The Dewey Decimal System

We did something really fun today that I think everyone should go and do. :0) As part of our Evan Moor "Nonfiction" study we had to go to the library and use the above worksheet to explore the nonfiction section. I say "we" but really after a brief explanation I sent the girls to do it on their own while I read my book and did some math with Joe. They started in the 100s and perused the shelves making note of what topics were represented by the books in that section. It took them about an hour and they really had fun. Of course, as they were looking they found a lot of books to check out. We left the library with 5 bags of books. I actually got a little bit of attitude from the check out lady. That annoyed me--here I am, using the library, checking out educational books. Just because it was a lot of books should be of little concern to her. Anyway, the girls found some great books--lots of cookbooks, some books about different kinds of writing (ancient egyptian, chinese, hebrew, etc.), a book about hermit crabs, box turtles, cats, ballet, the Titanic, and more. More importantly, they saw how the nonfiction books are organized and saw that there are books about just about everything!
After their exploration, they had to pick a topic, decide on a question they wanted to answer, and use the card catalog to find a book that could answer their question. Hannah is fascinated by the story of the Titanic right now so that was her topic. Grace's original topic was cuttlefish (sp?) but we could find nothing about cuttlefish. Really, where does she get this stuff? Did you know that cuttlefish are like squid and octopus? I didn't but Grace did. Anyway, she had to change her topic to Beavers and managed to find the answer to her question. These were the first two activities in our unit study. The first pocket is about Finding Information in the Library.
The picture above is not very good but I was trying to get a picture of all the books they checked out. This is most of them but some are still in the Publix bag. I don't know if they will take the time to look through and read all of the books they checked out but I hope they will. One of the new ideas I have is to go to the library once a week or so and have the kids pick at least one book from each of the sections of the nonfiction books and read it over the course of the week (or two). There are plenty of short, picture books in every section. I would assume that some weeks they would get interested enough in one of the books that they get that they would want more information and then we can pursue that. Right now for example, Hannah is interested in the Titanic and she has a big stack of various types of books about the Titanic. Some are fiction and some are non-fiction and she plans to read them all.

Big Mike and Frozen Yogurt and a Cute Baby

On Monday we woke up at 3:15 to get ready to go be movie stars down in Orlando. We had to be there by 5, crazy, I know. We were extras for the pilot episode of a show that will be on A & E called, "Big Mike." The star is some guy from the show Heroes and the co-star is some guy from Third Watch. I didn't recognize either of them. Anyway, by the time we got checked in and on the set it was 7 am. We "worked" for the next 5 hours. By "working" I mean we clapped and cheered and pantomimed clapping and cheering for the same scenes over and over and over and over. We also had to say part of the Miranda Rights speech over and over and over again. It was long and repetitive but we had friends there to keep us company. It was fun by tiring standing in the hot sun for so long. Thankfully, we will be paid and that's always pretty awesome. Especially for the kids. I was so tired by last night, getting up at 3 in the morning is rough. I was in bed last night before 9 and slept until 8 this morning! Hannah and I both took pictures while we were in the holding area. Some are before the sun came up. I love the top one, of course Hannah took that one and in one of these below I have a picture of her and Emily setting up the shot.



Today we finally had a normal day and I remembered that I like normal days. We slept in and then read for a while and did chores and school. I'll be doing a separate school post in a little while, I love what we did today. The new chore system is going swimmingly (fun word!). I have now taught Grace how to do laundry and that has freed me from that chore. She is very responsible and does a great job with it. I'm not crazy about her folding abilities but I just refold my own clothes and don't worry about everyone else's. Joe is much happier now that he doesn't have to do the bathroom. He was also kept busy for a long time with dusting and vacuuming and sweeping today and didn't even complain. Can I get a woohoo??
Grace's birthday is tomorrow but we had birthday dinner tonight since the kids don't get home from theatre until almost 7 tomorrow night. Per Grace's request we had cube steak, mashed potatoes, mac n' cheese, and lima beans. Right after dinner Landon's mom (aka my friend, Amanda) called and invited us to bike with them downtown and have some frozen yogurt. So, we did. I was in a picture taking mood so I have a few pics...



Landobaby got his first hair cut today, so cute! He was hamming it up big time.

I accidentally rotated the pic below in the wrong direction but I like it. In real life, Grace was right side up and Landon was upside down.

But Normal is So Boring...

Life is supposed to get back to "normal" this week. I don't think it's going to happen...not for a few days anyway. I made a fairly last minute decision to be extras in Orlando tomorrow. They are doing a shoot for some show that will be on A & E. All I know is that it is a crowd scene like last time. Our call time is 5 am and so we have to leave the house at 4 am! We are only "working" for half a day though so maybe I'll have time for an afternoon nap before our busy afternoon/evening. Tuesday will be sort of normal but Hannah will be babysitting so we still can't start either of the unit studies I have for her and Grace. Wednesday is Grace's birthday and we'll have a "normal" morning but in the early afternoon we'll be going to the mall to get her ears pierced. Maybe Thursday will be normal.
We went mountain biking today except we weren't on a mountain. We were in the woods on a new trail that our city has "built." It was pretty rough terrain and I had to walk my bike here and there. I was behind Joe and he kept stopping or slowing down so I had to keep stopping or slowing down, usually just when I was getting going. It was interval training. I managed to get a good cardio workout and sweated a lot and had fun doing it. It's fun to have such a neat trail within biking distance of our house. We used to take our bikes to trails a lot but now we don't have a vehicle that will carry all of our bikes and we haven't yet invested in a bike rack. I couldn't actually ride my normal bike--the one with a nice wide seat and two baskets one of which is bedecked with fake daisies. Thankfully someone had given us a used mountain bike and I rode that and it was perfect. My real bike would not have worked at all.
Well, considering I have to be on the road by 4 am I better wrap this up and go finish getting ready. It's rough being a movie star.

Cabbage...it's what's for dinner

I finally used the sprouter that my SIL gave me last January and sprouted some mung beans. Tonight I'm sauteeing those sprouts with cabbage and onions and white beans with some salt and apple cider vinegar. Interesting, huh? Not so sure my family will like this meal but it's healthy and meatless and they better just shut their traps. Ollie is making some bread to go with it too. I'm not eating the bread at all, trying to avoid those carbs. :0) Not to mention, I love fried cabbage with white beans--yum! Ollie's been bringing home these great ethnic cookbooks from school. Each one is for a different country. We made almost every recipe in the India one and all the recipes were fairly easy and really good. Thursday I decided to make some recipes from Egypt. The food was okay but we discovered that the food is very bland. I made three things--Fish with Nut Sauce, Rice with Vermicelli, and Cheese and Egg Pastries. Not one of these recipes called for any spices, not even salt. I added salt and they tasted okay but nothing special. So, we're done with the Egypt cookbook. Next up is China. Woohoo!! I love Chinese food. After that is Germany. I'll share any recipes that are worth sharing.
Kind of a dumb and boring post...sorry! :0)

School Today

So, today was our first day back to school after Spring Break. I had planned to ease our way back into our normal routine and it's a good thing I did. Today was anything but normal. First of all, the weather was crazy--stormy and rainy--and the weather radio was going off every few minutes. Grace had spent the night at a friend's house (normally a no-no on weeknights but I caved) and didn't get home until after 10. So, we got a very late start but we did start. We did our reading time--read the Bible, Book of Virtues, Young Person's Guide to Knowing God, and started a biography of Walt Disney. Then the kids did chores. We are trying something new. Joe is in charge of all living areas, Hannah is in charge of the kitchen and dining area, and Grace is in charge of bathrooms, foyer, and laundry. So far, so good. The laundry was piled up so Grace got to practice using the washer and dryer and folding a lot today. After chores we started school--this was interesting because I have all these new ideas and philosophies that I'm eager to test out but yet unsure how I want our school time to look still. This is most definitely a work in progress and I am assuming that every day will be different and I will bore you with seemingly endless blog posts because not only do I write for your enjoyment (ha!) but this is my journal as well. Hannah had an easy first half of the day because much of what she needed to do was on the computer and we had everything unplugged to protect it against all the lightning. She wrote an article for the Bunk Room, read for half an hour (she is reading Homesick by Jean Fritz), and did Wordly Wise. Later she did Math and attempted her virtual school Spanish. I finally convinced her to just quit that class today. I'm not crazy about the style of teaching and she wasn't retaining much. She had an assignment and a big test and she had hit a wall and just didn't think she could do either and I couldn't help her. I think part of her problem is that I helped her too much during the first semester. Because of that I've been completely hands off for this second segment and consequently cannot help her. Anyway, I have a great Spanish workbook and that will suffice for now. Grace did Math, Wordly Wise, read for half an hour, and wrote an article for The Bunk Room. Joe did Math, helped me make a cake, finished up a project for his Caldecott Winners pocket book, and read for a while. I had hoped to do a couple of the experiments in his science kit that he got for his birthday but he wasn't into it so I didn't push it (one of my new ideas). It was a good start for the first day back after almost two weeks off. I'm hoping with each new day I'll have a better idea for how I want to do things and what that looks like day to day. I keep reminding myself that these last couple of months of school are one big experiment. Surely by next fall I'll know what I'm doing, at least until I change things again. :0)

It Was a Nice Idea...

....but I've quit before I even started. I totally nixed my plan to do the Maker's Diet. I have way too much else going on in my head right now to also add in a pretty extreme diet. I guess having a week and a half off from school and chores and theatre and normal life made me forget how full that normal life is at this time. Throw in the changes I'm trying to make with school and I chickened out. We started back today and that's when I realized that it just wasn't going to happen. Actually, to put it more positively--I recognized my limitations. So, my new plan is to exercise, cut way back on carbs, and start employing some of the things I learned last time I was on the Maker's Diet, and eat less in general. So, the weight loss may not be as extreme or as quick but hopefully I can make some strides in that area. Mostly I need some discipline and confidence. I can do this. Fo Rizzle!

Just a Ramble

Joe is still cruising through the A to Z Mysteries. He's trying to read all of The Ninth Nugget in one day after finding out that his buddy, Jake read two in one day! After a near crisis when he finished The Missing Mummy and didn't yet have the next book...I have now ordered all the way up to Z from the library to have on hand. He has also decided that he'd like to own the whole set of books so he can someday pass them on to his own children. So, I will help him obtain the books by checking out thrift stores and used bookstores and asking around if anyone has any books they no longer want.
We had a fun couple of days with Grandma and Grandpa. Lots of girl and boy time this trip. The girls all got pedicures and spent most of yesterday shopping and even went out to lunch. We have a family wedding this summer and we found beautiful dresses for the girls and shoes to match. I'll get pics on here eventually. Joe and Grandpa hung the tire swing, went to Lowes, worked around the house, went to McD's and made a trip to Target for a Lego car.
Grandpa made his famous pizza for us last night. He makes the best ever Thai Chicken Pizza! Then we sang Happy Birthday to Grandma and celebrated with lemon bars while watching Disney's "Oceans," as well as some of our favorite family "funniest home videos."


I completed the above puzzle in about two days' time which included staying up half the night last night because I just couldn't quit. This was the. best. puzzle. ever. My Spring Break was complete and I now feel ready to tackle the remainder of our school year and get back into normal life. Whatever that is. :0)
In other news...I am going back on The Maker's Diet starting probably Monday. I need to do some shopping and meal planning before I jump in. It's a great diet but the first two weeks are pretty hard because it's a cleansing period and your choices of foods to eat are pretty slim. It's a 40 day diet and I may not go the whole 40 days but I'm determined to use at least 3 or 4 weeks of this diet to get me back to making better choices and also hopefully jumpstart some weight loss. Once I start losing weight it's easier to keep it going. Last time I went on this diet I dropped weight like crazy at the beginning and in total over the course of 4 or 5 months I lost 25 pounds and felt great. I want that again. I'm upping my time at the gym and sort of enjoying it. I've got lots of books on my nightstand to read. Right now I'm reading Pretty in Plaid by Jennifer Lancaster. She's really funny, it's not fiction, more biography. She's the author of Such a Pretty Fat that I read last year. My next read is going to be The Heavens Before by Kacy Barnett-Gramckow. It is a christian fiction book set at the time of the Great Flood. I've actually read the first chapter or so and am already into it. It's the first in a series and I already have the second one--He Who Lifts The Skies. I know there's a third one as well but can't remember the name. Also on my nightstand is Milk Glass Moon by Adriana Trigiani, this is the third in the series that starts with Big Stone Gap. They are simple, slice of life books and I've really enjoyed the first two. And, lastly, The Widow's Season. This was recommended on a blog I read and is sort of a ghost story. With the kids we are starting a few books this week--A Childhood of Famous American's biography of Walt Disney, The Bronze Bow by Elizabeth George Speare, and The Magician's Nephew by C.S. Lewis. I'm not sure that I'll have all of them going at once but I may read one in the morning and one in the evening. I'm looking forward to getting back into school, I'll be blogging a lot of our school journey this spring as I process what is working and what isn't.
Okay, time to go figure out dinner....Peace out my friends. :o)