Learning Notes--Science and Art Week

Day 3--Lots of mistakes today. I wasn't prepared enough with our human body models. Also, I wanted to do too much, so instead of putting something off until later, I tried to multitask. Stupid stupid stupid to try to read picture books while kids are coloring and cutting.

Then we ran off to the local panadaria y carneceria (Mexican bakery and butcher) to see what they had for Dia de los Muertos. The answer: nothing since it isn't until Nov. 2. Duh. They didn't have chicken feet either, sigh, but fortunately they did have beef tongues (only $11.20 for a tongue I was told after assuring the man we were not interested in buying one but only wanted to look at the taste buds...). Another unexpected benefit was that we had our John Lithgow CD on in the car and have sung Skin multiple times a day since. Forgot to point out the tripe to the kids, and we were doing digestive system. Dang.

Day 4--Much better. First of all we cuddled on the loveseat and read books for 1 1/2 hours. Then we worked on completing the human body models, and since I had done mine last night, it went very smoothly. Maria, after we read St. Valentine, spent the rest of the morning drawing mosaics. Her assessment: it's harder to draw a mosaic than it looks.

Day 5--Started the morning with a cuddle and many fine books again. I had 2 Dia de los Muertos books, plus some new human body books. We touched on the nervous system after reading the book Now One Foot, Now the Other by Tomie de Paola. The kids loved the reading time and were fully attentive as we glued paper mosaics and made one last human body model to show how muscles work. I like the larger skeleton model best, but the boys thought this was pretty neat too. I'm still hoping for chicken feet at a different butcher today.