Friday, July 20, 2007

When Science Comes to You III - The Frog

My sister and her family are here from Washington. My nieces, Willow (7) and Meadow (4) are creative, fun, active children and my kids have really enjoyed playing with their cousins while they are here. We went up to my Mom and Dad's for three days. It was while we were leaving that we met the frog.
Willow caught it by the pond. Just a little green frog. My little Sarah actually held it for a moment, but Tim did not want it anywhere near him. Marcus touched it and laughed, but Luke did not have a chance to see it as he was already loaded in the van. As Tim is getting in the van, he suddenly remembers Grandma said he could pick green beans before he leaves. Being the ever-gracious mom that I am, I agree, if he hurries. I leave Luke, Mark, and Sarah in the van and head to the back of the house to see the green beans with Tim and Willow and Holli.
One child is unaccounted for. This is the child who is holding the frog. This is Meadow, who in her kindness, wants Lucas to also see the frog. Since Lucas is buckled into his carseat and cannot come to the frog, Meadow brings the frog to him. How considerate. However, frogs are not meant to be held by children.
As I round the corner with Tim for the van, Meadow and Sarah are rushing toward me with the news. "There's a frog in the van!" Sure enough, I see him under the seat. However, I side with Tim and I am rather squeamish about actually touching an amphibian, so I opt for Meadow to catch it. She misses. We find the frog again and Aunt Holli tries. She misses. At first, Tim refuses to even get in the van with the frog hiding in there because he is scared. Finally we are all headed down the driveway. Tim is asleep in about 10 minutes. All is quiet on the way home.
The next day, I clean out the van. Children surround me, helping carry things to the porch. I hear their sweet voices. I hear Mark, "Frog, Mama, frog. Go frog." I turn to see him holding a much thinner frog than I remembered, thinner and stiff and wrinkled. He drops the frog and tells it "go frog." Then he picks it up and hands it to me.
I actually touch the dead frog. I announce that we have found the frog and we all look at the dead frog and talk about what sort of habitat frogs need and why we should not bring them anywhere far from their habitat. Tim notes that if people don't touch them, they will stay where they belong. We throw the frog away and wash hands, even the children who didn't touch the frog wash hands. I wash mine twice.

Friday, July 13, 2007

The Adventures of Mat man, continued...

As dictated to Mommy today:

"Mat man and the ice"
Mat man had ice. The ice flies. He hits the ice and the ice pokes him. Ouch! "I'm going to save the day again." says mat man.
The end.

"Mat man and the lion"
Mat man sees a lion. The lion tries to get him. Mat man hits the lion, and is goes soaring up into space. Then it falls back down on mat man's face. The lion thinks he is saved. Then mat man flies and sends him into space, where he floats around."
The End

Of course, I have to read these with the appropriate super hero voice and actions until we are all laughing. Maybe I have spent too much time watching "my hero" on PBS, better known as Thermoman. Yikes.

Mat man

Tim is learning to read. He can sound out three letter words and we've started the McGuffey readers, "Nat can fan Ann." hmm.. the story content is not that exciting. So we've invented, "The Adventures of Mat man!" He is a winged superhero who wears a mat instead of a cape. We have made up many adventures of Mat man. Here is the version Tim can read.
Mat man has bad man.
Bad man runs.
Mat man runs.
Mat man flings mat.
Mat hits bad man.
Mat man wins.

After Tim has successfully read his version, I am instructed to re-read it with appropriate sound effects, like mat man having a hard time running because a mat is much heavier than a cape, not to mention the herculean effort in flinging the mat after the criminal. Hey, it makes Tim laugh and keeps him interested in mat man, I mean reading. Look out for more adventures of. . . the Mighty Mat Man!!

Adventures of the Gruesome



I opened the boys door after "rest time" to find this scene. The closet contents had been spilled into the room, with the exception of the totes, which are too heavy to lift. But I couldn't find the boys. Heart in my throat, I scanned the empty bed and started to look for legs under the pile.








That's when I spied the "gruesome". Sound asleep in the closet, on top of the immovable totes. Although immovable, they had been conquered.






When Science comes to you II

This week we found two kittens wandering the back yard (and a pet carrier near my neighbor's porch). We took them in and the kids had great fun playing with the kittens for the day. This was the same day my sister, Holli, and her family arrived from Washington state. Her girls were also excited to see and play with the kittens. I did have to "gate" the kitties in the laundry room for their own protection. "The gruesome" tended to hug them too hard or play tug'o'war with them. Timothy took lots of pictures as he will miss the kittens.

We had the opportunity to talk about how kittens grow and how to handle them gently, etc. Sarah --"Look how tiny God made their paws!" Tim -- "and He gave them claws for protection." My neighbor has a real heart for animals and thinks someone left them so she could find homes for them. So when she arrived from work, she came and took them home. (Whew! I was getting nervous as timsarah were coming up with names!) Later that night when we let poor Lenny (our own cat) out of his exile, Tim exclaimed, "Wow, Lenny is HUGE!" I wonder what will happen next week.

Friday, July 6, 2007

When Science comes to you


We had an interesting science opportunity when we opened the door this morning to find a fully moulted cicada clinging to the door frame and still attached to its previous skin. To see a 28 second speeded up version of this amazing metamorphosis, go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=go4MqVq9HVM .

Wednesday, July 4, 2007

The Gruesome

“The Adventures of the gruesome two-some” -- it occurs to me that this is not the most encouraging label for the boys.
FOURTH OF JULY
Ryan took Tim and Sarah to the flag-raising early this morning at the park. As I was saying goodbye outside, he looked up to the boys’ window, “Uh-oh,” he intoned, “the gruesome are awake”. Sure enough, two little faces peered down from the window. They were happy to see Mommy but they were more interested in “Daddy go?” and “Timsarah”. Thankfully they LOVE their breakfast, and were soon their happy selves again.

Summer Mental Images

Summer is for remembering.

Summer is my favorite season, and I don’t always have the camera. I take mental pictures all summer long. Is it strange to have others pose for them? On a recent date-night outing to Holland, I had my friend pose near a statue of Ben Franklin for my mental album. It was a really cute picture. I also posed while she took a mental picture of Ben and me. Maybe the strange part is talking your friends into taking mental pictures.