Drama Queens

We're back with a few little adventures besides regular life. We've been to parties, a wedding, I had minor surgery on my face and am anxiously awaiting the removal of stitches. The kids had their introduction to Star Wars with a special movie night. But along the lines of school, the kids have had some fun the past couple of weeks. The girls participated in an acting camp based on the theme of Fancy Nancy.  I was super proud when Chloe came home and said she was assigned the role of Fancy Nancy herself! 

Hannah got the role of a friend/schoolgirl Karen in her age group. Both were mostly excited not to have received boy roles :) 

 Here's Chloe in her debut role. The teacher mostly narrated the action so the kids could follow, but Chloe also delivered quite a few lines and definitely put some style into it. Of course I was smiling nonstop.

                                   Final bows. I love her fancy getup. (2nd from the left)

 Hannah did a great job as well. I was proud of both of them.

                                              Here they are with their drama teacher.
                         I haven't been able to upload the video performances, so family members,
                                       we'll be sure to watch it next time I see you.

 Colin always seems to have his own costume on. This is his regular park-going attire.

                                      Chloe is in a church dress every chance she gets.

                                       Chloe made a necklace out of "found objects" for her jewelry badge.
                                      We found a huge box full of styrofoam peanuts in the garage.

 This week we studied Benjamin Franklin. Really, you could spend weeks on him, but at their age, an introduction is all we need. One book suggested imagining a dinner party where you invited a printer, publisher, inventor, scientist, philosopher, and statesman, etc. but revealing you only needed to invite one man. I chose the professions they would understand and we pretended to invite them all. They were pretty intrigued when I took away all but one plate.

 Since Franklin's father was a chandler, we made beeswax candles the old fashioned way. Nana happens to own everything you can imagine, so when I mentioned this project, she offered up her crockpot already full of wax. The girls dipped their wicks in the hot wax, dipped them in ice water, then let them dry, then repeated the whole process several times to make their little homemade candles. Hannah has used hers for morning prayers.

 We also created a large pasta jar candle and balanced the wick from a stick until it cooled just like we saw in one of their library books. It was a pretty fun project.

              We learned Franklin was the youngest of 14 children, so we did a little basic math with that.

 We had some fun with type setting and foam letters. Franklin worked for his older brother in his printing shop. I let them go ahead and stick on their letters only to realize their stamp showed their message backwards. Hannah looked at me suspiciously and said "You knew that would happen." So I helped them figure out how to set the letters in reverse to have it print correctly.

                                   Colin made his own foam letter project.

                       Since Franklin secretly submitted his "Silence Dogood" letters to his brother's paper, the girls chose their own newspaper articles. First we looked at a few of our collected papers and discussed what an article and headline was. Then I set them loose on their own newspapers. I definitely had to laugh when Chloe chose to write about the Geico gecko and only cut out his little head for the photo.

 Hannah wrote about her upcoming yard sale. She cut out a photo of "who was coming to her sale" and a announcement about which cereal she ate for breakfast.

 

We printed up many of Franklin's inventions and made a chart of what they looked like then and how we use them now. 

 My favorite invention was the armonica. We watched several great videos on it. I had no idea both Mozart and Beethoven wrote for this instrument.

 We talked about the steps that would lead them to their own inventions, first by coming up with a problem. Hannah's first invention would be to record her voice saying, "Don't take my toys." When Colin bothers her, she plans on playing the recording over and over. He'll get so sick of it, he'll stop taking her toys. I admit this sounds like it might work.  

 The girls filled out some information on an imaginative invention. Hannah invented a robot that would find her lost toys. She seemed very focused on toys that day.

Chloe invented Silly Cook, a robot who will make her meals.

 We did come up with a real invention. We've all had trouble being consistent with their chore charts, so they decided they needed signs at the location of their chores. We took a cue from our favorite Brazilian steakhouse and used red and green sides to let someone know if a chore needs to be done.

Has it worked so far?..... not really, but we'll give it more time.

Colin is demonstrating. Uh oh! The coffee table needs clearing! 

 We talked very briefly about electricity and the basics of atoms, so they would understand there is in fact a source for the shocks they get touching doorknobs. : ) We of course talked about Franklin's daring kite experiment and safety precautions around lightning.

 We then learned the basics of an experiment like hypothesis and conclusion. They had to decide whether they thought a balloon could lift salt and pepper once it was statically charged. They were excited when it worked so well, and Chloe was so excited to announce "I was wrong!!!!"  Then they had to decide why pepper lifted so much easier. After a little prompting, they did guess on their own that perhaps it weighed less.

 We tried writing with invisible ink, but I'm sorry to say it did not work so well. They got the idea, though.

 We also talked about some of the other elements of Franklin, such as how he made a plan for his own work ethic and moral compass in life and how he maybe didn't follow that so much in family life ( I left out the details! ) but how he did accomplish so much. How sometimes promises from others sometimes don't work out- such as the governor's funding that never came through. And how his terrible relationship with his brother James might have been remedied with a little humility on each side. We only talked briefly about his role in the government as that's still a little hard for them to grasp.They were pleased to see him on the $100 bill since they recently visited the currency printing facility.

 

In other fun happenings, Colin asked me to make him a lunch with a face. I gave him this : ) I think it favors Ben Franklin a little, right? 

 I love when our past studies come back for us to review in a natural way. One day we caught a grasshopper and praying mantis sharing some leaf time together, so they were able to observe insects again.

 I guess grasshopper was getting a little chatty so praying mantis is making her exit.

We've read a couple of Beverly Cleary's Ramona books, but Otis Spofford was definitely my favorite growing up. Otis was always trying to "stir up a little excitement" and got into lots of predicaments. As an adult, I'm amazed at Cleary's understanding of the nature of a mischievous little boy and what drives him. She really develops characters so well, and at the end of each chapter, she throws in very unexpected endings. We've loved reading it together so far, and many of the topics also tie in with subjects we've studied, so the kids absorb even more. Otis was in a pretend bullfight from Spain, he got in trouble for throwing spitballs so had to throw spitballs for the rest of the schoolday- the kids loved figuring out why that was such a great punishment, and he ruined the class science experiment by secretly feeding the class rat. The kids understood what the experiment was trying to prove and how his antics threw off the results, though his actions did come from compassion. It seems I've gone on about this, but it is such a thrill to share my childhood memories with them in this way and look at it from a completely different perspective as an adult.

Last but not least- Kid Conversations:  strange there's none from Chloe this time around.

C- What's this?
M- A mango
C- Is it a dead mango?

H- I've been alive longer than you.
C- That hurts my feelings.

M- Did you just spill milk??
C- No, just throw up. (he wasn't lying)

C- I'm sorry I was sick and messed up school.
M- Oh that wasn't your fault.
C- No. It was my body. 

I was eating Muddy Buddies
H- Oh I love those with that white powder. My favorite ones have the blue powder, though.
?

Normal lunch conversation happening.
C- Let's settle down, okay? Settle down.


H- Mommy you have a stepmother.
M- What? Who's that?
H- Oreo (the dog). She's about your age and she's about to turn a year older.
That makes her your stepmother.


Colin punches Hannah
"That's my strong stuff."

Me on a soapbox. "Sometimes it's the hard stuff that makes us better on the inside. If life
were perfect we wouldn't grow in our minds and hearts. Sometimes life is hard.
H- Kind of like for me every day.

C- Eyes are like little aliens in your body, right mom?

Everyone Loves Oreos

 Well, we got a dog. After several years of debating, several months of thinking, and a few evenings of searching the internet, we went into a shelter to look at a dog- which was not this one. Tristan, a little white dog had been adopted that morning and there sat this little Beagle named Oreo. She was extremely calm, not a puppy, and had just been spayed, and pretty much met everything on our list (except for being a shedder). Now we have this girl to greet us when we get home.

 She had a little separation anxiety at first but now does well in her crate. She has a couple of medical issues that she's being treated for, but she should be fine soon. Other than that, she's extremely sweet and calm. She gets very excited and loud when we get home but is mostly pretty nonchalant, especially in this noisy household. She doesn't even care about the horn playing. She's about 6 yrs. old which means she already responds to her name, tells us when she needs to go out, and has her own schedule.

 Waiting for the kids to get home.

 In the meantime, we are on a break from school and have tried to relax and organize a little. I turned a door into a makeshift bulletin board. That little tree is decorated with school supplies for August and we'll change the decorations to fit the seasons. We did this on a much larger, torn up tree before, so this is a little nicer.

 We got rid of mountains of paperwork. I thought it was organized before, but it turns out I had too many ways to organize and it grew to be a mess. That big pile in the middle is what we recycled. How I wish we could keep every single little drawing of theirs, but that pile x 15 years won't work so well.

 The kids drew pictures their new dog. They've done a terrific job taking care of her. They help take her out, clean up after her, and give her food and water.

 She also gets plenty of hugs. Chloe will sit with her and snuggle and chat with her. We heard she was left outside pretty much all day with her previous owners, and I'm guessing she did not get much play as a puppy since she has zero interest in toys or wrestling around. But she loves belly rubs and long looks in your eyes. haha  It feels like she's kind of an old soul. She'll give sideways glances when things are a little rowdy. I give her sideways glances back when the kids are being frustrating : )

 Hannah is still feeling Oreo out, but loves her expressions.

Colin is pretty happy about it all, too. Oreo is a great addition to the family. : )