The Sinister Scribe

b'ware the minibeast!

Picked up a book from the library last week, Snails and Slugs (Keeping Minibeasts), one of many on the subject that Jessie picked out.

This one however goes into a little detail on care and feeding. So now, in addition to the dog, cat and frog… we have 3 small snails. Here is a close up of what one of them looks like. Not sure what kind it is yet.

One of my requirements for these “pets” is that they are FREE or they will BE FREED. So instead of the cuttle bone for calcium, as the book suggests, I’m using bits of well rinsed egg shell.

So far, Jessie has been quite diligent on their care and feeding. And I have to admit that I do enjoy watching them too.

So, how do I take this spur-of-the-moment project to the “next step” for a 5yo? Some kind of snail theme or something? Can’t yet decide but I’d like to do something to carry this further.

But for now, it is time for Latin.

Meet Mardi

One of the things that has kept us so busy lately is the upcoming parade for the True False Film Festival. Sam has been busy making a huge parade puppet with his Puppet Pals friends. We’re down to the wire. The parade is this Friday. I hear there will be a couple dozen of these ginormous puppets in the parade!

Pictured here is the puppet’s head. If you follow the link you’ll see more images of the process we used toget here. Sam did such a great job on this. Iam so proud!

But now the hard (and not as fun) part of making the body has begun. Told Sam that this was the fameous “last 10% of a job that takes 90% of the effort.” Though he is too young to really appreciate that saying yet.

Sam’s decided to name the puppet “Mardi” because he looks like he could be in a Mardi Gras parade. LOL!

Wish me luck in getting any science done next week. I’m up late doing my copy of the exercises for the next chapter in Discovering Earth’s Landforms & Surface Features (Great Science Adventures). It really helps me wrap my brain around what needs to be done (as well as finding any sticking points ahead of time) and it gives me an example to show them. And last time it seemed to give Jessie a bit of incentive to make one “just like Mom’s.” By hook and crook I will educate that child!

Ooh! Speaking of that, she read the word “off” in the car today… “Daddy why does the car say ‘off’?” She was reading the labels on the rear temp control dial in the minivan. Sigh. We’re  not in the car a lot by any standards, but both of them have started off their reading careers this way. It’s. just. weird. Good. But weird.

Before I’m off to bed I wanted to mention a great “tweet” from Khatzumoto of All Japanese All The Time

Perhaps instead of trying to become fluent in a language, we should try to make it impossible NOT to be fluent. Subtle but useful difference

I agree with this… but how to do just that on a limited budget (and time too) escapes me at the moment. In our particular instance we’re listening to podcasts, learning hiragana (to be followed by the other alphabets), we’ll have some children’s books in Japanese soon (thanks to Bookmooch), Sam listens to JPop. What else could we be doing? (that is free or very nearly that ;))

With that I am off to enjoy the warmth of my beloved before he must dash off again. Until April, we’ll be missing more than seeing each other with all the conferences he must attend. Thankfully he does not have to travel this much all the time!

Maybe in a few years, when we do Astronomy again (maybe sooner), I’d love to do this: Nasa’s RadioJove Project.

We now return to our regularly scheduled subject… ummm… wherewerewe?

What do those things have in common? Well, they were all part of my day.. LOL!

Up late searching for adverb practice for Sam and came across Daily Grammar Lessons Archive. It’s FREE baby!

Part of the reason I’m up so late is that I went to Kaldi’s to knit tonight since no one piped up for the SnB at Coffee Zone. I like Kaldi’s so much better! Mebbe I can convince the group to migrate there…?!? Worked on a Norberta for Q (calling it Q-berta) using Red Heart Super Saver yarn. Yes, I hear you cringing. I was too while knitting with it. I sure hope it makes a great toy ‘coz it makes my hands ache. LOL!

The other part of the reason I’m up so late… white chocolate raspberry latte… mmmmmm!

Today Jessie asked me to read from Weather Mania: Discovering What’s Up and What’s Coming Down (got it at the library) and we ended up making a twirly snake for her fan (pictured). When I asked her if she knew why it was spinning, she looked at me and said, “Moooommm, it’s the wind. Duh!”