Sunday's Cool: Dead Mice

Sunday’s Cool

A Link Up & A Look Ahead.

A Link Up: Spider Droid is our featured blogger today. A recent visit to a local prairie yielded two posts. I hope you enjoy Dead mouse on the prairie and Questions for a dead mouse.

Speaking of Spider Droid, he mowed the lawn for the first time this weekend unless you count this.

I was thinking it would still be a few more years before he would be up to the task. But he has been bugging me for days to let him try to mow. So even though he’s just 9, I’m thinking when someone wants to mow your lawn. you say yes!

A Look Ahead: This is going to be a short week school wise with Memorial Day tomorrow and me away at the home school convention on Thursday and Friday. If the weather ever gets slightly summerish we will get a pool pass and do some swimming. Blog wise, I will be putting up a post tomorrow about a fractions lesson we did last week. I hope to post it just in time to submit it to the Carnival of Homeschooling.

Memorial Day weekend also marks the start of my summer reading season. Each summer I try to read at least 10 books and review them. Besides reading for just myself, I also spend time reading to the entire family. We just finished Little Town on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder the American Frontier author (not to be confused with Laura Impala Wildebeest the African Savannah author). I will post a review in the days to come.

When I hosted the Carnival of Homeschooling earlier this month I mentioned a contest Circle of Moms was holding to pick the top 25 homeschooling blogs. The voting has been closed for some weeks now and I have decided to feature the top 25 blogs in a sidebar here. Mine are not listed in the order of votes received, (for that info click here) but rather by most recently published. 5 of the top 25 vote getter's were already appearing here, I hope you enjoy them all. Well that’s it for today’s edition. Thanks for stopping by.

Next Time: Raising the Bar on Fractions.

Six Words: Green With Envy Trailer

My wife and I are big Muppet Fans. Especially we love KTF. But we love all of them. Kermit even attended our wedding. He was draped over the piano. Today Kermit and company are the subject of my six word Saturday submission.

Here are my 6 . . .

Not Easy Being Green With Envy

It seems there's a new rom-com out with Amy Adams and Jason Segel. I really liked her in Julie and Julia. Now while Julia Child did live in France for a while she wasn't exactly a frog. SO what does that have to do Muppets?

View the trailer to find out.





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Yes it was just an ingenious bit of stunt publicity. Green With Envy isn't a real film. The Muppets is coming in Thanksgiving and Green With Envy was just an elaborate way to get the message out. Cinema Blend blew up the GWE poster to reveal a very special guest lurking in the trees.

And if that wasn't all Disney put out a second trailer today to spoof the Hangover II movie which came out this weekend. Now I hadn't even heard of the hangover until like 2 weeks ago but the Muppet Trailer is epic.

For me the best part of the trailer is the fake names of publications in the fake reviews. My favorite: This Week Monthly.

Well That's my 6 words disguised as a Muppet Plug or vice versa. For More Six Word Saturday show your face or at least your browser @ http://www.showmyface.com/

Next Time: Sunday's Cool

The Dog Day of Spring and other Fragments

It's Friday and it's time for some fragments. These aren't technically fragments, but the way I've been rolling lately if I don't post them here they may never get out.

Last Tuesday we had fun at the old ball park. The White Sox have a Kid's club and each year our kids get two tickets to see a baseball game. We parked for free brought in our own dinner so besides some lip balm in A White Sox container that Amy bought and some cotton candy for the kids it was a cost free affair (Okay gas is like $4.00 a gallon, let's not rub that in!)

Here we are on our way to the stadium.

Spider Droid and I playing catch before we head in.

Each year we try to go to Dog Day. Which is where some fans can bring their dogs and the dogs are able to walk around the field. Puppy loves this for obvious reasons.

Nothing beats food at the old ball park.

One of the best features of U.S. Cellular field for our kids is a place called Fundamentals. It is a number of baseball skill related games that the kids can play for free. There are batting cages (more on those later), and other batting and throwing drill games. There is a miniature field where you can practice fielding and throwing with the staff there. Here is spider droid making a solid play.

My favorite of the games by far is a running race where the kids practice running from home to first base. Here is puppy running for the dogs.

Oh yes there was a baseball game and yes the Sox won.

Now Bunny also participated in some of the athletic stuff. She is a very fleet runner and even tried the batting cages which is way out of her comfort zone. There are two batting cages ans she had to go into the 8 and older one which is medium speed. She did fine the first time and a few innings later she went back. On that occasion she got hit by a pitch which gave her a nasty contusion.

What followed was we went to the bowels of the ball park to first aid. She was treated like royalty even being taken there in a wheel chair, which of course she both loved and embarrassed by. (she's almost a teenage that is a mix of emotions she needs to get used to.)

While we were in First Aid a 20 year old came in with severe alcohol poisoning and perhaps drug use. The nurse had to leave Bunny for a while to help this girl. When the nurse and helper were able to help bunny they were very impressed with her and made some nice comments about her deportment and about her being home schooled.

On the way back to our seats we walked by the main offices of the Sox and I took a quick picture of Bunny with her arm in a sling in front of the 2005 World Series Trophy.

All in all it was a great night. A week from Monday Aim and I will go to a game and plan to actually watch it.


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Fragment 2: Bird Feeding



Bunny got a book about birds from the library and wanted to make a bird feeder craft so she could sketch some birds in the back yard. She obviously didn't get the memo that neither her mother or I are crafty but we tried it anyway.

A) Start with some pine cones and then coat them with a peanut butter lard mixture. Then put some eye screws on the pine cones.




Step 2 string the pine cones between 2 trees.

Step 3 get on a ladder and try get the pine cones up properly.

step 4: Pine cone treats for obliging birds.

Fragment 3: Drawing Birds

There is a restored prairie land 1/2 way between out house and our church. On Monday morning I took the kids to the prairie so they could sketch some birds.

And of course so Spider Droid could be goofy. He found a dead mouse and will post about it in his blog soon.

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Fragment 4: Light Show

The other day Bunny tried to create a way to turn a light on just by opening a door here she is to tell you about it:

Well that's all the fragments I have for today for more Friday fragments stop over at half past kissing time click here.

Next Time: Six Word Saturday

It's not the end of the world

I wasn't going to blog about this. Really, I wasn't. False teachers preaching the end of the world is not a new thing and it will probably go on right up until the end of the world. But recently Harold Camping began proclaiming that Jesus was returning on May 21, 2011.



I used to make a joke back in the 1980's about these kind of proclamation's of Christ's return. I would say that it preempted his coming back because He would be all set to come back on a certain day and then someone would say He's coming back on that day and then of course Jesus would have to choose a different day because no one could know the day or the hour and someone found out.





Of course, May 21st came and went and Christ did not return. The next day this billboard went up in Greensboro, N.C.

The reason why I did blog about it is twofold :

1) That is awkward is one of my 3rd grader's favorite expressions, right along with why interrupt a very good show with kissing.

2) The whole prediction thing reminded me to live like today could be our last day on earth. On Friday, I talked with all my kids one on one and made sure they understood what Jesus did on the cross for them. I made sure that Amy knew how much I loved her. I didn't really think that the rapture would happen on May, 21st. I was just reminded that our time on earth can end at any moment. Just because you can't predict it does not mean it's not going to happen.

(If there is a )Next Time : The Dog Day of Spring.

The Story Behind The Picture

The problem with Wordless Wednesdays is inherent in the title. No typy, no talky, just the flash ma'am. I am a blogger who likes to say things so when I show you a pic like this . . .


or even this one taken about a minute before . . .

Is that without words it doesn't tell you what happened between the two. Or the story behind the picture.

So, Puppy had her ballet recital and she did great. I had bought flowers for here and I was lined up with them behind my back to give them to her as she walked into the gym.

So after taking the first picture, I did just that. What the camera did not catch is when I handed puppy her bouquet, she handed them right back and said "Not, yet!" and marched right into the gym.

Of course all the other parents thought this was adorable. Apparently giving Puppy flowers as she was walking back in the gym was before the event was over was (in her mind) not acceptable.

She gladly accepted them when in the gym and the first picture was taken. I still plan to post wordless pics on occasional Wednesdays. But from time to time I'll tell you the story behind the picture.

Other Words:

For those who saw yesterdays post here is the correct order of the sentences:

3, 5, 7, 9, 11, 4, 6 , 10, 8, 2, 1

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The Carnival of Homeschooling is up at The Home Spun Life.

Next Time: The Dog day of May

Monday Morning Paragraphy

Mondays can be a real jumble. You get up and you try to get everybody ready for a new week. But inwardly and outwardly can be something of a muddle. Last year I heard about a teaching tool called paragraphy @ http://www.byrdseed.com/. You write a paragraph. Paragraphy switches the order of the sentences. Your students then put the sentences in the correct order. Since Mondays can be a real jumble, I have decided to occasionally put a post through the paragraphy machine and let you you loyal readers try to make sense of it. This really isn't much different than my regular posts.

Today's installment will actually be a little piece I wrote about my current Monday jumble. I hope you enjoy.

1. That's the plan any way.









2. I hope to have Bunny work on some of her stuff before we go, some at the library and then we can all do some table activities when we get home.









3. Mondays are not just for morning quarterbacks.
   









4. Yes, I can say I knew him when.
   









5. Generally our Mondays are spent at our home school co-op and Awana.
   









6. The interview will be at the church where our co-op usually meets.
   









7. Since they have both ended for the school year, our Monday's have become a regular school at the table day.
   









8. Not sure what all we will do after the interview.
   









9. This week is going to be a little different from our new routine.









10. I am going to take the girls to a branch library near the church while the team meets with the reporter.








11. Spider Droid's robotics team is going to be interviewed for a magazine article.

Next Time: The story behind the picture