What Mom's reading...

I've always been a bit of a Lincolnophile... Is that even a correct term??? Or would it be Lincolnite??? hmmm...

Incidentally, I've also always found the man, warts & all, very attractive...is it just me, or can anyone back me up here??? Maybe a web-based-search will render a Lincoln-fan-club???? Stranger things have been sighted on the www... ANYWAY...

Although my schooling never encouraged me to spend much time exploring my fascination with our sixteenth president...MOVE ON TO THE NEXT SUBJECT...now, of course, I've been out of school far too long to continue blaming my well-meaning teachers ... SO I'm taking matters into my own hands & reading about the man...Also, shamefully, I have only visited our state capital once, at about age 8, for a family wedding... we drove down for the event & didn't experience ANYTHING other than the wedding, which I have fleeting memories of, but at LEAST I can say I've visited our capital!!! Yikes! As God is my witness, I will bring H & H to Springfield before 2008 has come to a close, and hopefully make the trip several more times before they leave us for the big-wide-world, in order to learn as much about our state history as we can... Please whack me in the head if you spend time with me in '09 & learn that I've not made it down to our fine state's capital...

Our impromptu trip to Ottawa Illinois, a few months back while the kids were recovering from pneumonia, really inspired me to re-visit my long held fascination with #16...

Currently I'm reading this EXCELLENT book

I've also come across a bunch of cool resources, listed below - click 'em to see more. I'll post more as I come across them...

ABE LINCOLN BOOK SHOP
ABE LINCOLN PRESIDENTIAL LIBRARY NEWS
Wikipedia on LINCOLN
Abe Lincoln for Primary Children

White House Biography of A. Lincoln

PBS The Time of the Lincolns

Go Cubs Go!

Our Daddy-O was out of town for ALMOST six weeks...he arrived back in Illinois on Friday - just before Momma was hauled off to the funny farm where life is beautiful all day long!

Momma went out on a limb & got some cheap-o Cubs tickets on Ebay, with the hopes that Daddy-O could take the day off Tuesday...and prayers were answered with a winning bid on the tickets and a Daddy's Day off on Tuesday! Game day called for t-storms, but the weather held out & was gorgeous, mid-70's, PLUS our Cubbies SPANKED the Mets and got the series sweep!

Behind-The-Scenes at the Vet's office!

The patient awaiting treatment...

Learning to put stitches in



Yesterday the kids, along with grandma K & daddy-o, attended a "behind-the-scenes" tour of the veterinarian's office! They had a great time meeting the recovering patients, seeing the x-ray room & some x-rays of weird stuff in dogs' stomachs & intestines
(they really will eat anything, won't they?)
They also learned (on a stuffed-plush, not the real deal) how to put stitches into a patient, got lots of cool freebies for our pets & were able ask questions about veterinary sciences.
VCA Naper-Ridge does these open-houses yearly -
check one out if you can, or ask YOUR vet about a tour!

Grassroots Homeschoolers Family Formal Dance

Lovely little girl in her $7 gown! Gotta' love Goodwill

Above, the boy & I take a quick break from the dance floor.

Below, daddy-o & the little girl at the dinner table.

Funny guy...

Last night we attended the first of what we are hoping will become an annual event with our homeschool group, Grassroots Homeschoolers. A great time was had by all, and I heard through the grapevine that the D.J. was astonished by the great behavior and friendliness of our kids! He said they were the nicest group of young folks he'd ever encountered - and was amazed at how kids of all different ages got along so well & had so much fun with one another! You can see more photos HERE.


My fellow homeschoolers:

Feel free to use this example the next time you get the

"But what about SOCIALIZATION?" question!

David Albert is my hero!

Last week I had the true pleasure of spending the day with homeschool author & speaker David Albert. I'd met David a couple of years ago at the InHome Conference, and he made a bigger mark on me than any other speakers that year...The Many Rivers Unschoolers brought him back to Illinois for two days of talks, the first of which I had the pleasure of attending. David's talks are wise and funny and challenging and, for me personally, a big-ol'-shot-in-the-arm ! I urge those of you who are on this wacky and wonderful homeschool journey to check out his writings, and if you ever get the chance to hear him speak, please RUN as fast as you can to secure your spot! David's website is http://www.skylarksings.com/ ; you can order his books and some he recommends, plus read a selection of his essays - a recent favorite being on spelling ; it's absurdity, origins & societal role! Get yourself a cup of tea, sit back & click one of his essays...Let me know if he's your hero, too!

Pond Critters Field Trip

The kids with Gary the Naturalist...
The leggy guy is a mayfly baby...
One of the first crawfish found...
This one might even be good 'eatin!
The little girl and Ms. C. looking at a netful...

On Friday we braved the approaching c-c-c-cold weather & headed down to Pilcher Park in Joliet for a POND CRITTERS excursion. We had a group of about 20, and the weather actually held out for us until about the last 1/2 hour of the event, which was when we headed in to see the indoor critters anyhow! The kids had an absolute blast netting in the pond & finding all kinds of little life forms, including worms, larvae of all kinds, fish, snails both large and small & CRAYFISH - which you'd have thought from the squalling were made of gold. Every time they pulled one up the kids went crazy. It was an excellent day! If you've never been to Pilcher Park, I HIGHLY recommend it! Let me know if you'd ever like to meet us there for lunch! Particlulary if the weather EVER GETS WARM...

Girl and Boy Cardinals

A Girl and a boy visiting our very primitive birdfeeder!

Kids made recycled milk jug birdfeeders on Wednesday...We've yet to hang due to the torrential rains...
Wonder if this cute couple will enjoy the milk-jug feeders as much as the old plate left over from my pre-married days...

Aren't they cute?

ps(as a bleeds-blue CUBS household, these are the only Cardinals we tolerate in our yard!)

It WAS Spring...It REALLY was!!!!!

The girl has been wanting to set up lemonade stand since she could say "Lemonade"... We got a dozen lemons last Friday, and squeezed them up on Sunday morning, for the 65 degreeish weather...
Spent $8 on lemons, and made $7...
We did cost it out!!! At 50c per cup we'dve made a 10c profit per cup, had we sold both pitchers...not enough foot traffic in our non-foot-traffic-friendly subdivision!
We did sell a good handful of candybars benefitting our homeschool group, Grassroots Homeschoolers ... and little did we know it would be the last nice day in forever...sigh...
Cold, NASTY rain ever since! Blah!!!!!

I know I'm getting old, because I look at these photos and imagine my children and grandchildren some day looking at the "old car" in these photos...Never thought about that sort of thing pre-35...

This week's favorite poetry book.

We found this gem (click it for the amazon link) at the library and read the whole thing in one sitting. The first 1/2 of the book consists of apology poems written by a fictional 4th grade class, inspired by William Carlos Williams poem "This is Just To Say" (see below). The 2nd half of the book is poem "responses" the class received. Excellent fun, and quite touching.








This Is Just To Say

by William Carlos Williams

I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox

and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast

Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold

April is National Poetry Month!

As you may know, we are real poetry buffs around here...or at least aspire to be~


We visited the Harold Washington Library on Thursday after our trip to Bronzeville,


and found a new (old) collection of Shel Silverstein's earliest poems,


titled DON'T BUMP THE GLUMP, originally published in '64 and back in print now. The little boy and I laughed our entire way through the collection - check out Shel's website HERE for a wealth of fun stuff plus teaching materials! We plan to pick this book up for ourselves asap, and write our own Shel inspired poems this week...will post them soon.



Here is a FABULOUS (but too short) clip of Shel doing A BOY NAMED SUE (which he wrote) with Johnny Cash
-enjoy!

Bronzeville

The day following our Civil War Presentation, we had the privelege of touring Chicago's Bronzeville neighborhood with a group of fellow Illinois HOUSE homeschoolers! Following up a civil war presentation with a trip to the (arguably) most important African-American neighborhood in our city was a fantastic experience. We also had a yummy lunch at Munchie's Free WiFi , friendly service & sandwiches under $5 with new and old friends...Check out Munchie's if you're ever in the neighborhood.

This statue is dedicated to WW1's 8th regiment -
"The Fighting 8th"










Here's what Wikipedia has to say about Bronzeville:

In the early 20th century, Bronzeville was known as the "Black Metropolis," one of the nation's most significant landmarks of African-American urban history. Between 1910 and 1920, during the peak of the "Great Migration," the population of the area increased dramatically when thousands of African-Americans fled the oppression of the south and emigrated to Chicago in search of industrial jobs. Many famous people were associated with the development of the area including: Andrew "Rube" Foster, founder of the Negro National Baseball League; Ida B. Wells, a civil rights activist, journalist and organizer of the NAACP; Bessie Coleman, the first African-American woman pilot; Gwendolyn Brooks, famous author and first African-American recipient of the Pulitzer Prize, actress Marla Gibbs, the legendary singers, Sam Cooke and Lou Rawls, and Louis Armstrong, the legendary trumpet player and bandleader who performed at many of the area's night clubs.


















Above, our group shot at the WW1 Statue

Below is the little girl in front of a portion of
"Bronzeville to Harlem" by sculptor
Preston Jackson, inside the Heritage Center.

And a cool little video from the Heritage Center...

Civil War Presentation - Grassroots Homeschoolers

We had the wonderful experience of learning all about the Civil War this week at our homeschool gathering. A woman by the name of Robin Millner presented all kinds of interesting facts about the era. We learned, among other things, that toward the end of the war one of the main requirements was that you have a minimum of two teeth, which were to meet top & bottom! I wonder what the dental requirements are during our current conflict?! The kids all loved dressing up in costume, and were also given the opportunity to be Civil War medics, bandaging one another up. The big girl particularly enjoyed the hoop petticoats, and had read a book on the history of underwear while en-route to the gathering - so trying on hoop petticoats was rather timely! We also made checkerboards on cotton sheeting - the soldiers would play checkers on their sheets using small stones - and made "quilts" like those used on the Underground Railroad. We love hands-on-history!

More Garbage Bag Fashions

This was the little fashion designer's first attempt at a bag dress.
Isn't it fabulous?

Garbage Bag Fashion

The little girl and I went to the library yesterday, and inspired by some fashion books she'd checked out, she set right to work creating these designer duds! I must say, they are much more becoming on the younger set! Pardon my appearance, it was a low-maintainance/no make-up day for the mamma.

April Fool Stuff

England

In the Lake District, an April Fool is a - 'April noddy'.
April noddy's past and gone,You're the fool an' I'm none.

In Cornwall, an April Fool is a 'guckaw' or 'gowk', another word for cuckoo (a bird). If a child succeeded in 'taking in' another, he used to shout after him ~ "Fool, fool, the guckaw." On the other hand if the person resisited the trick, he would say ~ "The gowk and the titlene sit on a tree, You're a gowk as weel as me." Titlene refers to a hedge sparrow (a bird).

In Cheshire, an April Fool is a 'April gawby' or 'gobby or gob'.

In Christow in Devon, pranks had to be played in the afternoon. The day there was known as ‘Tail-pipe Day', because it was a custom to pin an inscription ‘Please kick me' to the coat-tails of an unsupecting victim.

Scotland

The day is known ‘Gowkie Day' or ‘Hunt the Gowk'.

In the Orkney Isles, the pranks are transferred to 2nd April, which is known as ‘Tailing Day'.

France
An April Fool is called a 'fish' - 'poisson d'Avril' - and it is the custom to send friends a dainty present made up in the form of a small fish.