Our Week with a Birthday

Last week, Katie had a sore throat, which turned into a cold.  Hannah and Jack both got it, and Jack's boss told him to take the week off.  

Another "Ms. Frizzle" moment.  I read Dragons Love Tacos to my kindergartners and wore my taco dress.  

We did an activity where the kids feed the dragon (on a lunch bag) a pair of tacos.  I passed out upper case letters and the students selected the matching lower case letter to go with it.  Some of them needed a little help, but I bet when we do this again with Dragons Love Tacos 2 later in the year, they'll have it down.  

City library books.  My room pile is out of control.  I need to do nothing but read for a week.

I made a pumpkin shirt for Kasen.  Eli was briefly home en route from Japan to the East Coast, and since he was going to see Zach in Texas "on the way" he acted as my courier.  

While I was in a sewing mood, I finally got around to making a taggie for a new baby at church.  

I ended up not going to the baby shower a few weeks back because I couldn't get into a sewing mood, so I'm glad I eventually got inspired.  

In fact, after this, I cut out a few pairs of pajamas for Kasen (in the next size up, just in case it takes me a while).  I haven't gotten around to starting to sew them yet.  

Picking Eli up at the airport.  I rarely see "the bunny terminal" since I usually use the other airlines, but he was coming in on Alaska.  

A coworker was lamenting a broken cassette tape, and I suggested repairing it.  She brought it to me to work on.  

Hopefully it will work for her, except right where it's spliced, now.  

"Fiona!  Quit licking the rotary cutter!"  Seems a bit dangerous to me.  I'm taking care to leave it blade down now.  

Josiah's scab looks like South America.  (Isn't that such a homeschool kid thing to say?  I love it.)

Cutting out dinos.  Fortunately, Hannah and one of her friends helped me.  

Earlier in the year, I read If the Dinosaurs Came Back and had my students make these geometric shape dino cityscapes.  I realized this was going to be beyond the ability of my kindergarteners, so I modified the project for them.  

They colored premade cities and glued down a one piece dino instead.  

Miss Katie turned 12 this week!  

Our Getting Stuff Done Week

You know how you add stuff to an online cart, and then you don't actually complete the purchase?  

This skirt, along with several other things, was in my Amazon cart when the Queen died.  I decided I needed to order it.  I wore it to school the day I put out England & monarchy books.  

City library run

I opened another one of the boxes in the library and found Sunday school teacher materials from before I was born.  

Miss Hannah got her new leg!  Glad to be done with visits to Shriners for a little bit.  Each leg takes a minimum of 3 trips.  

See the sign?  The green & white one?  

When I was a kid, my dad would point out random buildings and say, "You see that restaurant?  I put trusses on that building."  My husband says things like, "I went on a medical aid there," or "I went to a room & contents fire there."  Well, it's finally happened.  The next generation.  Jack and I were out, and he said, "You see that sign?"  He's been working for a sign company ever since June, and he worked on that sign.  

Speaking of Jack, we did a bit of adulting this week.  He passed his online permit test, so we took in his documents (for Real ID) and got his actual permit.  

Unfortunately, the catalytic converter in Paul/Josiah's car was stolen in front of our house this week, so he doesn't get his first driving lesson until we pick that up from the shop, hopefully later today.  

As I was driving him to work and the girls to school this morning, he told me a joke he'd heard from his boss:  There's 3 kinds of drivers:  people who drive like me; idiots who drive too slow; and morons who drive too fast.  I laughed, but it really struck a nerve in me.  We talked about how we tend to see ourselves as the "normal" and anything outside our behavior as aberrant.  Maybe from our desire to reassure ourselves that we're okay.  Just my deep thoughts for the day.  Poor Jack just wanted to share a moment's amusement and got Philosophical Mom.  

We've been talking about monarchy around here, and coats of arms came up in conversation, so I traced a blank wooden shield (leftover from the old days) and had the girls design their own.  

Fiona recognizes a fellow feline, I guess.  

Old art projects that never made it into a post.  Hannah's fireworks, 

and Katie's ladybug drawing.

Katie's coat of arms is more what I had in mind.

In fact, in trying to explain my idea to them, I found myself thinking of what symbols I would put on my own coat of arms.  I might need to do this in the library.  I can think of two classes that might really get into it.  

I'll leave you with this amusing truth I ran across in the library.  It's hard to read, but the title is, "You Can't Sneeze With Your Eyes Open."  

Our Very Warm Week

I'm so sad about Queen Elizabeth's passing!  I'm really glad I got the opportunity to see London while it was all gussied up for her Jubilee.  

Matilda hit 20,000 miles recently.  She has also since been dusted, lol.  Yikes.  Actually, I took her through the wash and vacuumed her out this morning.  

My fluffy love.  

The goofy dress I'm wearing is various picture book covers.  

School continues to be fun.  I had the kids do a contest for Back To School night.  I'm glad I still have more ideas than I need.  I hate it when I'm in a slump and can't think of anything fun to do.  

This is one of my "someday" ideas.  Dinosaur facts.  I think I'll have them use split pins and make it more like a fandex instead of using rings.  You can find them at 3 Dinosaurs along with lots of other printables.  

We've had record setting temps here.  It got to 114* one day.  

Some of the admin and support staff got posters from the elementary students.  It makes me smile, so I put it up on the library door.  

The book I'm currently working on.  I took it to Kaiser to keep me occupied in the waiting room last week, but the loud, sexist, racist golfer guys also occupying the waiting room made it too hard for me to focus on the 15th century.  

Fiona is pretty good about getting her needs met.  "I'm ready to snuggle now."  

A few more road trip research books, along with other city library finds.  

My 6th grade class cut out these bendy dinosaurs from Figures In Motion.  (We used them in our homeschool, ages ago.)  

I'm not sure where this guy's foreleg ended up.  If anyone asks me, I'm going to tell them a saber toothed tiger got to him.  

Work in progress dino posters.  

Student pastasauruses.  We ran out of rotini, so I need to get more before the next class does them.  

I don't like to think I have control issues, but I told the kids, "When you're done gluing all your pasta bones down, raise your hand and I'll come sprinkle on some dirt for you."  No way was I turning them loose with the shaker of craft sand.  I mean, it probably would have been okay, but why take chances, right?  

It's an ammonite.  

 Actually, it's a learning project from Twinkl, cleverly disguised as an ammonite.  I'm going to have my 4th & 5th graders make these and glue them in their paleontology notebooks.  

Our Second Week of School

Whew!  I survived our first full week!  Somehow, I missed getting pictures of student dino art that I had on display at last night's Back To School Night.  I'm kicking myself now, because they were very cute.  

Grumman and Fiona are still not "friends" by a long shot, but they were sharing space on my bed recently.  

So... I'm not a Dollar Tree shopper.  But I heard in a librarian group on Facebook that they had Berenstain Bears plush characters, and I've been thinking about taking a water aerobics class through parks and rec, so we gave it a try one day.  

We did find the bears, which made me happy.  And a couple plush dinos.  And Grumman's brand of treats.  And the pool noodle (I got purple).  And some books.  But... I was reminded how judgey I can be.  It felt like a Walmart/DMV/emergency room kind of vibe.  I live a sheltered, almost isolated, privileged life.  I'm thinking I might need to make an effort to be around real people more often.  

This week's book run reflects my current dream for next summer:  a road trip.  I'm thinking if I can get the girls into an adoptee summer camp in So Cal, we'll drive down, hitting a few points of interest on the way there.  They'll go to camp for 5 days while I wander around museums, zoos, etc.  Then on the drive back, we'll stop at some different landmarks.  It would be a massive field trip.  We're researching at this point.  I think it's a fabulous plan.  Paul is not as enthusiastic.  Hopefully, he'll come around if I keep talking about it.  

The library's current setup.  I'm sure it will change over the course of the year, just as it did last year.  

My example artwork (the red dino up on the white board) can just barely be seen here.  It's a project based on the book, If The Dinosaurs Came Back, which I read to the younger grades this week.  We drew a cityscape and then glued a colored dino on top.  

The metallic dino drawings on the right side of the white board were done by Hannah and Katie as examples, but we haven't done those in class yet.  

I added book bins this week.  So far I've got 2 in use, but I'm sure all 4 will be pressed into service soon enough.  This small bookcase will eventually house a shelf of early chapter books, but for the time being, it's displaying dinosaur books.  

Working on a test run of a future project:  

 Dinosaur Pasta Skeletons.  Once the glue is dry, I'll shake the excess brown craft sand off.  

Grumman and Jack are making the same face!  

Jack has been working hard all summer.  I'm proud of him.  He's thrashing his clothes, coming home filthy and tired, and for the most part, keeping a good attitude.  His boss changed his start time to align with our start of school, which is a huge blessing.  Much as I enjoy my job, I don't want to be there an hour before I have to, you know?  

And that's our week.  Feels a little sparse after all the amazing vacation pictures of the summer, but it is what it is.  I just need to get in the habit of photographing the ordinary again.