A day with

We've had a few stressful things thrown our way over the past few weeks, so having any down time is a real treat.

As of January first I have become the big cheese of the library used book sales, and while I know someone had to do the job, and I do have a few good ideas for the event, it is definitely an increase in responsibility and time. It helps immensely to have a little boy who is a) so helpful when we go in to work, and b) so keen on reading all the books he can get his hands on (which is a lot in the sale room) when he can't help. Yesterday my dad helped us shift shelf upon shelf of alphabetized books around the room until we had tweaked organization a bit. Today Calvin spent an hour helping me weed through books that have been around a little too long and need to go on "sale" (as if 1.00 for a hardcover wasn't already "on sale"). Thanks, family.

The cold in our house is still threatening a coup, so the rest of the day we spent with tea and books. Some math, some piano, and Calvin was suddenly bent on getting back into our study of early humans so we revisited our "A Day with..." books by Fiorenzo Facchini (Homo habilis, Homo erectus, Neanderthal Man, and Homo sapiens). We both love these books—each is full of facts, dates, and images of archeological finds with a short story interspersed to bring those things to life.

Having mapped the human migration out of Africa we are working our way into American history and I'm loosely tapping an Intellego Unit Study for that. I have the American History Volume I studies for both grades K-2 and 3-5 and I'm blending them a bit, picking and choosing the parts I like from each. I think I've said before that I could probably have done this on my own, but I'm finding that there is something to be said for having a basic guide to follow—less late night planning involved.

Today we told each other our own A day with stories about living as hunter gatherers. Calvin decided that Jon was out hunting with a spear and a torch while we were in charge of gathering water in a gourd and collecting berries and tubers. We were in charge of the fire as well. I think this is reflected well in the illustrations he made to go along.

The men are returning...see their torches?

There will be meat for dinner (it's hanging up there) and a woman with a gourd of water...

Now we are back in current times. Chicken soup for dinner again (we will get healthy, we will), and there is snow in the forecast. Actual, honest-to-goodness snow. I hope it comes.

A little light reading

It was too cold, too wet, and too windy to join the homeschooling group at the park today. Maybe on a different day, but not with the sniffles still hanging around. But we did get to try out our new furnace finally, though it was so quiet we forgot to notice. And a cold, rainy, windy day is a great time to curl up with a good library book. After reading Who Was Charles Darwin, a decent book for this reading level but not stellar overall, everything has been "Origin of the Species this" and "Origin of the Species that", so that when we went to the library this morning we just had to look it up and check it out. An illustrated copy, nonetheless.

Winning pizza

So Antarctica it is these days.

He spent the better part of the morning in the kitchen with Play-Doh, molding away before proudly presenting me with his three dimensional map of Antarctica. And all I know how to do is roll out snakes. But he asked me to help him make an ice cave and inhabitants, so while he made the cave I attempted a penguin.

I think both turned out nicely.

After molding the various land forms and plant and animal life of that forbidding continent out of the much less cold dough, we went to the library to pick up some more books and videos on the subject. When we walked in the librarians, who are always happy to see Calvin, since we live in a small town and practically at the library, were completely ecstatic. Turns out, the kid won one of the prizes in the summer reading program drawing and they were just thrilled to give it to him. This is the program I'd been reluctant to let him sign up for, and here he's won a gift card to the local pizza shop, and that will mean pizza dinner, no need to cook, on one night of his choosing. Mmmm..I fully admit that sometimes I am wrong.

Dinosaurs, discovery, and make-believe

PaleoJoe was at the library today. If you're not familiar with PaleoJoe, which we weren't and likely neither are you, he's exactly what he sounds like: an energetic, entertaining, real, live paleontologist, complete with stereotypical hat. The beard suited him quite nicely, too.

PaleoJoe is a local author, and between book tours (or probably the other way) he's at a site in Utah, digging for dinosaurs. PaleoJoe had just the right amount of scientific information to share, mixed with just the right flavor of humor to make it lively and absorbable. We learned a lot. I, for one, had heard that new thought on the T-Rex paints him as a scavenger or opportunistic hunter, but PaleoJoe gave us all the great arguments for why that would be true. Just ask Calvin and he will likely tell you about that carnivore's poor eyesight, good sense of smell, and brain shape matching that of the scavenging vulture, the opposite of the super hunting eagle. There's a bit about the tiny arms, too, and the danger of running or lunging after the prey you are stalking if you have no arms with which to catch yourself if you fall. We also explored the theory of the great die off and the effects of the volcanic ash from a super eruption.

PaleoJoe brought with him replicas of fossils he'd found, and also so fun dinosaur puppets. A velociraptor with hair? Well, no, but very fine feathers that resemble hair, yes.

PaleoJoe also brought some of his books with him, because this was a book tour, and we are suckers for books.

After PaleoJoe Calvin has an enlivened interest in dinosaurs and digging. Later in the afternoon we visited the park by my parents' house and discovered great dig sites.

And femurs and teeth.

And then, because it's make-believe and can take us anywhere we want, he climbed into his futuristic lab and used the computer to create images of the dinosaurs whose bones he'd found, and shipped them off to schools world-wide for other kids to discover.