The Cheat, by Sheridan Jones: a story in installments. Chapter 3: I Lost My Best Friend

As soon as we got outside, Marvin started stomping down the street towards the candy shop (he likes to eat when he's mad.) I raced after him wondering if he'll ever forgive me!

When he got there he stopped and said, "What do you want?"

"Nothing," I said.

"You cheated, right?" he said.

Yes, I nodded my head.

"Then you lie and blame me!?"

I nod my head to it all. The candy man looks worried as he watches us. After a while I left.

The Cheat, by Sheridan Jones: a story in installments. Chapter 2: Telling Lies

The next day, I was so excited to see my grades, but when I got them I slumped down in my seat. I realized Marvin slumped down in his seat. My paper said, "See me." I leaned back in my chair. Marvin's paper said the same thing.

We had another test today, but this time I didn't look at Marvin's paper, I only looked at my paper.

When class was over, me and Marvin went over to our teacher, Mrs. Money. She said, "One of you must have been copying the other's paper, and I think it was you, Emma."

I gulped, but stayed frozen. "I think it was you, Emma, because you only get five or ten right. Marvin gets one hundred or a little bit less."

Then I spoke up. "Well, my parents have been teaching me at home after school and during the weekends, so that's how I know what the answers were, Mrs. Money."

"Okay, then that means Marvin was cheating! Marvin I am very disappointed in you. I'm afraid you will have detention tomorrow after school."

"But, Mrs. Money, I didn't cheat!"

"Marvin, please! Well. See you tomorrow, kids."

Tune in for Chapter 3: I Lost My Best Friend

The Cheat, by Sheridan Jones: a story in installments. Chapter 1: The Test

It all started on a Monday morning.Me and the other sixth graders were taking a test. Everyone always gets the tests wrong. Sometimes (if we're lucky) we got five or ten right. The only one who ever got one hundred or a little less was my best friend Marvin.

Everyone was working hard but me. Nope, I just sat there thinking. Then I had an idea!

I leaned back in my chair...a little bit farther...there! I could see Marvin's paper. Hmm, let's see...55, 102, triangle, true, true, true and false. There, done! Now I don't have to worry about getting bad grades and my parents yelling at me because I got bad grades!

Tune in soon for Chapter 2: Telling Lies.

S is for Science and Silliness!

When Christopher and Sheridan were learning their letters, we had fun taking a letter each week (or so), and seeing how we could explore with it. Logan recently started showing an interest, joining in with calling out things that start with a given letter, so we decided it was time to have some fun again!

Logan picked "S" to start us off. Actually, he picked "Q" first, but mean Mommy made him switch. We began with food, because - duh, food! The kids planned the menu for the week. I cheated and gave them a list of meals I wanted to make, and let them assign them to days. We talked about who would be home when, and which days we would have less time to cook. For the few lunches we would be home we planned sandwiches, Spaghettios, and soup with sourdough bread.

Alphabet soup, of course!

Please ignore mess on floor. Shane has discovered emptying shelves, and I gave up trying to keep up with him.

For supper we had sausage bake, sesame chicken, salad (with leftover chicken), smoked sausage-spaetzle-and-sauerkraut, Sloppy Joes, and spaghetti.

For dessert all week: snickerdoodles!

Which involved sifting and stirring, as well as sugar and salt. We shared some with our church family on Sunday. I also made a strawberry cobbler type thing, but that didn't get shared with anyone:)

I wanted to try the sand foam I have seen all over the internet, but I wanted to do it outside - cloud dough is one thing, but sand + laminate flooring = bad, bad, bad. Unfortunately, the weather did not want to cooperate. I thought, surely, if I just put a big rug down first, and stress to everyone that it needs to stay in the tub...

Some colored sand plus shaving cream...

a little mixing...

and then there was Shane. While everyone else was mixing, he was happily throwing handfuls of sand.

All over.

 And then he got up and left.

Still covered in sand. Ah, well, sweeping starts with "s" too, right? I decided to give him some water to rinse off with, and to keep him busy for a bit. I added some of his bath toys.

and, knowing what letter we were studying, he got into my tools and added two screwdrivers. He also added the lid to my deep fryer, but I took that out because a) doesn't start with "s", and b) water + deep fryer = bad, bad, bad.

Meanwhile, the new puppy snoozed through the whole thing. 

"S" is also for sisters, so we made sparkly sun-catchers to send to ours.

Logan got his all the way done and brought it to show me...and dropped the wrong end, so the beads went running everywhere. Poor guy! We got it all put back together, though, good as new.

Then, science, using the book I reviewed Friday! 

Daddy cut open the shiny stones (aka geodes) we got on our trip a few weeks ago. Look at them sparkle in the sun!

 One of our favorite parts of exploring a letter is going on a walk to look for things that start with it. We saw lots of stumps, including a two-seater,

We stopped to put on a silly show.

saw signs, sticks, stormy sky, 

and dozens of other things, and then got to a friend's house.

Ohmigoodness.

OhmiGOODness! When did you get THOSE?!

I took a million pictures, none of which turned out because everyone was moving so much.

Daddy kept teasing me that goats don't start with "s", but they are small and sweet, so there!

Kela wasn't so sure,

but the kids liked them,

 and Shane tried to take them home!

We also made word lists, watched Sesame Street, sorted shoes, and added a sparkly "S" to our Willy Wonka tree:

Next week: "G" is for Grandma!

Betty Bunny Reads...Betty Bunny.

Nonfiction Monday: Hands-On Science Fun series from Capstone Press

Back when I was a public school teacher - more than ten years ago - it was already hard to fit science and social studeis lessons in. With more and more required reading and math programs in the public schools, I am hearing more and more parents complain that those subjects aren't included in their child's school day at all. Some teachers point to the nonfiction requirements of their reading programs as the sum total of their sci/soc curriculum. While that's like saying you can learn to be a heart surgeon by reading a paper on it, I can't blame the teachers - you have to do what your district requires of you, whether you think it's the best choice or not.

 

As a result, however, we are seeing a huge upswing in parents wanting to supplement those areas at home, and elementary-level science kits and books are very popular right now. I ordered this set with high hopes, and took half of them home to try out with my own kiddos.

 

    

 

My only disappointment came in the form of my audience. They love both reading and experimenting, but the day I picked as a "Science Day" turned out to be one of those I'm-not-listening-or-following-directions days. You have those at your house, too, right? Good! I mean, not good, but...okay, moving on. This is the only one we actually got through:

 

9781429652940

 

I remembered doing similar experiments when I was younger, and it had plenty of steps to divide among three kids. After looking at the book together, I showed them various liquids I had set out with drops of food coloring in them:

(Please ignore potatoes - this was also a Bountiful Baskets Day!)

We took turns mixing the food coloring in, and immediately noticed how much thicker some liquids (like this ancient corn syrup) were than others:

 

Everyone had to take a turn with that one!

Again, please ignore produce in background.

We also sniffed each liquid first to see if we could guess what it was:

Just water!

I wondered why they didn't add food coloring to their oil, so I put some red in ours:



Oh, that's why.

We also tried milk, which we made blue.



Unfortunately, that just mixed with the water:

Yummy!

In the end, though, the point was made, and we got to see how everything went into layers:



This was after about ten minutes. By the next morning the layers were more pronounced, although it never looked as pretty as the book cover!

All in all a fun experiment with easy instructions and explanation at the end. It's not Ms. Shore's fault that we squabbled over the stirring, or that certain individuals wanted to pour things we weren't ready for yet, or that partway through I realized that a certain young lady's fingernails were black because she had taken the PAINT MARKER out of my desk, which she KNOWS she is not supposed to get into, and we had to launch an immediate investigation of where exactly she had been when she painted said nails and did she paint anything ELSE black, like, say, a floor or wall. I do intend to try the other experiments out.

Some other day.


For more great nonfiction, head over to Wrapped in Foil!

 

 

 



Dancing Naked Covered in Pear Jam

See, that's where commas become really important. Those are actually three different events from the weekend - sorry for any disappointment!

 

Hooray for three-day weekends! I wanted to spend a lot of time with the kids, so first order of business was getting the rest of the Bountiful Baskets haul taken care of and out of the way. After Sunday's Cooking Marathon, I was only able to pick at it here and there (darn job getting in the way!), and still hadn't really touched the 38 pounds of pears.

 

So, I made a huge batch of Bartlett Harlequin Jam, an equally large batch of Apple Pear Cranberry Relish, and this Pear Honey.

 

 

Fortunately, they all required lots of simmering time, which gave me a chance to play with the kids in between. The Pear Honey was really good over confetti cornbread muffins - just regular cornbread with leftover corn on the cob, bell peppers, and hot peppers that hadn't already been used up. Those will both be going to the fire department meeting Tuesday (assuming there are any left).

 

I made this Pina Colada Jam with the pineapples, but I haven't tasted it yet due to the rum in it - I know, most alcohol may have been cooked out, but I don't take chances there. I'll have some in January:) I did have to add a lot more pectin than it said, but it looks and smells good!

 

Having pesto on hand is proving...well, handy, so I was happy to find this recipe for Spinach and Kale Pesto (not to mention a new blog to follow!). It even used up the half bag of slivered almonds that has been sitting in the cupboard since Christmas. I froze a bunch and used some with a medley of potatoes, tomatoes, bell peppers, celery and onions, which I baked for supper this weekend:

 

 

Yum!

 

Okay, enough heating up the kitchen, time to go play outside!

 

 

 

Yes, I used to be one of those childless people who shook her head at other people's children's mismatched outfits. But I love her sense of style! Why NOT wear snow boots with your halter dress?

 

We spent a lot of time climbing around and using C.'s tools to measure things,

 

and making sure they were level (um...they're not.)

 

Saturday night there was a street dance in a small village north of here. We told the kids we were going "some place special", and they drove me NUTS all day trying to guess. Next time, I just pack them into the car and start driving! They were pretty happy with the surprise once we got there, though.

 

Of course, L. is not fond of loud noises (unless he is creating them), and shares my taste in music. He spent the first twenty minutes like this:

 

And C. pretty much concurred:

 

L. loosened up a bit when he discovered he could dance with pretty girls, though!

 

And even more so when he got some 7-Up in him.

 

Dang, kid, it didn't even have caffeine in it!

C. discovered places to climb and jump off of and swing around, so he was good. S., on the other hand, ran around and demanded dances most of the evening:

 

 

She even made Daddy dance with her to "Cotton-Eyed Joe", which for some reason didn't wear her out as much as it did him. All three littles fell asleep on the short drive home, and I don't think S. fully woke up until the next morning. As I was getting her out of her car seat, she stumbled to me saying, "Mommy, I want to dance with you," then collapsed into my arms.

 

In 'school', we are learning the letter "N", which of course is easy to confuse with "M", so this weekend we did a lot with both letters. We still haven't put the new flooring in, so I had the perfect canvas for a game:

 

I call out a letter or a word, and they all have to stand on the right one. You can do this with tape or chalk if you don't want red enamel paint everywhere:)

 

C. has started school again - second grade! - and brought home his first spelling list of the year. We came up with sentences together, trying to include words that started with "m" or "n".

 

We seem to be partial to the word "naked" for "n".

 

Getting C. to write is like pulling teeth, so I just made him write the actual spelling words:

 

 

then S. went over all the "m"s and "n"s with her own markers.

 

"M" is for "mailbox", so we made these to leave each other notes. I picked the kits up a week after Valentine's Day for something like 30 cents each.

 

 

I LOVE when kids do the Picasso thing.

 

Back outside again! The kids dug for dinosaur bones for a while (you'll want to be careful walking around our property), then S. decided she wanted to come back in and help me make dessert. We used up some leftovers and made individual brownies,

 

with the cans of frosting that only had an inch left each, and the malted milk balls that everyone seems to pass over.

 

S. is very generous with her toppings. These definitely did not lack for sweetness; holy sugar coma, Batman!

 

And then back out again, where we found a new friend.

 

Poor guy wanted to run (slither) away, but wasn't sure which direction was safe. Every time he thought he could make a break for it, C. had to go check to see if he was still there.

 

He finally headed downhill and away from the crazy noisy place.

 

Monday started with coed naked math:

 

 

Try that in public school! Over the course of half an hour we had sorting, patterning, bartering, and greater-than-less-than.

 

Then they suddenly remembered the mailboxes, and there was a frenzy of coloring pictures for each other.

 

 

Um...hello? Where'd everyone go? Mess on the table?

 

 

Busted! And you two, don't even try to act like you weren't standing on the bed, too, when I walked in.

 

Do your kids do this? When you remind them they are supposed to pick something up when they are done playing with it,

 

 

they just decide they aren't done playing with it after all? We went back and forth with the shapes all day, interspersed with play-do and books. It rained on and off ALL DAY. We did go out and play in the mud in the evening, followed by much-needed baths, then chili for supper. Kind of a lazy day after all the activity over the last two! Sometimes we need lazy days, though. Back to work tomorrow - except for poor Daddy, who has been 'back to work' all weekend:( Hope everyone else got to enjoy at least some time off!