Reading

We all love it that Elsa can read now, especially her sisters who no longer have to wait for mommy to read them a book.

And Nora loves to do her share of reading to Beatrice too, though it is still only books that she's memorized so far.

A Strange Little Beast

This strange little spider live in our front awning for a few days.  It was quite small, maybe 1/4 inch, but it's profile was still intimidating.

Renonzo

We've now caught-and-released every little critter that has tried to live in our backyard, and some are brave enough to still live there!  This little guy lives around the big tree just next to our patio.  I should say "he used to live..." there because after catching (and doting over him like a puppy dog) several times, Elsa decided to use the money she's been saving up to purchase a 10 gallon terrarium and everything needed to care for a little green anole.  So he now lives in our school room/den and is Elsa's pride and joy.  His name is Renonzo.

She is fully responsible for all his care and regularly buying crickets for him to hunt (and caring for them too!).  We did a lot of research together before she bought all the equipment (terrarium, heat lights, UVB light, humidity/temp. gauge, etc.), and she makes daily entries in a notebook to keep track of feeding and cleaning routines and anything else she observes.  I'll try to get some photos of her set-up soon.

He's really pretty cute!

Daddy time

A real smile!

Five-year-olds are just not very good at giving real smiles on demand, but I was lucky to catch this one of Nora.  She was super happy that her new pansy from a fall festival at a local garden center matched her shirt perfectly!

Cats

I walked outside to find two stray cats on our swing!  They hung around for most of the afternoon, but left when I said that only children can have popsicles, not cats.

Moviemaker

When we had seen all the Shaun the Sheep episodes on Amazon Prime, Elsa was inspired to make her own stop motion movie.  We pulled out the dollhouse furniture, a lamp, and my old camera for her to give it a try. 

Her first movie is in three acts.  (I made the middle one to show her how to do it, and she did the first and last on her own.)

Then we talked a bit more about how to make the motions smaller to make a better movie, and also about making an actual story line.  For her next movie, our conversation about the story line went something like this:

me:  What so you want the movie to be about?

Elsa:  I want it to be about the daddy falling on the breakfast table and making a huge mess!

me:  OK.  (!!! laughing inside!)  So you need to have a reason that he falls.

Elsa:  Well, he could trip over the dog, or slip on the dog bone like a banana peel.

me:  OK.  And is the breakfast table set before the movie starts or do we see the family set the table?... etc.

So here is the final product.  Elsa directed and manned the camera, Nora was "props manager" because she desperately wanted to help (she put all the sticky-tac on the pieces we used), and I actually did a lot of moving of the people and such this time because Elsa wanted me to do the project with her (and she enjoyed telling me what to do :)