We finished reading The Secret Garden and really enjoyed it. It inspired some more gardening and Samuel wants to take a class to learn to speak Yorkshire. He was quite taken with the character Dickon and has been going out to learn how to charm the animals. He came running in from his garden today to tell me that the plants like him!
Two books we have enjoyed lately are A Cobweb Christmas by Shirley Climo and Would You Rather by John Birningham. We really loved A Cobweb Christmas, which is the story of how spiders (with some help from Kris Kringle) created tinsel for Christmas trees. And Would You Rather is a great conversation-er book. The kids and I had a lot of fun one night talking about whether we would rather learn to ride a pig or a goat or go up a tree with an elf or...you get the idea. It is a lot of fun. And right on time, too! We were in need of a little fun and connection.
Samuel wanted some litmus paper and we found some at Omsi the last time we went. He has been concocting something in the back yard and keeps checking the pH level of it. We tested vinegar, lemon juice, soap, baking soda, water and different combinations of all of these.
Let's see, we are spending our time playing indoors and out these days. Samuel has his indoor PE class at the indoor soccer place and his riding lessons. One round of art classes is over and I have yet to sign them up for more. We went to see a children's concert through the Oregon Symphony which was enjoyable, although Samuel was disappointed they didn't play the entire composition of Peter and the Wolf and instead played different selections from different songs.
The kids have several games going right now with different locations throughout the house and in the backyard. Dinosaurs, firefighters, one with the power ranger figures living in a playmobil castle and something to do with robots? And of course, the Grinch and Sam-I-Am game, which is on-again-off-again and for now is on-again.
It goes something like this, "Wanna play?"
"Yeah, what?"
"Firefighter game..." and the receiver knows all that this entails.
"Yes!" or "No!" depending.
Sometimes there is bargaining like, "Ok, the t-rexes can be good!" or "Ok, I won't make grumpy kitty part of that game."
This goes on throughout the day and they move between games and past games and sometimes they play together and sometimes they play alone and sometimes they play first together and then alone or first alone and then together or first dinosaurs and then into the Grinch game and sometimes they stop and watch The Grinch Grinches the Cat in the Hat with the Grinch and sometimes they watch Green Eggs and Ham with Sam-I-Am. Either way, the best games seem to be late at night, right when I am thinking we really ought to be going to bed...
This is a one person space craft. Check out the leaves from our prodigious Oak!
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