting!” “What is?”, I asked, wondering which gruesome detail he was referring to. B replied, “Look! He's standing in it! Ugh.”

T's next choice was “The Night Pirates” by Peter Harris. If you have a little girl, you might particularly appreciate this picture book. Here is an excerpt:
“Pirates!
Rough, tough little girl pirates.
With their own pirate ship.
...
But what about Tom?
Could he join the crew?
'Please let me aboard!
Can I come too?'
And did the girl captain say,
'Certainly not!
You're only a boy!'
Oh no, not at all!
Instead she roared,
'Welcome Aboard!'”

B's next choice was a human body encyclopedia from SIL. It's a cartoon book designed for small children, so it's not as detailed as his DK book. But it has lots of flaps with interesting trivia, which makes it fun in a different kind of way altogether. We read lots of interesting little bits of information about joints, reflexes (what are they and where do they come from?), ligaments, capillaries, and the brain. The brain is a B favorite. We learned that brain cells are called 'neurons'. We also learned a bit about how muscles work and all three of us identified our biceps and triceps when the book pointed them out.

At this point, I was a bit tired. I decided to iron and get ready. The kids started a human body puzzle but abandoned it at some point. Tired of jazz, I put on the classical mix channel. At one point, Khachaturian's Sabre Dance came on. If you've watched Bugs Bunny, you'd know this piece. It's always the manic chase song. One day as I was returning from an errand, I discovered that dh put this piece on and led the kids through the house in crazy running style. He'd die if he knew I just wrote that. So the kids came out of their room and did a mini-run to the song, with B doing what looked like a 6 year old's impression of the stereotypical Russian dancing you see in ballet.

They ate while I showered. Then, they showered and got ready. It was 11:15. I put on the Magic SchoolBus for them and now they're watching some cartoon about monster trucks.

I'm posting this now, because it got kind of long. There will be a part two later in the day. The big activity in part two is B's art class. I have a doctor's appt so dh will be taking both kids. I had a fun downtown trip planned around his art class before I made this appt. I'll probably take them downtown tomorrow to make up for it. If I do, I'll post pictures.