Brianna and I were just doing this money adding worksheet. I was saying something like, "There is 1 quarter," and she would tell me to write down 25. When I said, "There are 4 dimes," I expected her to tell me to write down 4 tens, but she immediately said, "40." I said, "Wow! That was fast! How did you know that." She said, "Well, you know last year we counted by tens," and proceeded to start counting by tens. I said, "But you told me what to write much faster than you can count by tens to 40." She said, "Hmm. I guess I just knew that." I said, "I think what you were doing was multiplying. Did you know that you can multiply?" She said no, so I said, "What's ten times 3?; what's ten times 6?;" etc. She nailed them all, and then said, "Well, I guess I've been multiplying my whole life!" I love it when learning feels that way!

So night before last, when Brianna and I were sitting in the hot tub, she said "You know, when I first got in, the heat was overwhelming, but now it feels just right." I thought, "Wow, I wish I could get past the point where life feels overwhelming that quickly." So that is why yesterday morning at 5:00, Paul and I probably woke the neighborhood with our shouts of "Thank you, Jesus!" when we learned that his office would be closed for the day. It closes whenever Dallas ISD or Garland ISD closes, and yesterday was a snow day, well--not a snow day, maybe an ice day, ---well, maybe a we-just-don't-think-it's-supposed-to-be-this-cold-here day. We were enormously grateful and had a lovely restful catch-up day.

So while Brianna was staying with my parents, she said to my mom, "You know, Granny, I just love the way things get done around here!" My mom said, "What do you mean?" Brianna said, "Well, your washer and dryer are so fast. Clothes are clean and dry in just a few hours. Our washer and dryer at home take 4 or 5 days!"
That's our story and we're sticking to it.

Last night Paul and I got to enjoy our hot tub for the first time in a long time. Unlike in many locations, we drain ours for the summer and just use it from fall to spring. It is just so lovely to sink into the hot water and feel all the tension float out of your body while you watch steam rise off the surface into the cool air. I am so grateful for this odd surprise that turned up in our house, and I am so grateful to Paul for cleaning it out and getting it set up this weekend.

The Best Kept Secret in Dallas
On Saturday, we headed downtown around noon, not telling Bri where we were going since it was one of her birthday surprises. We arrived, parked at a meter for 40 cents and walked into the Trammell and Margaret Crow Asian Collection of Art for their family fun day. Brianna was still oohing and aahing over the fountains outside when the two women at the door greeted us with sincere warmth. They asked Brianna her name, and gave us a scavenger hunt for the new sculpture exhibit. Since there were no other guest near the entrance, even I had this surreal moment of thinking:"Did we rent out the place for Brianna's private birthday?" Brianna was clearly thrilled and feeling very special. Because we were rather limited on time (It was a Saturday after all, our busiest day.), we didn't do the whole activity booklet, just hit high points of the new exhibit. Our favorite part of it was this amazing wooden sculpture called Line Dance 2. We went upstairs to where the real fun was going on. There we did share the space with about 20 other people, about 8 of them kids. Just walking through the glass footbridge between galleries was a great joy for Bri. Thousands of beautiful origami cranes hang there. There were colorful styrofoam bits that you could wet and stick together to make art, but we went staight for the Model Magic. Bri started right to work on a cat (big surprise:)), so I made a tiny mouse for her cat to chase. Then we put them on some popsicle sticks that were provided. My goal was for us to be able to carry them around without messing them up, but we ended up turning them into puppets. We took our puppets and went into the other gallery. There was a young woman working on her wood sculpture in the jade gallery, so we watched her work a bit and asked some questions. Then she asked Brianna how much she would sell her cat sculpture for. Brianna giggled and said it wasn't for sale. "Oh, yeah, the old NFS." Brianna decided she needed a kitten to go with the cat, so we went back to the ModelMagic and made a kitten and a ball. All the time, volunteers were expressing interest inthe kids' projects and encouraging them. Someone took photos of Bri's cat and mouse. Overall, loads of fun. And, oh yeah, free. In Dallas, free.
We went back yesterday with Heather and Micah and Kiara for the noon storytime and a little more browsing. We were the only ones there, but the docent was so gracious and generous. Such a treat.

One really fun thing to notice is that this whole idea of learning becoming a part of the whole day instead of isolated to specific lesson times is seeing that Bri has begun to think that way naturally too. I mean, it's one thing for me--in all my intentionality--to walk into the kitchen while she's spooning peach slices from the big bowl into her individual dish and get her to tell me a subtraction sentence as she moves each one. But what's really cool is when this happens: We're driving along and snacking on the way and she asks me for some chips. I hand her some absentmindedly. A minute later, she says, "So, Mom, you handed me four chips and now I've eaten two. If I use a fraction to talk about that, that means I've eaten two-fourths of my chips. Or I could say I've eaten one half of my chips because two-fourths is the same as one-half." That's cool.

Brianna was just doing this worksheet where she had to color all the odd numbered spaces one color and all the even numbered spaces a different color. It actually made a cool, but subtle design. When she showed it to me, I said, "Well, there are two problems, but I think if you look at it closely, you'll see that there's a pattern and you'll be able to spot the problems easily." She said, "Hmm. I don't see a pattern. Oh! You mean there's symmetry! Okay--I got it." I think symmetry is one of her very favorite concepts. It's cool that symmetry melds together logic and art.

This morning Brianna and I read this haiku by Jack Prelutsky:
If not for the cat
and the scarcity of cheese,
I could be content.
We read the whole book (If Not for the Cat) and counted syllables and learned new words--very challenging vocabulary, but manageable in such tiny, delightful bites. When we read this first one, I asked Brianna if she knew what scarcity meant. She said, "Sure, it means there's not much of something. But I actually thought the word was scarce." Smile. She keeps exceeding my expectations. Then I read her a few of my favorite haiku in Japanese and English from some old books. We are going to try our hand at writing some haiku soon. She caught on to the whole syllable thing so well. I remember that being really hard for me as a child.
Brianna also got to go swimming at SMU with Angela yesterday--very cool. We're enjoying the last trails of our Middle Ages stuff for now. Yesterday we made an hourglass--ours was actually a 8 minute and 45 second glass. And we made some rosemary water with the fresh herbs that guys who cooked here recently left in our fridge. Medieval women used to splash it on to refresh themselves on hot days, and knights used it like aftershave. We also did a little experiment --rosemary was used as a preservative. We rubbed crushed rosemary on half a potato and left the other half alone. The rosemaried half actually darkened faster, so prehaps we were a bit too enthusiastic in our rubbing! I figure we will revisit the Middle Ages in a few years. I am hoping we can start constructing a timeline soon that will stretch along the upper edge of our hallway. We're not really jumping into another particular theme right away, just enjoying some loose ends like the haiku and fractions. We have several special events coming up at the end of September and the beginning of October: homeschool days at the Fort Worth Zoo and at Old City Park, a trip to a pumpkin patch/farm, the State Fair, Brianna's birthday, etc. Also, as the weather cools, we will be able to spend a lot more time out and about. Woohoo! The fun has just begun.

We are taking our basketful of books about penguins back to the library tonight to get a basketful of books about the Middle Ages/knights/castles/etc. We have learned a lot of factual stuff about penguins, particularly Emperor penguins. (Ask Brianna or Micah or Kiara about the blubber experiment, which was one of our favorite learning activities. Actually we are all pretty in awe of Emperor penguins right now.) But we also enjoyed reading helen Lester's books about Tacky the penguin. Lots of fun. This morning we reread our favorites, and I just wanted to keep this delightful line: "A penguin full of porridge does not fall like a snowflake."

Homeschool day 1
We started with Breakfast and Books and read Three Cheers for Tacky (Tacky's a penguin), and Living in the Wild: Emperor Penguins with Reading Bear. Then we did our morning day, date, weather, calendar stuff after hanging up the whiteboard in the hallway. That led to an interesting conversation about how we count the years and A.D. and B.C. Then the termite guy came and Bri wrote in her journal and then wrote a page for me about what she already knew about penguins. Reading her page let us work on lower case t and review some of the spelling/phonics concepts. I was pleased with how well she self-corrected when I asked prompting questions. Then she did a math ws/coloring page. We made a blue Jello Antarctica with marshmallow icebergs. Then we had fish sticks and grapes for lunch. Then Micah and Kiara arrived and we went with them and Barbara to see "March of the Penguins," which we highly recommend. Back at our house, we had Micah and Kiara with us until dinner/prayer time so we had our Antarctic snack and then they decorated their penguin folders. While they were doing that, we got to talk about camouflage. Then we weighed and measured all the kids and compared their size to the size of an average Emperor penguin. (Bri is the height of a tall Emperor penguin, but about half its weight.) I went into the kitchen to pitch in a tiny bit with dinner prep and enjoyed overhearing their living room playtime from there. Clearly, they could handle review on their own: "Hurry--get on the ice (the futon on the floor)! A leopard seal is coming. . . . It's okay, he can't get you on the ice." "I'll be the dad and take care of the egg--Brianna, you're the mom--go to the sea and eat a LOT of fish, okay?" By then, some neighborhood kids had arrived. When it got a little crazy, I read a couple more books they chose from the book basket while Paul and Barbara handled the veggies and hot dogs on the grill. Others showed up and prayed and played and eventually went home. Brianna just told Paul a lot about Antarctica and emperor penguins. Then they read one last Tacky book for the night. Now we are headed for bed, where Brianna is listening to a library audiobook --This week she's been listening to the Felicity books of the American Girls series, which we are using as our American history springboard. I know this is way too much information for the rest of the world--it's mostly something for Bri and I to be able to look back at and remember what that very first day was like.