Non-Fiction Monday: The Deep

M and I have spent many fun moments pouring over the arresting pictures in The Deep: The Extraordinary Creatures of the Abyss by Claire Nouvian.  This book is not “officially” for children but the amazing underwater photography showing unusual sea creatures, some of whom are so rare they have not been named or classified, holds [...]

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African Animal Booklist

We’ve been doing a very informal study of African animals, primarily animals that live in Kenya.  This exploration was inspired by watching Madagascar 2 and talking about animal preserves and M voicing a desire to go on a Kenyan safari.  While a true safari is something I would love to do as a family many [...]

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Non-Fiction Monday: Owen and Mzee

We’re continuing to do an informal study of African animals and one of our favorites of the books we’ve collected is Owen and Mzee, the story of a rescued, orphan, baby hippo, Owen, and the unexpected friendship he develops with a 130 year old tortoise, Mzee. I’d checked this one out quite awhile ago but [...]

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Happy Valentine’s Day

Myspace Graphics

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Poetry Friday: Spring Flowers – Crocus

Our yard is awash in crocuses this week. So I went in search of poetry celebrating this delightful sign of spring to come.  Here’s my favorite of those I found: Spring Flowers ~ Crocus By Mary Havran Crocus flowers daring tiny warriors Fighting their way up through The winter ice Crocus darling early Spring harbingers [...]

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A Study of Snow, Part 3

As I mentioned earlier, our thoughts are turning to signs of spring and hopes for warmer weather, but we are still very much in the season of snow. This week we read a few more wintry books that I’d like to share. Blizzard’s Robe by Robert Sabuda – bright beautiful illustrations in this myth about [...]

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Fun in the Snow

This week, we finally got just enough snow to play in after several recent dustings. The girls had a blast making snow angels, racing around the driveway and playing “ski patrol” which was inspired by the Backyardigans’ Snow Fort episode.

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Poetry Friday: Evening: Zero Weather

Evening: Zero Weather by Thomas Merton (written in 1947) Now the lone world is streaky as a wall of marble With veins of clear and frozen snow. There is no bird song there, no hare’s track No badger working in the russet grass: All the bare fields are silent as eternity. And the whole herd [...]

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Recent Craftiness

I based these on the ones I made for M’s American Girl doll. For M (who is 5) I cast on 30 stitches on size 10 needles using worsted weight yarn. I did 5 rows of 1 knit, purl 1 for the ribbing. Then I continued in stockinette stitch until they looked long enough and [...]

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Painting With Kitchen Gadgets

Amy from Let’s Explore posted about painting with kitchen gadgets yesterday, and since it was positively frigid outside (by NC standards anyway) I thought it was a great day for some painting fun. I gathered our items in a large tupperware, filled two plates with paint, covered the table in sheets of blank newsprint and [...]

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