I wrote this for a homeschool list

I wasn't sure what we were going to do today. Moving to an apartment has been an adjustment, with the biggest thing I miss being our fenced back yard. We're still trying to figure out a routine or a set of plausible routines, I think. We need to get out more to compensate for the lack of a yard, but we have to be careful not to go out too much. Being introverts, there's a fine line between going out too much and not enough.

So, we decided to head downtown for one more day this week. Earlier in the morning, B listened to the BFG on and off. T built something with B's girder and panel construction set. They played with two baby dolls at one point, but I'm not sure what they did. B announced that he had written the word "spikey". Upon further investigation, we found that he had written "spicey" so I suggested he just draw a line next to the 'c' to turn it into a 'k'. Moments after this, T asked me to help him write, "Mikey". The next thing I knew, the boys were playing some dinosaur soap opera, with T's spiked dinosaur being renamed as "Mikey".

When we arrived downtown, I was really surprised and disappointed that my favorite map store was gone. I used to love that store, but I had not been there in a long time. I was looking forward to showing it to the kids. The store had some really odd and unusual things with a map theme. We were disappointed. We decided to get coffee and weigh our options.

In the coffee shop, we looked at the art they were selling and talked about what we liked and what we thought the art represented. B started chatting about the art class he is taking. He was saying how they were presented with fruit on a table to copy and that the teacher suggested they get up and walk around to get ideas of what they might want to add to their drawing. This was the class on Tuesday where they used oil pastel crayons, but these additional details were just now being shared. B was saying how he and another boy walked to the fruit display together and how they had both copied some element from each other's drawing. This led to a really good discussion of how artists, writers, etc get inspired by others.

I had picked up a pamphlet about a monthly poetry reading at this coffee shop. I am very interested in going, but I think it's too late at night for B. However, this led to a little discussion about poetry. B commented at some point that poetry rhymes, which led me to giving examples of non-rhyming poetry. We talked about haiku and I promised to read him some at home; I have a book of haiku on the shelf somewhere. We talked about a few elements of poetry. I tried to explain what a metaphor was, but I don't think I did a very good job. I used an example from a poem I wrote in high school, where I wrote about a hunched over giant but I was really describing a mountain.

This led the conversation to artists presenting one image (mental or physical) but implying another. We talked about how, in art, a painting of a concrete object isn't necessarily about the object; often, the artist might be trying to say something else entirely. We frequent the Art Museum, so we've seen examples of this before. And then, we spoke about how different people interpret art differently and how sometimes, the artist is purposely vague so that it takes a lot of thinking to discern what the art represents.

As we sat eating our chocolate chip muffins, we noticed a painting in front of our couch. It looked like a painting of a leafy bush on blue circular background. B liked the beadwork that had been glued to it. Then, he said that he didn't think it was a painting of a leafy bush at all. He thought it was an aerial view of a coconut tree on an island; we were looking at the very top of its tuft and the blue circular background was the ocean around the island. I had not looked at it that way, so it was cool to think of it in this different way.

We decided to just walk around downtown. We did stop by the Falls Park, but we only briefly looked at the waterfall. I had 2 hour parking and it's nearly impossible to get parking during lunchtime. So, we decided to just have a little walk and head back to the car. We walked under the bridge, where the kids discovered that they could make echos. Some really bad yodeling ensued. Then, B jumped inside a circular stone design on the pavement and declared that he was inside the Arctic circle. They were in good spirits and the weather was perfect.

We did eventually make our way back to the car and we went home. At home they watched some TV, including their beloved Zula Patrol and Cyberchase (math cartoon, kind of cool). B listened to some more BFG at one point and they did play again at one point, but I'm kind of vague on what they did. I do remember that he's near the end of the BFG, because he was talking about how the Palace staff is going to make a table for the BFG out of the Queen's ping-pong table.

We had to run out and get a few things for supper. In the car, we talked about B's cell project. The night before, I had made the basic structure for him out of two cardboard circles pushed together in a sort of perpendicular fashion. We talked about how he might want to tackle it. Did he want to paint it or color it with crayons? Did he need my help with the organelles? He decided that he would use crayons, after we determined that the tempura paint would probably flake off. And he decided that he would make two lists: one for what he needs to do and one for what he needs me to help him with. He picked up a free shopping list form at the store for this end. I get the idea that I will help by assisting with cutting organelles out and possibly reading some of the organelle names to him.

He wanted to do it immediately when we got home, but it was a bit too late. Dh was going to be home late due to work. I had to get supper set up. And then we had our chiropractor appt. We had been to the chiro's for her fun day earlier in the week, but we had to get adjusted on this night as we do every two weeks.

We headed to the chiropractor's, which is a favorite place of both kids. They played in her toy room. Then, when we went into the adjustment room, B and I looked at her pelvis model since we were reading about that earlier in the week. She answered some questions that B had about the pelvis. And she also said that "coxa" means "cow", which I thought was kind of weird. When we went out to the front room, B asked her if she could hold her real human skull. She kindly obliged him and showed the boys how the bottom jaw came off and how the teeth came out. Then, she let them hold it, which was really exciting for B. He found the hole in the skull where the spinal cord goes, something he had been wondering about. The chiro then explained how the brain gradually turns into the spinal cord and then comes out that hole.

By the time we got home, it was basically bedtime. Dh and B are *stlll* working on "Paddington Bear". T requested the two 'Chicka Chicka' books, both of which I had read several times earlier in the day.

I wrote this for a homeschool list

There was more BFG at various points of the day. T wants to be involved but he has a habit of talking over the tape. I set him up with a Laurie Berkener music CD on the computer. With that and the interesting Linux screensavers, he was good for a while. Isn't that terrible? The Linux people shouldn't make their screensavers so fascinating, however, because even I have a hard time walking by when one is running.

At other points of the day, T removed sections of the human body skeleton and tried to reassemble them. We eventually put it all away because it had been out for a few days and it was getting trashed.

B really did learn the prefix "semi" wrt the washable markers, after T decorated both of his hands while I typed this. Sigh. And as I said, about half of it remained after multiple handwashings. Oh well.

So T obviously had a blast with the markers. And B drew a few pictures with his set:
1. Skeleton with focus on ribs and pelvis (b/c we read about it earlier). That massive thing right down the middle of the ribs is the sternum. I assume those black masses are lungs inside the ribs, because we had spoken about how the ribs are slightly flexible for respiration. I don't know how many ribs he drew; he didn't have the book in front of him so he may have been guessing. But the bottom two ribs are free-floating like that, only attached to the vertebrae in back. I learned something today! And then he drew the pelvis with an emphasis on how it's two massive parts (the coxae mentioned earlier) are held together. The pointy part of the end of the spine is the coccyx, a word I can never pronounce correctly (kind of like 'cinnamon').
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y6/...thurs_dwg2.jpg
2. Internal organs on a human
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y6/...thurs_dwg1.jpg
The red/blue lines leading to the heart are "blood vessels that attach to the brain". The heart and lung combo is kind of small. The brown liver dominates the drawing. The green thing under the liver is the gallbladder, but he doesn't know the name or function of that; he just remembers that he's seen a green thing on the bottom of the liver before. The stomach is underneath that, followed by square intestines. The kidneys are tiny things on the outer sides and they attach to a yellow bladder (hard to see in this pic) with red ureters; he does not remember the term "ureters".

That's B: art, construction and science like I said in my intro. And as I said in the intro, this is what he needs to be doing. Sure, he doesn't know who the Mayans are yet and he can't define the term "antonym" (to recall that 1st grade thread) but this is what he likes so this is what he knows. I love watching him get excited about things that interest him. He wouldn't get encouragement or support in these areas in school right now; I think he'd be miserable, tbh. This is what he needs to do.

We didn't end up going to the play area, which was good because both kids got really tired and grumpy. They made a very small museum before dinner. Actually, there was just one exhibit, which was the small 3D paper skull from the other day. It's apparently "a million, billion years old" and it's the very first human skull. It has a purple appearance, not because of the purple construction paper, but because it's so old and it was impossible to carefully clean all the dirt off. There was just the one exhibit, but there was a lot of planning related chatter about the museum. I could hear B correcting T every time T called B by his pet name, "Didi". Instead, I could hear T calling him by his full name. I asked B why he was insisting that T call him that when he doesn't even call himself that. He something about official museum people, such as himself, never go by nicknames.

While I was making supper, B wanted to see my scales. I showed him how the "oz" meant "ounces" and how it was a way of weighing things. Then, he watched me try to get 10 oz of black beans. I think there were like 9 1/8 or something. I pointed out the fraction and tried to explain that it was less than 1...I tried to do a little general explanation of what it means and that if I got up to 8/8 that would be 1. Then I'd have 9+1. It's the kind of thing he's going to learn, I guess, just from practical applications like this and seeing it a lot.

Before bedtime, I read two of the "Chicka chicka" books to T. Now, dh is in there, reading bedtime stories: Paddington Bear for B and whatever T chooses in the world of picture books.

Do you know what I need to do? I desperately need to make up some homeschooling event calendars for myself. My printer is not working right now, so I've procrastinated making the calendars; I just need to do it online. Usually, I plot out all doctor's appts, concerts, storytimes, playdates, et al. That way, I can obviously see if anything clashes and I can also see if we have any massive gaps in the "something-to-do department." Maybe I'll go start that now.

I wrote this for a homeschool list

So, the kids watched TV for a while, as I exercised and showered. I got distracted by an episode of Mr. Roger's Neighborhood and I ended up watching a chunk of it. Mr. Rogers was talking to Lynn Swann, a famous NFL football player back in the day. Lynn Swann not only played professional football, but he also took ballet classes. His dance education pre-dated his football career. I really enjoyed seeing a big macho sort of guy performing ballet. I was glad my boys could watch that.

They also watched a Reading Rainbow episode about Ancient Egypt. They've seen it once before; B was very taken with the creation of mummies. The episode featured a book by Aliki called, "Mummies, Made in Egypt". I need to check that out at the library. It explained all the gory details of how the organs are removed, how fluids are removed, etc. It also talked very briefly about the ancient Egyptians' religious beliefs, which provided a tangent on how our religious beliefs differ and how they are similar. The book also showed the general geography of ancient Egypt.

In the episode, Levar goes to the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, where they apparently have several really nice mummies. B said at one point, "That's beautiful!" I mentioned how I was from Boston but how I have never been inside that particular museum. A short film was shown which showed actual footage from inside a Pyramid, presumably provided by the museum. B loves the part where the mummy is scanned and its head is recreated with clay.

B was looking at his DK Visual Encyclopedia of Skeletons so I offered to read it to him. It can be very difficult to read his books to him, because T wants to be intimately involved in everything B does and he doesn't have the patience for all B's stuff. So, we put on the "Charlie and Lola" show for T and I read to B in the other room.

For the 20-30 minutes while the show played, I read the pages he chose for me: ribcage, pelvis and skeletal varieties 1. He had lots of remarks to make and I had to give some synonyms for some of the words in the book, so we were both tired and completely done at the end! In the ribcage chapter, we identified the sternum/breastbone on our bodies, we read about the function of the ribs, and we learned about the types of ribs. Ribs 8-12 are called "false ribs" for example, something that cracked B up. We also saw some non-human ribs like snake ribs.

On the pelvis page, he showed me which bones the pelvis is comprised of and how they attach. He does not know the names of these bones, so I read those. We both learned that the two major sides of the pelvis are called "coxae". Each coxa is made of smaller bones; I don't remember the names but one was the ischium. We looked at a picture of human pelvis, in addition to that of a chimpanzee, cow and dog. It was interesting to see that the cow, dog and chimpanzee pelvises were very narrow in comparison to the human one. We talked about the coccyx and the sacrum, but we both got confused by which one was as he called it, "the sharp pointy part at the end".

On the skeletal varieties 1 page, we read about the basic types of skeletons. In addition to endo and exoskeletons, the book cites some sort of fluid filled structure in earthworms and trees. I took issue with the usage of the word "skeleton" as it relates to the last two, but I'm not really a science person. B got a little confused about endo and exo, thinking that one meant the front of the vertebrate skeleton and one meant the back. We cleared that up and once he understood it, he contributed some examples of his own, like the hermit crab (exoskeleton). He showed me how the tortoise has both types; that was very interesting to me. Then, he brought up jellyfish, because they are invertebrates but yet they are not crunchy on the outside; that led to a completely different tangent about an aquarium trip we took last year.

Some of the general words that I provided easier synonyms for (i.e. I read the original word and then gave a common synonym) were: respiration, inhale, organism, limbless, and tubular.

B started chatting about earthworms after I took issue with the usage of the word "skeleton" as it relates to them and we debated the color of the worm's 5 hearts. To placate him, I found some worm dissection pictures online. He was very satisfied to see the dorsal blood vessel but a little disappointed that it was not red like he imagined. We also talked about how worms are hermaphrodites ("No way!") and how they make "babies". With the mention of the worms' ovaries and testes, he felt compelled to demonstrate where his own testes were. (We read a book about human reproduction recently so the word "testicles" seems to come up at supper a lot.) I made some mention of worm poop, which led him to excitedly describe how worms speed up decomposition in the soil (he pronounced "decompose" in a cute way but I can't remember how) and how they basically make compost.

At this point, my brain was kind of tired so I decided to write this while they ate a late lunch. B burst in while I was typing, saying that he wanted to learn some "science facts". When I asked him what he specifically wanted to learn, he said he wanted to see the insides of the intestines and how they go through the body and eventually "make poop". Then, T discovered some washable markers and that lured them both to the kitchen, where they are currently drawing. B pointed to the package when I was recently in their room and told me, "This says 'washable'." That led to a weird discussion about how washable markers are not fully washable at all, which led to me explaining what the word "semi" means; they are semi-washable, really.

And now, I hope to take a bit of a break while they draw. We're listening to the African music channel on xmradio, which is my new favorite channel, I think. Later, I'll probably take the kids out to the play area later, before dh gets home.

I wrote this for a homeschool list

It's been another wonderfully lazy morning. I still need to shower and I should find the kids to dress them. I was the last person out of bed this morning, groggy due to noisy neighbors in the apartment below late last night. As I lay in bed this morning, trying to completely wake up, I could hear the kids chattering to dh over breakfast. B asked dh what the area around the North Pole was called. If the area around the South Pole was "Antarctica", then what do we call the area around the North Pole? (The Arctic, of course). Then, I heard them planning something, with dh admonishing them not to jump on me with it as soon as I crawled out of bed.

Their plans related to the empty box they found last night (in the last picture I posted). They wanted to turn it into a car, but they needed help with the big scissors. As soon as I woke up a bit more, I cut off the flaps like they requested, following by cutting out a door that B drew. They taped up a weak side and began drawing on the inside of the box. T's job was to draw a radio. Eventually, B taped the discarded flaps to the back of the box so that it looked like an open, sideways box attached to the car. Then, he taped paper over the opening and said it was the car's trunk. Right now, an assortment of dolls are chilling in the cool car. They were arguing about what kind of car it was, but I'm not sure what they settled on.

T took some of the human skeleton puzzle apart so he could put it back together. Mostly, they've played with the box car and given voices to the dolls that are riding inside. I caught a moth at one point and we examined that.

After the dh conversation and before the box transformation, they listened to some of the BFG on tape. B is listening to it again, while hiding in his castle cubby.

I'm not sure what we'll do later this afternoon. The kids cheerfully cleared off the entire kitchen table, because they want to paint. I need to get the paints out of the box so they can do it. I've just been procrastinating, because I'm afraid it will be too messy in this apartment. Normally, they don't spill, however, and dh did put some mats down. That's what we need to do in a little bit, since they were so excited about it.

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My homeschool day started at 6:38 am when T, my cosleeping buddy, started chattering in a very chipper manner like he does.

T – “Mama, when is it going to be morning time?”
Me – (muffled mutter)
T – “How many numbers until morning time?”
Me – (grumbles) “100!”
T- “1...2...3...” (He makes it up to 20 with some skipping in the teens.) Then, he cheerfully asks, “What comes next?”
I start him on the 20s and he gets up to “20-10” and gets stuck. I start him on the 30s, more awake at this point than I had hoped to be. I make a valiant effort to explain that he basically just has to count to 10 over and over again until he does it 10 times. Thinking he might have understood this at 40, I hear “41...42...43...83...84...85...100!!!! It's morning time!!!!”
If my kids ever sleep past 730, I'll be shocked.

Early in the morning, B colored. T drew, which he doesn't normally do.
After looking at a long line with a stick and some small circles above the line, I commented, “Oh, look at the train you're drawing!”
T- “It's not a train! It's 'One Thousand!!' And this one here (he points to 100000...) is one TRENTY!”
T- “You know what's two 1000s?”
Me-”What?”
T-”One-Trenty! That's a LOT! When I grow up and become an engineer and I'm going to have this number, one trenty!”
T- (starts trying to sound something out and settles on the word 'goofy'.) “Mama, how do you spell 'goofy'? “
Knowing that he's been trying to sound out lately, I say, “Well, what does it start with? G-g-goofy...”
T- “a Ghee!”
Me – “Yes, a 'gee'. What makes the next sound, 'oo oo'?”
T – “Monkeys!”, collapsing with laughter.
Realizing he was right, I giggled. We had a good laugh, while B tried to explain that two o's make the 'oo' sound. Clearly, the joke was lost on him.

He was on a roll this morning. Later he asked, “Mama, when I am going to be humongous and be even bigger than you?”

At one point, B drew a map of what he wanted our new backyard to look like. He drew two tree houses, with a bridge leading down to a wooden dinosaur. In B fashion, he circled a couple of details and then drew a larger sketch of what those details would look like if they were bigger.

While I got ready, the kids looked through a pile of books while listening to another Henry Huggins audio tape. I vowed to make it to the library today so that B didn't have to listen to the same CDs over and over! The kids were flipping through some kids' anatomy books, the DK dinosaur encyclopedia, a Curious George book and “Miranda the Explorer”, among others. I asked T for a kiss and he sternly told me, “This is the library. There's no kissing allowed!” Then, they went back to their book pile. I promised to read “Miranda the Explorer” (by James Mayhew) later.

Once we were all ready, we went to what we simply refer to as “downtown”; it's the big county seat and the big city in this area of the state. There are lots of things to do downtown, but I suggested looking for some obscure park I read about in a guidebook that I had never heard of. First we got coffee in a new place, a coffee shop that curiously sells woolen items. The kids played chess, or at least their own version of it. B is trying to remember which pieces move in which particular way, whereas T is concerned with jumping and taking enemy pieces in any way he feels like it; it makes for contentious games. We talked about how the sheep had their hair cut and how that wool is spun into thread to make things in the shop, more of a lesson for T than anyone else. We touched the wool stuff (super expensive!) and then moved on.

The obscure city park was very near the coffee shop. It was very small, a planned children's garden near an underpass. This whole section of the downtown area has been undergoing a massive revitalization campaign, one which probably started almost 20 years ago when the trees were planted in downtown and one that has picked up with dizzying speed recently as the area has experienced growth. A large and smelly old river was cleaned up and reclaimed. Now this river area is full of gorgeous city parks, upscale condos, art galleries, fancy restaurants and a large theater complex.

After playing in the “children's garden” for a while, we leisurely walked back along the river. We looked in the windows of several art galleries. B was really attracted to a boat sculpture that was made of crinkled newspaper strips. He wanted to look at some chalk art on the path, so we looked at those and discussed the famous paintings that they were based on. We discovered urban water sprinklers that were designed for kids to admire and to walk in. I wish I had known about those when we had temperatures in the 100s F!

We eventually ended up at large toy store, one that attracts people with its boutique toys and availability of toys to freely play with. This is not a homeschool particular, but I knew the MDC crowd would appreciate this: I got irked by a Mom who wouldn't let her little girl out of her stroller to play with the train table that she desperately wanted but she let her play with the dollhouse instead.

We wound up at the library where I was unable to find an audio tape of Paddington Bear, but I did find the BFG by Roald Dahl. It was part of the same series as the Eric Idle narration of “Charlie...”

It was actually pretty late in the afternoon when we got home. The kids watched Postman Pat and then the Magic SchoolBus space episode.

Before supper, B started working on a giant paper castle he's planning. He wants to make it big enough for T to enter and play inside, in the hopes that it will give T something to do while B listens to audio books. So far, he's drawn and colored about 5 bricks.

At supper time, one of B's remarks led to a zillion tangents. He remarked that men are taller than women, which led me to say that I would be taller than many men in the world, which required an explanation of how different ethnicities share common genes which give some general characteristics (e.g. skin color, height). That further required a list of exceptions (e.g. the U.S.) which were based on migrations. That led to a discussion about how many ethnicities, e.g. the English, are based on a mixed gene pool from various migrations (e.g. the Jutes, Romans and Vikings). There was a brief mention of the Native Americans originating from Asia. And there was a brief chat about the original humans probably coming from Africa, based on the oldest human skeletons that have been found.

B said he wished that the Vikings came to America so he could personally find a Viking skeleton (hopefully with a Viking hat). That tangent led us to talk about Vinland and how the Vikings could have hopped, skipped and jumped across. I mentioned that York, England has a big Viking historical center. Dh added that York also has fantastic train museum and that the Flying Scotsman from the Thomas stories is from York. Now, the three of us really want to visit York the next time we go to England.

B thought there was a New York in England, which led to a discussion about how the English named New York and other places in America after their homes. Suddenly, I had “They Might be Giants” in my head and I was saying how it used to be New Amsterdam. B wanted to know where Amsterdam was (and he thought it was a funny place name) so I showed him on a world placemat.

While dh and T played soccer in the other room, Ben burst into the study (where I was typing this), complaining that he needed help with his giant paper castle. I'm not really good at architectural things. But I had him stand on the floor and I put papers around him and showed him how to estimate how much paper he would need to build the perimeter. We determined that he would need roughly 3 sheets of paper across and 3 deep. I pointed out that he would therefore need 9, with 3 3s being 9. Dh interjected that he didn't think it would be architecturally sound, so when I left them, they were attempting to use a box to brace it.

When I came back in, dh and both boys were busy taping paper together. They had decided that such a large paper box would not stand up by itself, unlike the small paper tower that Ben had already created. Dh convinced them to tape a panel across a recessed storage area to make a cubby-hole castle. Ben discovered an outlet under there and before I knew it, both kids were inside the castle, listening to the BFG audio book. Then, they went to bed.

I wrote this for a homeschool list

So when I left off, the kids were watching TV. We watched a Reading Rainbow episode together about cats: tigers, lions, housecats and the musical Cats. The kids were really impressed with the makeup transformation in Cats; the show gave us a step by step makeup transformation.

They played after I turned it off, but I don't remember what they did. I put music on again. This time, we listened to the African music channel on my satellite radio, followed by Jamaican music and Latin jazz.

I had a doctor's appt this afternoon so dh came home a bit early to take B to art class. For the hour and a half of art class, dh and T wandered around. First, they walked downtown to look at the shops. Then, they wandered back to the big library.

When they came home, T had chosen a book about BMWs. Dh chose a kids' book about impressionism for B, because he wanted a book with paintings. They returned some of the audio books. I need to get more. In art class, the kids used oil pastel crayons. B said that white was a magic color in oil pastels, because if you put it over your regular colors, the regular colors look better and the white also fills in the holes.

After supper, dh and the boys worked on the human skeleton puzzle that was started earlier. T left supper early to work on it. Then, dh and Ben wandered in to help.

And that was our night.

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.