What IS It?

Answer coming up tomorrow!  Meanwhile, here are some hints:  it belongs to Elf, and he specially wanted to get this at the homeschool convention.  It costs $4.50 and is made of heavy plastic.  It can be purchased in other designs, but I think Elf picked this one out because it's green.  Green is the colour all the little woodland elves love so much.  So of course it is his favourite colour.   

Speaking of little woodland elves, Elf took this picture of himself recently.  I guess he doesn't have the "flaunt it in the mirror and post this to facebook" social skill down yet.  Also, he forgot to look sultry and/or snarl.  He is almost 12; when is he going to learn these things?  :/  Ok, seriously, I thought this picture was cute and captured the sort of friendly person he is.

Spelling Party

Elf and Emperor just finished up their fourth grade spelling workbooks, so it's time for a little party. We mixed some dough and let it rise whilst we did a little mathematics, covering how to divide fractions. We're reviewing for a quiz tomorrow. We shaped and baked our "bug bread." This picture is a turtle shape by Elf. Woodjie played peek-a-boo and he and Rose coloured and ate snacks. Woodjie made one of the little shapes himself, but cried when they came out of the oven and he wasn't allowed to have any. Woodjie took the picture of his sister you see above, with just enough help to keep the camera from dropping. He aimed and shot it. At the very end of our snacking and clean-up, it was time for presents! Emperor received a tiny Hello Kitty, and he was very excited about this. Elf got a Pokemon book. Congrats, guys! BJU Spelling 5 is on its way for us to use beginning in July!

Lookit This Picture, Mom!!

Elf waves me over to see a photo of two scorpions looking like they're holding hands.

"You have to hear this," he tells me, and settles in to read. "When scorpions reproduce, the male uses his pincers to hold the female's pincers. Then he drags her around until he can fertilize her."

Here Patrick, who was standing nearby, has to smirk and raise his eyebrow at me. Shut up, Patrick.

"When scorpions do this, it looks like they are dancing," Elf read.

"Um, yeah, it does kinda look like they are dancing, I guess," I told him as I tried to do the "look like I'm really busy and in too much of a hurry to talk right now" thing because I am uncomfortable. Mostly because I just faintly heard Patrick snort.

"Sometimes getting dragged around makes the female angry," Elf continued. Man, that kid CANNOT take a hint. Now Patrick is devoting his full attention to this reading. He's nodding and his arms are folded. My heart is sinking and I'm probably turning red. Great.

I wish I left that so-called "kids' book" on the library shelf but noooo. I had to get all homeschool-y and make the kids research a report on "something about a desert animal that is interesting."

"The male will then sting her," Elf read as Patrick came over to check out the pictures and nod. YES! There is scorpion porn, right in the middle of this children's book! I'm flabbergasted, but Elf just keeps reading as if scorpions *ahem* doing this were an acceptable topic of conversation. "This does not kill the female, but it numbs her so that she will stay still. The male can then fertilize the female."

"Interesting technique," Patrick comments.

"Once the dance is over, the male scorpion runs away. He does not want the female to try to eat him. It does not happen very often, but sometimes she does." Little Elf has his eyebrows up in that chubby Spock "isn't that interesting and odd" sort of pose.

"Ohhh," Patrick nods and does the "hmm" pose. Clearly he has no interest in directing the attention *away* from this awful book.

"Well... that's very... disturbing, Elf," I sputter, hoping that was positive enough. "I guess the female scorpion gets kinda mad about being dragged around and stung."

"And fertilized," Patrick interjects with a grin. He's 16 and I'm still not sure how I'm going to raise this one.

"Um, we have to go now," I tell Elf. "Lock us out there, would ya?"

"Sure! So... did you like the story? Was it interesting?"

"Welllll... you read a bunch of stuff I didn't know about before, I'll tell you that!"

"OK!" he said proudly as he was shutting the door. "See you later!"

OH NO!!

Apparently, Elf doesn't like hair in his face... so he cut it himself. It was down to the scalp in a few places, which precluded my cutting it with scissors. Buzz cut time. Then G (who refuses to get a hair cut!) came home with bloody skulls drawn all over his hands. Yep. We're realll fashion winners here at the Mrs. C house. :( I think I did a pretty good job considering, though.

Photographers at Work

D gave Elf and Emperor a new digital camera for field trips and whatnot, and they got to try it out. I was eagerly awaiting their first batch of photos. They seemed to be so busy downstairs arranging things just-so for pictures. I was expecting nicely posed pictures of each child smiling with a beautiful background, but noooo. I got "dental surprise" and "laundry train" instead.

Treasure Island!

We're reading Treasure Island because I found a hardback copy with large print and some sea-going vocabulary explained in the margins for $1. And for free? I found this little gem of a pdf file. You'll like it.
@

Our first lesson instructs us to make up our own pirate name and make a pirate flag. Emperor made a "no odious French people" flag because of a reference in one of the early chapters. His pirate name is John.
@

Elf didn't want a pirate name! He wanted to just be his real name. No, no, no! he didn't want to choose from the list of pirate names, which include Salty, Scurvy and other choices. Can he just be called Elf? (But, there are no elf-pirates, kid. Besides, the whole point was to expand our horizons just a little bit and play along and be silly.)

No. And besides, his foot hurts. After much arguing and my telling him that if things go just wrong and he got a terrible infection, his entire leg would have to be cut off and I don't think our insurance covers prosthetics if it's your fault your leg came off... (Yes, I was being outrageously overworried about things, and he knew it.) He consented to getting a little peroxide on the cut finally after I told him I would take a picture for the blog and we'd call him "Red-Toe the Pirate."
*

So, here he is.

The Genie

One day, a genie appeared and thanked me for letting him out of his bottle. That's funny, I thought, as I didn't remember finding/rubbing this bottle. And the genie looks suspiciously like a Fred Flintstone Pez dispenser being held by a giggling Elf. I'm not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, however, especially since it has just offered me a wish. Let's see...

I think I'd just like everyone to know Jesus. Have everyone in the world to be saved and go to Heaven. Ok, that's what I'm ordering.

"You can't have that," the genie tells me. "The Bible tells us not everyone's going to be saved, so you are asking something impossible."

No, I'm not!! What kind of genie are you? Genies aren't supposed to argue with their masters! I'm sure someone, SOMETIME in the past died and is going to Hell, so that part of the Bible is already fulfilled. I think I'm going to keep my wish. Go ahead, Genie. Let's see it. Mmm... now.

"Oh, but um... I'm... You'd... have to ask God that part. I'm not qualified to grant your wish. You'll have to ask for something else." And here the genie did a little dance on the bedsheets while shaking his candy-filled head "nope."

Ok. (Person) is sick and needs to feel better.

"I can't do that one either. You're asking for things only God can do! I'm a genie! You have to ask for THINGS like a new pencil, not 'people to be saved' stuff."

A million dollars, then. But that needs to be my after-tax income and no funny stuff, Genie.

"I can grant your wish!"

Yesss! Let's have it!

"...But not *quite* a million dollars, though. I can only give you about... let's see... four or five dollars."

I know times are tough, but that's Elf's bank, ya little thief! Now, where's that stack of money I ordered from you? No fair stealing from my kid, either.

"Can I go back in my bottle now? Things aren't going like I planned."

Frontier America

The American Frontier map will help us put times and places into perspective. We'll be learning about the settlers moving west, the Trail of Tears, and related notable people in this unit.