Pants, Tables, Lapbooks, and More!

It's Friday, so it must be time to blog!  It's been another good week in Bangsund Land.  The boys enjoyed time on their bikes and a trip to the park before the weather became officially autumnal today.  In fact, it is raining earnestly for the first time since July.  I actually aught to be cleaning my kitchen in preparation for a dinner party tonight, but the rain outside and the Starbucks Americano beside me want me to blog instead.  The kitchen will wait.

Speaking of fall weather, Paul emerged from his room dressed like this today:

So, what's the big deal?  He's wearing PANTS and LONG SLEEVES, people!  That's HUGE!  This is the child who did not wear pants or long sleeves once last winter.  NOT ONCE!  I was thrilled.  So thrilled that I took this picture and didn't take the time to remove the red eye.  Oh well.

As long as we are talking about Paul, he had an insanely adorable moment this morning.  He arrived in the living room with two books and proceeded to read one of them to us, Dr. Suess' ABC.  I started shooting video at "I" and ended up with eight minutes of what I think is adorable, but what might just bore those who aren't fans.  Feel free to skip.

Did I mention that we got a new dining room table?  That actually happened two weeks ago, but this news slipped through the blogosphere cracks.  It's a gathering table with long legs that make it taller.  It came with four chairs and a bench that probably seats three to four kids.  I really love it, and so do the boys.  I wax it nearly every day.  It just looks so pretty!

This was right after we got it home.  The boys immediately turned it into a fort, but you get the idea.

Our old table only accommodated four people.  Period.  I like that this one really allows for up to eight.  We could even buy a second bench and seat four adults and six kids.  Now that's a dinner party!

In completely unrelated news, Luke is almost done with his lapbook for My Father's Dragon.  It has turned out so well!  I took some pictures to share with y'all.

Okay.  A little bit of copyright infringement.  I just photo copied the front cover of the book. This is not being published and I'm not making any money from this blog.  And I'm absolutely positive that Luke will not make any money from his lapbook.

The first pages opened.

Luke narrated his description of Crossing the River for me, and I wrote it down along the tops of the crocodiles.  If you open the kitty cat, Luke wrote, "Elmer gave the cat a saucer of milk."  It's an example of kindness in the book.  The tortoises are a tri-fold with facts about...tortoises!

The rest of the crocodiles.

The inside section.

 My favorite activity was the Main Character fold out in the upper left hand corner.  First, Luke colored Elmer's shirt with red and white stripes, just like the front cover of the book.  I just thought it looked cool.  Then he narrated for me one fact about Elmer for each of the seven pages of this little book.  I'm not kidding.  You string them together into a paragraph, and he would pass the 7th Grade WASL, the test I used to teach to, I mean prepare kids for.  Wanna hear what he narrated?  Sure you do!

"Elmer is a little boy.  Elmer is kind.  Elmer goes to Wild Island to rescue the dragon.  Elmer helps others.  Elmer uses the things in his backpack to distract the animals.  He is brave!  The desire Elmer has to fly is part of the reason he went to Wild Island."

No joke.  This isn't amazing writing for a 7th grader, but it would pass a lot of the standardized tests out there.  For a 2nd grader I think it absolutely rocks.  Yes, I am biased.

Luke also wrote a thank you letter today.  He narrated this to me.  I wrote it down, then he copied it into his own handwriting.  This, by the way, is exactly what he does for language arts nearly every day.  It was a great application of the skills.

I wanted Paul to write his own name, but he was clearly uncomfortable putting his signature on something that he clearly did not compose.  I asked if Luke could write his name.  He was cool with that.  This, by the way, was in response to an Adventure taken with Grandma and Grandpa this week to Station Number 1 here in Portland, also known as The Big House.  They were treated to an extra special tour of the fire station, something that apparently isn't common.  Awesome!

The boys and the pole.

Checking out the truck.

Captain Greg Wong and the boys.

So the last thing that I want to blog about has nothing to do with the boys.  I created a new fall favorite for myself.  I've been wanting to not eat so many carbs at the end of the day because they make me fat.  This leaves me looking for alternatives to the brown rice that I serve with just about everything.  Don't get me wrong.  Brown rice is good for you, but I need to not eat so many carbs at the end of the day...because they make me fat.

Ginger Sesame Stir Fry Stuffed Squash

It's pretty easy.  Saute some chicken.  This is actually Morningstar Farms Chik'n, a vegetarian alternative, but real chicken would work, too.  Then add orange peppers and mushrooms along with two tablespoons of Newman's Own Lite Ginger Sesame dressing.  Steam half an acorn squash in the microwave.  Dump in the goods.  Eat it.  Smile because it tastes amazing AND it's good for you.

Have a great weekend, Three People Who Read My Blog!

Clean Rooms and Lapbooks (What's a lapbook?)

It's Friday afternoon here.  The sun is shining.  The sky is very blue.  The air isn't quite crisp yet, but the wind is blowing so hard that you can't tell.  I know that this beautiful October day is probably due to global warming, but I can't help but enjoy it.

Erik has been developing a gross cold and finally succumbed to his bed today, calling in sick to work.  I had the extra special challenge of trying to keep the boys quiet so he could rest.  We cleaned bedrooms first because they were getting out of control.  I wish I had taken before and after pictures, but I honestly cannot bring myself to photograph that mess.  Just think lots of Lego, some granola bar bits, a few broken Happy Meal toys, about six homemade treasure maps, scattered "treasures" (rocks) everywhere, and a big pile of little boy laundry.  Add trains and track for Paul's room and that pretty much paints the picture for you.  Oh, and don't forget the books.  There are ALWAYS books everywhere, despite the presence of actual book shelves in each boy's room.  But I'm happy to report that things are much better now.  :-)

I did take pictures, but I should explain about them.  In an effort to save myself some time, Erik has enabled his old phone to upload pictures directly to my computer using dropbox.  It's handy.  As soon as I take the picture, it's on my computer.  Fancy, huh?  The only problem is that this is an older phone and the pictures aren't that great.  I'll upload them and you can be the judge.  Do I need a smart phone?  Do I need an iPhone 5?  Or maybe just a 4s?  I hear the camera on the 4s is awesome.  Enough.  Here are the pics.

Paul's room about four hours after we finished cleaning.  It's still kinda clean.  Yes, that is crayon on the carpet.  Long story...I need to google how to get that business out.

This is the part where Paul smiles.  I'm not in love with the camera on this phone.  Just sayin'.

Luke's room approximately four hours after we finished cleaning.  Again...it's still in decent shape.

Not in love with the camera phone...but totally in love with this kid.  Does he look old to you?

One other cool thing that happened today was the beginning of our very first lapbook experience.  If you don't know what a lap book is, I'll tell you that I didn't either.  I heard about them on the homeschooling forum that I visit from time to time.  It's a method where you use file folders stapled together to create a surface where kids can glue stuff having to do with the literature they are studying.  Two years ago when Luke was doing kindergarten, I downloaded all this stuff to create lapbooks because ALL the kindergarten home school moms were doing it.  Come to find out, they were all ACTUALLY doing the work for their kindergartners!  Seriously.  There was NO way that this non-crafty mom was going to be cutting and pasting after school hours to create something that Luke would probably just junk after a week or so.  And that was the end of lapbooking at Lorene Park Academy.  Until today.

Luke is now pretty adept with his scissors, and he likes coloring much more than previously.  Paul is a completely different child altogether and has always been game to create something that may or may not turn out well.  With this in mind, I tentatively introduced the first mini-activity last week, a cool cut and paste that creates the backpack Elmer Elevator prepared for his trip to Wild Island in the second chapter of My Father's Dragon by Ruth Stiles Gannett.  Both boys loved it.

After the success with the backpack, I decided to bring out some of the other activities.  Luke spent about 20 minutes working on his gorilla and rhino parts today.  It's pretty fun because he colors the animal, cuts out the pocket and then does a little bit of writing and pasting.  The writing either has him remembering parts of the story or finding fun facts to include.  Today he used the index in his science book to find extra facts about rhinos.  Integrated learning, people.  I remember this stuff from college.  Honestly never saw it happen much in the public school classroom with 35 kids to wrangle.  It's MUCH easier with just two.

Luke works diligently while the beginning of his lapbook sits nearby.

Just so you know, I will NOT be adding any extra flair to this thing.  If you google "lapbook" you'll see some A-MAZ-ING stuff that second graders clearly did not create.  Luke's lapbooks will look like a second grader made them.  Because a second grader is going to make them. :-)

Paul, meanwhile, created this scene with a lion attacking a bison in front of a Lego fire station box.  This has nothing to do with anything, but it cracked me up.  Love the cutie five year old hand pointing out the point of attack.

Later Luke turned his stuffed boa into a scabbard for his sword.  He tied that himself.  He's a ninja.  I was impressed.

Dang.  This has been a pretty random blog post.  It's just such a good representation of our lives!  This is what we do.  It's a good life.