Dinosaurs Unearthed

Jack and I went to the zoo this morning to see the Dinosaurs Unearthed exhibit. It was very much like the one we saw at the Omaha Children's Museum last August, except that this one was free (yay, OKC!) and that one was air-conditioned (yay, Omaha!). The t-rex was so big I couldn't get it all in the picture! Also, a warning for any other 7.5 months pregnant women in flip-flops planning on going to this exhibit: It is at the very back of the zoo, so buy a tram ticket. I wish I had thought of that!


Jack was very excited that the misters have been turned on again. He ran to the first one that he saw, only to find that it wasn't working. His response? "What does a kid have to do to get cooled off around here?"--said very indignantly, of course. It was 93 degrees, so we were glad to eventually find one that was working!

We had to stop for a sno cone, too. It took him a very long time to finish which gave me a very long time to sit and rest!

There will be more zoo pics soon along with other pictures from our pond unit that we will be finishing tomorrow!

Footing and Pipes

We have a green sticker, which is good!

Last week they poured (I think that's the right word, but maybe not) the footing for our house. It looks like it will be smaller than our current house, but our builder assures us this is not the case.

This is where the front porch will be.

This seems to be some kind of plumbing. I think that may be close to the hot water heaters since I was by the garage when I took this picture. You can also see the bay window for the kitchen and the back porch.

We got rain last weekend and we are supposed to get more in the next couple of days, so this may be all of the progress for a while. I am not going to be going home after the end of April, so by the time I get to see it all again it should look really different!

It's Blast Time Again!

It's that time of year again! Homeschool Share will be accepting entries for the annual Blast contest beginning May 1. I participated last year and I even won a gift certificate, but this year I am recognizing my limitations and sitting it out (other than this part).

This year things are set up a little bit differently, so click on the button on the right for all the details. I am especially excited about the workbox category! The moms who run this site and submit ideas are all so talented that I know there are going to be some great submissions. Now get to work! : )

Happy Easter!

We started Easter a week early by coloring eggs.

Jack decided he wanted to do some "work" eggs. At our house, if something is camouflage, Jack uses the word "work" to describe it.

We had our Easter dinner at home last Sunday. You can tell I went all out on the table.

Last week we did some Easter crafts and decorated cookies.

We made this tomb look like rock by mixing paint, glue, and sand. We were pretty impressed with ourselves.

On Friday we had resurrection rolls for breakfast. I am not sure that mixing theology with cooking is a good idea in my house because my recipes don't always turn out exactly like they're supposed to. For instance, if the marshmallow is supposed to represent Jesus, are my children going to think that Mary arrived at the tomb to find Jesus obliterated just outside?

Easter morning--last year's loose dress was this year's tight one. Jack was a very good boy during church, but when it came time for Sunday school, he kept crying and trying to run away. Then the teacher brought a cute little girl to the door and he went off with her without giving me another glance.

We had lunch at Jay's parents' house and the kids had an egg hunt in the drizzly rain.

Rabbits

This week we rowed The Tale of Peter Rabbit by Beatrix Potter.

We also read several other books about rabbits as well as books with rabbit characters.

Tuesday night we even got to go to a presentation on rabbits at the library!

In Jack's notebook we completed several activities from the FIAR Fold and Learn as well as using the Evan Moor Giant Science Resource Book.

This article from an old issue of Your Big Backyard was great to use with the life cycle of a rabbit page from the Evan Moor book.

Jack also enjoyed the games on the Peter Rabbit website as well as watching the video on YouTube. His favorite thing of all, though, was getting to read Squirrel Nutkin from our big Beatrix Potter book. It still makes him wild!

Happy Birthday, Boris!

Yesterday was Boris's eighth birthday! (See here for the story behind his birthday celebrations.) During school, we read our new copy of If You Give a Cat a Cupcake. And chances are, if you read this to a four year old...

he'll want to make cupcakes for his cat!

Bobe didn't get cupcakes, but he did get some mandarin oranges, his favorite treat.

Jack's birthday message for Boris:

Happy Birthday, Bobe!
I always love you, except when you nibble.
I love it when you do those snuggles at night.
They're cute.
Signed,
Jack

Raising a Reader

Every parent has one deep fear about their child. They may worry that they can't provide for them, or that they won't be a good athlete, or that they'll run off and join the circus. My fear has always been that my child will not like to read. If he couldn't read for some reason, it would be okay, but if he didn't like to read? That's a completely different story.

As a classroom teacher, I encountered a few parents who bemoaned the fact that even though they had read to their child when they were little and they could read just fine, they still didn't like to read. I can't remember what I told them, most likely because any time I heard something like this, I would start to feel queasy and worry if this was something that was catching. It just got worse after I actually got pregnant.

As Jennie Nash writes in Raising a Reader,

"Reading is a particularly slippery passion to want to pass along because it's a skill that most parents would agree their children have to master, to one degree or another. It's part of the basic kid curriculum; so if you're pushing reading, you're not being a pushy parent, you're just doing your job."

But I'm trying to take it easy. And so far, it's working. Jack loves books and he loves words. And I'm trying to make him love meeting authors and illustrators. This morning we went to a book signing to meet Mike Wimmer and get his new book.

I got to sound like a big freaky stalker when I told Mike Wimmer about going to his house twelve years ago and how we had so many of his books. I'm pretty cool.

Hopefully Jack will continue to love books and reading, and I'm just hoping he's better at reading for detail than I am. Below: the bracelet I put on Jack when we arrived at the museum. Any guesses as to who was wearing the CHILD bracelet?