Wednesday, April 2, 2008

New books, belt tests, more

Today I caved in to marketing pressure. I was shopping at Sam's Club when I took a gander at their book tables (which I always do) and saw those big books of math, presidents, maps, etc. from Scholastic. You know, the ones they mass market to everyone? They looked fun, and the boys even thought they looked fun so I bought them. They aren't replacing anything, but . . . fun is good! I totally love it when they enjoy doing their schoolwork. It makes it so much easier when the materials do it and I don't have to find a way to make it enjoyable. We'll be starting zoology pretty soon too. I think they will enjoy that and I will too. I love it when we find things none of us are experts at and start digging together. Then the kids can truly become the "experts"!

My sons took their taekwondo test for orange belt today. We'll find out how they did Saturday. Hopefully they passed. At one point, the grand master told them to start with their right foot, and J-Dawg started with his left. Oops. He realized his mistake but stayed cool about it. A few minutes later, he was able to transition to the correct foot without being obvious about it. Other than that, his routines looked good to me! S-man didn't seem to make any mistakes, but then, what do I know?

Tomorrow my daughter begins swimming lessons to go along with gymnastics. She is very excited to begin swimming. My husband just finished taking pictures of a gymnastics meet last weekend, taking over 8,000 shots. He has shutter finger, and my daughter is totally amazed by the pictures. Now she sees what is possible, and how much work she has to do to be that good. We're starting 4 years late! Good motivation though!

We had our culminating field trip for The Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler yesterday, and all the moms agreed that it would be fairly difficult to hide out in our local art gallery. For one thing, cameras make it hard to hide. For another, there is nowhere near enough traffic to get lost in the crowd. The Cincinnati art gallery would have been slightly easier, although I suspect they have cameras too. (I never noticed.)

We started reading View From Saturday today. It's the next book the literature circle is reading, and it coincides with the library's chosen book of the month. That translates to having lots of activities none of us have to plan. Woot! We'll also be reading a book on Rachel Carson, Friend of the Earth for Earth Day. It's a shorter read. I'll be reading the Five Ancestors' series to my daughter in anticipation of the next book coming out later this month. The boys have absolutely devoured this series (many times) so she and I started reading it while waiting for the boys at taekwondo.

For me, I've finished View From Saturday (ahead of time so I have time to plan accompanying activities) and have begun An American Prophecy: The Fourth Turning. I am already hooked and am only a few pages into it. I read a review of it on a TJEd list I joined. I suspect this might become a "must buy" book because I think it will take me several reads to even attempt a review of it.

3 comments:

Mrs. Darling said...

I started peter in swimming lessons too last week!

I love Costco I buy all my scholastic boopks there! I am unashamed! :)

Mrs. Darling said...

Havent seen you around so Im just checking to see if you're okay. Miss ya.

3 for school said...

Thank you for missing me!