Our October

Happy October!  It's still been quite warm here.  Today should be cooler with a high of only 76* instead of our usual 80s & 90s.  I'm ready to be able to wear pants to work.  

I like to do a trial run on my crafts and projects.  Both so that I can foresee any challenges, and so I have an example to show the students.  So I dripped a bunch of liquid watercolor on coffee filters at home.  

I used one of the filters to make a cute little bat magnet.  Then I went to school and thought, "The kids could do this with tray watercolors."  

Turns out, the tray watercolors at school are lousy.  Aside from being mostly used up, the black wasn't really black.  So the kids' bats turned out kind of pastel.  Live and learn, I guess.  

And then there's the ideas that don't work at all.  I decided it would be cute with our dino theme to make candysauruses.  I cut out a stegasaurus, without the back plates, and glued it to construction paper.  Then I used white glue to glue candy corn onto the back of the dinosaur to make spikes.  Cute, right?  

Well, yes, but no.  The glue dissolved the candy corn.  The construction paper stuck to my desk, because the goo had gone through the paper.  Not quite the effect I was going for.  I was *really* glad I tried this one beforehand.  

The school had a fundraiser at Panda Express.  It was the first time we'd gone out to eat as a family since before the pandemic.  

It was time for Grumman and Fiona to have their rabies shots.  

They were not delighted with the process, but they're all injected and licensed for the next year.  Whew.  

More books.

My snapdragons are in bloom again, after looking really awful most of the summer.  

It's the one month of the year that the spider webs in the rosemary bush are decorative.

Autumn has come to the school library.  Leaf dress, Octobery books.  One of the books we did last week was Pumpkin Patch Parable.  I went through ahead of time and printed the references for all the scriptures.  Then I passed them out to my 3rd graders, who looked them up and as I read the story, they'd read the scriptures as we came to them.  It was a great exercise in looking up Bible passages, and I'm looking forward to doing it with my 4th & 5th graders, too.  

This is a work in progress photo.  I haven't taken one yet of the finished board.  I added leaves.  I was planning to do yellow letters, but I could only find black, turquoise, or patterned in the supply room.  I was going for something that would last until I decorate for Christmas.  

I moved a bigger bookcase into the spot where a skinny bookcase was.  Lots of shuffling going on.  I had to buy shelf pins, but there should be a shelf above Curious George tomorrow.  Which is good, because our picture book section is constantly expanding.  (Which is also good.)  

Me:  "I'll put up some leaf stickers to decorate for autumn!"

Grumman:  "No."

Hannah and Grumman playing.  She doesn't seem to mind getting all scratched up.

This was a neat book!  

I subbed in first and second grade a couple days last week.  I wrote their spelling words on the board and told them their teacher wanted them to "Write the words in ABC order."  One of the students was listing all the individual letters.  

I've learned so much working at the school this past year+.  One of the things I now know is that my favorite ages to work with are between 3rd and 6th grade.  And kids mature more over the course of the school year than they do during the short summer.  Subbing in 2nd at the end of last school year was fine.  They're "almost 3rd graders."  Whereas first graders at the beginning of the school year are basically end of year K students.  It was a little like herding cats, and I was happy to see their teacher come back to school.  We did, however do a couple fun things:  sidewalk chalk spelling words, a popcorn art project, and candy corn math.  

Trader Joe's looks like a pumpkin patch.  I feel like we're kind of past the pumpkin patch stage this year.  Autumn break (when did that become a thing?) is coming, and we'll do fun stuff, but I don't think we're going to a pumpkin patch this year.  

I was looking for a library book, and I looked under someone's bed at what appeared to be a couple beer bottles.  Fortunately, this underaged person was only stashing creme soda bottles from a recent field trip.  No, I have no idea why.  

We're still working on the Epic Road Trip plans.  I don't know if it will truly come to pass or not, but it's certainly fun to imagine.  

Korean BBQ chicken over white rice

They say a picture is worth a thousand words.  I have a lot of these pictures in my weekly uploads.  They represent a few words, namely, "Dinner's ready!" and "This is what we're having."  I text Josiah because he usually doesn't hear the dinner bellow.  (Side note, if Paul calls DINNER! from downstairs, Grumman hops up and waits for me to open the bedroom door because he knows that means we're going down.)  

Sad face.  Hannah just told me that she doesn't like wearing leggings or skirts any more.  She can't wear pants.  So that literally leaves dresses or shorts.  

The middle school hand chimes class played in church on Sunday, and the school choir sang.  Next performance will be Fall Concert next month.  

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.