Mondays

We are participating with a local homeschooling group, on various activities they offer on Mondays. This group has a great relationship with their local library (librarian is a homeschooling mom) and has access to a room there as often as they'd like. So on our first visit last week, they did ATC's; Artist Trading Cards, which they will be working on every third Monday of the week. The boys had a good time working on their ATC's. They had made some at a birthday party a couple of years ago, but weren't into it at all. Perhaps it was simply because it was a party?

Here is a short article I wrote about ATC's for the CT Homeschool Network newsletter about a year and a half ago:

Artist Trading Cards
Artist Trading Cards are a variation of the popular mass-produced trading cards available for sale all over the world. The difference is rather than buying them, you make them. This means that each card is an original work of art, or one of a small edition run that you can trade with other people who have created their own cards.

Any and all materials and techniques are encouraged (drawing in pencil, pen, marker, chalk or crayon etc., painting, photographs, collage, found materials, mixed media - anything!). There are only two rules:
1. the cards should be the same size as traditional collector cards:
2.5 inches wide by 3.5 inches tall (64mm x 89mm).
2. They are for trading only - no selling!

How you trade is entirely up to you...1 for 1, 2 for 1, whatever you feel they are worth. You can trade cards on, that is you can trade cards you have received in previous trades (known as a "second generation trade" or "trading forward"). Of course you are not compelled to trade with someone if you do not like their cards.

The Trading Session or "TS" (when two or more people meet in person to trade cards face-to-face) lies at the heart of the ATC concept. There is also a thriving community of people who trade by mail.

On the back you should sign and date your cards. If they are part of an edition you should number them as well. Additionally, some people include e-mail addresses. A Google search for "Artist Trading Cards" will find you over 300,000 places to learn more about them. However one website in particular gives great ideas on how to use different types of media to create them.

Creating and trading Artist Trading Cards has become a very popular pastime for many people; providing a relaxing craft with meaningful expression for both adults and children. There is even a yahoo group for kids who'd like to be involved.

So anyway, they did have fun working on their cards. Here are R's:
And here are E's:
E is hoping that Aunt Debbie will make some to trade with him. We tried trading with some of the kids in the group, but most of the kids became pretty attached to their creations. One kid wanted one of mine bad enough to make a trade, but otherwise we went home with the ones we made.

Overall the boys had a fun time. R kept looking longingly over at the table full of boys his age though. I'm hoping that in the next few weeks he makes his way over there.

Not this week though. We arrived early thinking that maybe some of the kids would be there hanging out before they started and he'd be able to talk with them. But the woman running the thing had everyone sit down right away, and when a couple of boys came and sat together he refused to go over and ask if he could sit with them.

This week, the fourth Monday of each month, was an art class. The mother who was running it had everyone practice shading with a pencil, and later gave out charcoal for the kids to use. The boys really enjoyed using the charcoal since it blends so nicely. And they liked each getting a sketch pad to keep for themselves and bring back each month. They used their materials to draw apples. I was glad to be there to help them understand why shading happens and how to best draw it.

Afterwards we went to check out the library itself. Boy I really begin to appreciate our library when I visit others - it was really small. R got a chance to intermingle with some of the kids though, which was definitely good.

The Big E

We had a phenomenal time at The Big E in Massachusetts. B and I had been years ago, but this is the first time we've brought the boys.

It was about an hour drive, I guess. We got there early enough to get a decent parking spot. We checked out the daily schedule they actually make you pay for, so that we could plan our day. Once we had an idea of the times of the shows we wanted to see, we headed off to see how much tickets for rides cost, and how many tickets each ride would need. We gave the boys each $20 to use how they liked for both The Big E and the Durham Fair, so they needed to plan carefully. Luckily Grandma will help out with the Durham Fair, so the boys decided quite a bit of their $20 would be spent here. They decided that the rides were way over priced though. E did not feel $4 was worth it for a ferris wheel ride, so I went on with R. He wanted to have a look at the park and see it from that viewpoint.We did a few more rides. I tried really hard to talk E into going on a cool roller coaster with me. He had gone on one at Quassy during the summer (I can't find that I blogged about that) and so I hoped to convince him to try another. Not this time though.

We went to see the "Live Shark Experience" but it was just a guy in a giant tank with a few little sharks. So we headed off to "The Avenue of the States". From The Big E website: "Walking through the life-size replicas of each state's original capitol you can learn about the people, products and attractions each New England state has to offer." Basically it was stuff to buy from each state. B and I enjoyed the lobster roll sandwiches we got in Maine, and I especially enjoyed the Cherry Garcia ice-cream bar I got from the Ben and Jerry's stand in Vermont.

We also saw an incredible circus while we were there. By itself it was worth the price of admission to the fair. I knew it was going to be a great performance when they announced the Ringmistress. I'm including a photo of The Fusco Brothers (twins!) juggling fire.

The circus also featured the Gagik Hand Balancing Act, wherein a gymnast did flips and stuff on a balance beam which was held on her brothers' shoulders, The Flying Pages, a "family of aerialists", "Mind-boggling gravity defying feats" from the Calusari Teeterboard Troupe, a clown with trained little dogs, and

"Guiness World Record holder Alesya's Hula Hoops." She was excellent!

I can't find anything on the website or in the $3 program we had to buy for the schedule (can you tell that annoyed me?) but there was a young lady who did great balancing stuff too. You can see her above, dislocating her shoulders so that she could flip over. She was cool in an ew sort of way.

B and I enjoyed a 20 minute thing on "Great Cheeses of New England". They talked about the cheeses and what goes well with them, and gave out samples of what they were talking about. That was cool for us.

One of my personal favorite things about this fair was the butter sculpture. We got to see the guy actually working on it.

We watched the "Daily Parade" at 5pm. The Bristol High School marching band was in it, which was fun to see. It was right near the entrance to the theater for the evening's entertainment though, and we were very surprised to see people on line for it already. When we walked past the security guards I asked one if he thought we'd get in if we got on line closer to 7:30 (show started at 8) and he said we probably wouldn't be near the front, but we'd get in just fine. Another security guard jumped in and advised us to go in the other entrance because it seemed people didn't realize both would be open and the line was forming at only one. Good tidbit!

We did a couple more rides, then spent some time watching JUGI! Thunder Drums of China, which was lots of fun. We couldn't watch the whole thing though, because we did need to get into the theater to see the evening's entertainment: Joan Jett!

Yes, the whole reason we went to The Big E this year is so we could see Joan Jett. We had seen her three years ago at the Durham Fair, and in fact it was her guitarist who inspired R to get a mohawk, and the opportunity to see her again was one I couldn't resist. So we used the alternate line and arrived just when the gates opened, and got 12th row seats! Thank you security guard!

This photo actually gives you a decent idea of how close we were. It was really great. We had seats in front of two women with their son, who was a year or so younger than E and we chatted the time away with them (son had gotten the cool Star Wars Pez collection that E already owned, and they were from Connecticut too) until the show started.

Kind of cool that Joan Jett was R's first concert and now E's too (he slept through the whole thing at the Durham Fair). I even bought t-shirts for the boys. She was fantastic. She is one rockin' bitch, gotta say. And her new music sounds as good as her old. I put the new CD on my SwapaCD wish list. I'll actually buy it if I don't get it free soon. It was also cool to have R know many of the words in the songs since I had downloaded some of them for him after we saw her last time. She puts on a really energetic show, it really was great.

We were pretty hungry by the time we left, so we saved a few bucks by stopping at McDonald's on the way home.

We didn't have time to do everything. I was a little bummed to miss the commercial building, but went in knowing we might not have time for it. We also didn't see any animals, which we actually don't really care about since we can see them at the Durham Fair. We missed The Big E's Circus Museum, which is fine since we go to the Barnum Museum occasionally. We missed The New England Center, which looks pretty interesting from the $3 program. We missed Storrowton Village Museum which from the $3 program (okay, I'll stop now) looks very much like Old Sturbridge Village. And my biggest disappointment was arriving at the Cream Puff Bakery too late to use my coupon from my program on a giant eclair, since it was closed. Oh well. Lots to look forward to next year!

Mr. Bean's Holiday

Yeah, we went to see it today. I knew the boys would love it, and I was right.

Man, it was funny. It was what Mom and Aunt Debbie used to call a "Friday night movie". You know, when you're all worn out from your week so you get some fast food and see a really silly movie which makes you laugh at how dumb it is. It was great.

We had hoped to go to the Bronx Zoo with some friends, but that didn't work out. So instead we were going to go to Old Sturbridge Village for Homeschool Day, and hopefully run into a lot of people we know, but it was pouring out this morning. I'm hoping that Tuesdays will end up being a stay-at-home day for us, with an occasional play date thrown in, but since we already had plans I knew the disappointment would make staying home torture. Plus on Tuesdays all seats are $5.

Soccer Has Started

It's going to be pretty easy-going this season. E has practices on Friday evenings from 5:30 till 7 and games on Saturday at 1:30. R has practice on Mondays and Fridays from 6: 30 till 8 and one game at various times (and locations) per weekend.

Last year when R was on the Pool team he also had to be on the regular Recreational team. This year the kids can only choose one: Recreational or Competitive. So since he is only on one team, he only has one game per weekend, instead of the two and sometimes three he had last year. So this year, all together the B family will have two games per weekend, instead of three and sometimes four. Excuse me while I break for a moment to do a little happy dance...

We'll see how it goes with practices, however. The coach also coaches at University of New Haven, and is taking graduate classes, so he is pretty insistent that this is the only time he can fit us in. So despite practice being scheduled for 6: 30 till 8, it only went till 7:35 since by then it was pitch black. And of course, within a couple of weeks it will be black out at 7:00. One hour of practice a week, when the kids are supposed to be getting three, is not going to cut it. I do have to say though, that he seems like he's going to be a pretty good coach.

Classes at the Beardsley Zoo

This was the class description for this time:

Zookeeping 101

Students will tour the zoo including a walk through Peacock Alley by the back holding area of the Maned Wolf, Chacoan Peccaries, Hay barn, Dexter cow, Bison, Guinea hogs and Farmyard kitchen.

Educators will review classification and scientific nomenclature, discuss a zookeeper's job description and highlight how Zookeeping and Zoos have evolved over the years.

Hands-on project: students will create an information log of what they've seen and learned during today's visit.

It went pretty much as "advertised". The boys found it really cool that we got to go into the area which was closed to the public.

They were given a notebook (to share) to write down anything they thought was cool during the day. E had me write down several things for him. Like the fact that this zoo has the oldest living Andean Condor in the world, at 76 years old. And the bison at the zoo came from the Bronx Zoo. Also, the "poop pile" had to be written down, simply because of its name.

The class had three parts, as stated above. The first part was done as a large group. The kids toured the zoo, at a VERY fast pace. Wish I had skipped the treadmill this morning.

The second part, where they sat through a lecture (and got to touch a couple of animals), was done with 1st to 3rd graders separated from 4th and up. I volunteered to be a chaperone for E's group. Good thing they needed one, since he never would've participated without me. R said his group's lecture got boring and that he could see many of the kids zoning out. The young kids' educator was great though. She really kept the kids engaged, and had a lot of patience for the irrelevant story sharing that often goes on with younger kids.

After the lectures they brought all the kids together again. Not enough room to really do that though - they should have kept them separated. They all wrote down the better known animal classifications, i.e. mammal, bird, reptile, etc., then cut out photos to glue on that page. They didn't have enough photos of each thing for each of the kids. And they also didn't leave enough time. So we brought ours home to finish up. We'll do it tomorrow.

Our next zoo class is on October 18th and is about predators and their prey.

Labor Day Weekend

It was a tough decision whether to go to Maine this weekend. We usually don't go to Maine on the major holidays. And this was worse, since September 1 is B's birthday. However, my Aunt Debbie was having a party for her husband's 60th birthday, so we went because we love my Aunt Debbie.

We stayed at my sister Debbie's house. She was a phenomenal hostess. She made a huge dinner for us when we arrived after the million hour drive through holiday weekend traffic Friday night. Then Saturday morning she made B an incredible breakfast for his birthday. All the way up to the apple pie with candles.

Friday night my cousin's son slept over too. His Aunt Jennifer, another cousin of mine, is my sister's roommate so he had spent lots of time at the house and we hoped he'd be comfortable. Isaiah is one of the five boys who were born into our extended family in 1997. So Isaiah and R and E had a wonderful time playing together. Plus Jennifer has an old Nintendo, so the boys got to spend hours playing Super Mario Brothers. Unfortunately though, Isaiah left shortly after breakfast. He seems to be an anxious little boy. But what a sweetie.

Saturday afternoon brought the party. I was surprised to have a good time, honestly. My sister says that the family is on good behavior when "outsiders" attend things, and perhaps that is why. Perhaps it was just because I happen to like my mother's friends, and I enjoyed visiting with them. We couldn't stay with my mom this time around because she had some of her friends visiting from New York, and since they are also friends of my Aunt Debbie and and her hubby, they came to the party. I don't remember a lot of things from my childhood but my mother's friend Pat N., who was a big part of my life back then, managed to evoke some warm and fuzzy emotions. It was nice. Here's a photo she took of me and my siblings:

We had planned to go home that evening, but ended up staying another night. Everyone was planning to go up to Granny Kent (a lake which my grandmother has a house on) the next day, and we couldn't pass on letting the boys have more fun time with their cousins. Plus, I really did have a nice time at the party and thought I could handle more large group time. Also, everyone was giving B a big pain in the butt about leaving. Peer pressure works with grown-ups too.

Saturday morning we started at Christo's. E had a breakfast worth taking a picture of. Then we headed back to my sister's and cleaned up her house and packed up our car for the trip home. After that we headed up to Granny Kent and the bazillion people who would be there (drinking heavily, I might add).

We had a lot of fun at the lake. Uncle Larry (only 3 years my senior) had his boat out. R did some tubing. Unfortunately E took forever in getting up the courage to try it, and by the time he did, Uncle Larry was grilling and we were leaving.

Aunt Joan was nice enough to provide a cake for B for his birthday, so the entire family, and all my mom's and Aunt Debbie's friends, sang to him.

We were all bummed when it was time to go. It is so rare for me to be able to deal with my giant family all together, and I was actually having a nice time. I (and the boys) would have liked to spend another night. But B was insistent that we should leave. And we were probably smart to avoid the nightmare traffic coming home on Monday.

Last photo, because I am so impressed and simply cannot leave it out. This is a photo of my mom's friend Alice. She is in her early 60's and skied around the lake twice, the second time on one ski, and the last 1/4 of that with one hand.