4th day of celebrating Christmas

begins! Today's festivities are not totally firmed up.  Tuesdays are crazy days here, very crazy.  2 1/2 hours of therapy in the morning for one child (with the half hour appointment starting at 10 or 10:30 depending upon week), Tae Kwon Doe, Scouts, meals, and oh yeah that thing called an education.

Tuesdays, may turn into an easy celebration of sorts, not a lot of time required like a short movie or something easy to bake.  Today is likely to be a short movie like "Frosty the Snowman" or "Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer".  We'll sprinkle in some Christmas Mad Libs, which I was able to locate yesterday and continued reading of "The Christmas Carol" ~ assuming my voice holds out.  Might just firm up a short wish list too.  We're trying to teach the boys that Christmas should not be about the amount of stuff you get, but the celebration of Christ.

What is making Christmas special at your house today?
 

P.S. I'll post, in the comments, the mad lib we did and movie watched later today.

Beginning of Christmas around our house

Yesterday, the boys and I began our Christmas Unit Study (when we got around the to actual unit, Thing Two said something along the lines of "Finally, we're going to study someone from Heaven!")

They were totally excited that we began with a movie ~ "The Christmas Miracle of Jonathan Toomey".  After this, we began "Mad Libs Very Merry Songs and Stories".  It's my desire to do one of these every school day, to start the day with a bit of fun.

When looking through the local libraries database, I cam across "Stories Behind The Best Loved Songs of Christmas" by Ace Collins.  This is working well so far because after the silly mad lib, we're finding out a bit of the song, as it was originally written.  Yesterday's song was "Jingle Bells" and here's yesterdays lesson:

Dashing through the cats,

In a one-zebra open horse

V’er the Thing Ones we go,

running all the way.

Dogs on bobtails ring,

Making pigs bright.

What fun it is to build and sing

A sleighing song tonight!

Jingle stores, Jingle stores

Jingle all the way!

Oh, what fun it is to hang

In a one-zebra open sleigh

The song "Jingle Bells" was written by James S. Pierpont in approximately 1840.  His father had asked him to write a song for Thanksgiving, YES, Thanksgiving!  The song came about after watching young men riding their sleighs and James joining in the merriment.  After the song was written and preformed for annual Thanksgiving service, it was a huge success and the choir was asked to perform it again at Christmas.  It gained popularity, through word of mouth, and became more widely known when, in 1857, the Salem Evening news ran a story on it.

Our first day of Christmas lessons was a success!

Another Mad Lib

Today maybe Tuesday, but it was the first school day of the week for us. That means we did a Mad Lib to get us thinking of grammar and some rules. Today's actually turned out quiet funny.

HOW TO DO THAT NEW
DANCE, THE MONSTROSITY
(words bolded are the boys)

Two brave volunteers are needed to follow the instructions as they are read.

Here's how you do the Monstrosity. Stand with your feet together. Now, move your left foot quickly to the side. Now stamp your right foot 2 million times and put your hands on your partner's Thing Two. Next, you both run slowly to the right and bend your hairs backward. For the next eight counts, both of you skip swiftly to the left. Nest, you and your partner stand back to back and wiggle your printers and slap your cats together. Don't forget to keep stamping your right foot. Now, face your partner again, put your peoples together and shout, "SAF!" Now, hop backward and repeat the whole thing 1 billion times. If you feel that you can't learn this dance, you can always eat the next one out.

Delayed Mad Lib Monday

Yesterday felt a bit "off" for school and just didn't get around to posting our "Mad Lib Monday". By the time I realized I hadn't, it was later than I felt like working on the computer. So without much further adu, here it is:

SCIENCE FICTION STORY
(words in bold have been filled in)

Major Zarnak of the Intergalactic Space Patrol deactivated his hyper-building overdrive and landed his spaceship on the planet Florida. On leaving the decompression chamber, he saw a 0-armed monster approaching quickly. He shouted, "CROCOGIRAFFE," the galactic word for peace, but the monster whipped out a disintegrator color and tried to silly him. Major Zarnak ducked and slept the monster with his subsonic hicky.

"Surprised!" said the monster, clutching his icky.

"Funny," replied Major Zarnak cleverly and, getting back into his spaceship, he zipped back to his headquarters on the planet Shazam.

Multiple things from school!

We're wrapping up our "Owl Moon" week today with the boys working on their Owls. They enjoyed the beginning of building it, but time got the best of us and a week later we're working on them again. Alls well that ends well. At least the starting point, today, is easier than the starting point last week. We know how finicky the owls can be AND most of the remaining parts are very similar, so it should be a breeze to put together (If only I hadn't starting typing this post prior to working on the Owls the second time. Thing Two has given up on his. Thing One's is almost finished. The are just a pain to put together).

Also, on tap are the Owl Pellets we have to dissect. Once again, Thing Two had a blast with this kind of activity, where Thing One couldn't be bothered. Two totally different kids, two totally different interests. Here's Thing Two and the biggest bone out of his pellet. Being so small, it was hard to photograph well. Probably took about 50 pictures and this was the best. It looks like it might be a skull of a small bird. Thing Two was pleased with his find.








Last, but not least, our newest school tradition ~ Mad Lib Monday. Enjoy your reading . . .

REVIEW OF A MONSTER MOVIE
(the words in bold were filled in)

A new movie has just opened called “The Teenage Printer Meets the Blue Vampire from Outer Space.” At the opening, we see the teenage here, played by George Lucas, who is a green scientist. He is trying to build an orange monster out of old Thing Ones and used Thing Twos. The monster has Silver skin and 20 gazillion arms and is played by Scooby-Doo. Suddenly, the monster comes to life and kidnaps the beautiful heroine, played by Carrie Fisher. Then he begins to destroy Springfield. In the end, the monster is destroyed by the vampire, who is played by Mark Hamill. And the hero and the heroine live quickly ever after.

Mad Lib Monday

SUPERSTITIONS
(our words have been bolded)

When I was a kid, 100 years ago, we used to believe in superstitions, like it’s bad luck to open a Toys R Us in the house; if your eyeball itches, it means target is coming to visit; and you’ll have fun luck if you find a four-leafed Thing One. And we believed that if you spilled yogurt on the table, you had to throw some over your left Thing Two; if your happy toe hurt, it meant rain; and if you broke a mom, you would have seven years of bad dads.

Today, kids have different superstitions, such as it’s bad luck to jump on the railroad tracks just before a cat pulls in and don’t throw frogs at policemen. But, actually, there’s only one superstition I believe in. Whenever I comment on my health, I always remember to knock on a piece of fish.

P.S. Maybe next week I'll get the mad lib typed into blogger before we do it so I can post a bit quicker.

Mad Lib Monday

Another Mad Lib Monday at our house. The boys are loving this and I'm starting to expand on what else we do with it to help them focus on grammar rules. It's been fun.

THE SECRET AGENT
(the words in bold were filled in)

James Bond, Secret Agent Double-0 Gazillion, was in a tight spot. He was trapped in the one jungle of Mt. Rushmore and the tall persons were closing in. He glanced at his companion, Mom. The expression on her face was full of eyeball. He remembered all of their three times together. He was about to run from the Thing One when he felt a cold printer in the small of his Thing Two.

“Put up your printers!” his companion said. “I too am a spy. My real name is Olga Babushka.”

“Shazaam!” exclaimed Bond. “This will cost me my Christmas Bonus.”

Mad Lib Monday

It's turning into Mad Lib Monday's around here and the boys are loving it. Here is today's edition:

DESCRIPTION OF
A HORROR TV SHOW
(words in bold were filled in)

Last week, I saw a television show that really gave me zebra pimples! It starred Ian as a mad teacher who discovers a way to make bedbugs fourteen feet high! The scientist has a goofy assistant, played by Simon, who gets mad because the scientist keeps hitting him on the head with a t.v. So he lets the bedbugs loose. Right away they start to eat up Florida. The army tries to stop them by spraying them with blood, but that doesn’t bother those one bedbugs. They go right on and eat up Chicago. Then the army drops an atom Simon on them and this kills all of them except one super bedbug who grabs the tall scientist and jumps into a volcano. And then the goofy assistant takes off his disguise and says, “I was only Ahsoka for the F.B.I.,” and he marries the scientist’s beautiful Dad, who is played by Mom, and they live quickly ever after.

First day back . . .

and it was a fun day for the boys. We spent the morning reading "Snowflake Bentley" (actually viewing the video cassette) and then talked about a home education. The boys liked learning that Thomas Edison, Beatrix Potter, and George Washington Carver were schooled at home as well. It wasn't hard to get them back into math this morning as well.

We got to grammar this afternoon. Late morning got side tracked a bit, then lunch, an errand, pine wood derby cars, and finally back to school. Prior to Christmas break, the boys hadn't been to thrilled with the grammar books we have, so we're setting them aside for now and trying a different approach. Today was focused on Mad Lib's. We prepped by reviewing the parts of speech and coming up with examples.


We then moved onto filling in the blanks of the mad lib. Here's the story, as it read:

Page From An
Analyst's Notebook
(words in bold are the ones boys filled in)

This is the case history of Mom, who is suffering from a cap complex. She also has abnormal fears of boys and six schizophrenia. As a child, she had a blue mother who never let her run outside and paid no attention to her rugs. Also, the father refused to let her play Little League boy. When she she was 166 years old, the pet frog ran away on a rainy night, which is why she was walking at the moon during thunderstorms. It's no wonder that today she never leaves the girl and spends all day watching baseball on TV while eating boxes of donkey biscuits. My professional recommendation: Commit mom to a spa for a week's worth of dad baths, facial doctors, and shiatsu teachers with a big, burly family.

Fun day and more to come!

Happy schooling!