i heart homework 6 - it's a wrap

this weekend was a little busy around the savvy abode.
so, we got a tad behind on our homework project.
hence, anth being the honest kid that he is, Friday/Saturday/Sunday are all labeled "Sunday" because that is when he completed them. 
always tell the truth...even if it busts your parents for falling behind on homework management.

but, sunday afternoon was highly productive.
anth completed mass amounts of valentines and his last three days of homework!

"winter makes me happy because you can have a snowball fight."

(i.e., throw snowballs at your little brother while he stands there and eats the landscape.)

 

"my mommy likes to take pictures of icicles."

(note: this is his bird's eye view depiction of mommy trying to take a picture of the trees covered in icicles while daddy was driving on the way in to work. haha.)

the other fun thing about honesty is this...

"when my daddy was walking up the driveway, he fell down."

i drive a Golf.

as demonstrated in earlier homework, it can't make it up the driveway when icy.

my sweet husband tried to get it up the driveway for me.

it protested for him as well.

on bern's way back up the driveway, it claimed another victim.

*note: to bern's credit, the driveway has a much greater incline than anth portrayed here.

anth turned in his packet of homework this morning.

i hope that his teachers enjoy this project as much as i have.

i heart homework 5 - slackers

sometime last week, anth went back and added a drawing to his first night's homework to represent the news that he had watched. 

fair enough. 

when i asked him to tell me about the drawing (always safer than guessing) he told me that this was the newsman on the TV pointing to the weather. 

"but i just drew a bunch of squiggles to show the map because that's all the news guys bother to do anyway.  i mean, they don't use words or shapes or anything."

i heart homework 4 - weather as food

while this did not actually happen on thursday, the sentiment expressed in anth's homework is correct. 

things happening in this drawing: 

- the orange guy is benny

- the device on his head is his "monkey hat"

- the line from hand to mouth is snow

- the right is the walkway at daycare, with the squiggles being the snow

if left to his own devices, benny would happily go outside and eat all the snow his little belly could handle. 

it would not, however, occur to him to play in it. 

for benny, winter is nothing more than an infinite syrup-free icee. 

our grocery bill totally goes down in the winter. 

below is some photographic and video evidence of this. 

as usual, from the phone so the quality is less than ideal. :)

benny, shoveling it in his face with hand. 

note, gloves had been removed. 

they complicate the snow-to-mouth motion.

good to the last drop. 

for those not familiar, ben is referencing the children's book The Gruffalo, when he states that he will bite the snow with his "terrible teeth and his terrible jaws." 

super cute. 

in the way that horrible monsters in children's stories can be cute. 

...?

i heart homework 2 - slippery when frozen

tuesday's homework was a bit more straightforward than monday night's.
the kids went outside on the playground at school.
it was still icy.
(not sure why they were out there, but ok.)

things to note in his artwork:

1. as evidenced by the right side and "tuesday" region of the paper, someone did not wash their hands thoroughly after dinner. 

2. anth's winter jacket is green.

3. apparently he was balancing a book on his head.

4. the other little person in the picture is one of his female playmates.

5. she is not this much taller than him in real life.

6. nor a zombie.

i heart homework - part 1

you can take the girl out of california. 

but, even after a decade of living in Ohio, you can't quite take all the california out of this girl.

especially when it comes to weather.

i still find a good thunder storm or display of lightning absolutely fascinating.

so, being in one of the many states being hit by the ice/other storm festivities of the last few days has been...special.

on one hand, i find the idea of driving on frozen water terrifying.

on the other, it's all really pretty and it makes me want to take pictures.

bernie lovingly told me, "you are such a californian," yesterday after i tromped around in front of our daycare taking pictures of ice-encased shrubs on my phone because i didn't have my camera handy.

i also took phone photos in front of the post office.

and then out on The Oval as i walked around campus.

but, i wanted my real camera.
and by real, i mean my old point and shoot, as i am still figuring out manual mode on the fun new camera.
it was dark by the time i got home, so the photos opps were limited.
this first one is low quality. 
because it is through my window, for fear of falling on said camera.
(dear neighbors who i don't really know across the street...if you saw me taking photos in the direction of your home through my window last night, i promise i was operating with good intentions.)
this is the end of my driveway leading into our street.
the rest of our driveway is basically an 89 degree angle.
fun.

then bernie humored me and gave me a few minutes to wander around on our deck in the back and take these pictures of icicles before he ran out the door to go study.
(note: he quickly came back in the door to study at home after finding out every good coffee shop was closing at 8pm.)

so, yes, i'm a nerd and like to take pictures of these things.

neither of these facts should surprise most folks.

but...i was going somewhere with all of this.

promise.

anth's teachers decided to capitalize on the weather and make it a learning experience.

on monday, they sent home a week-long project.

on monday night, anth was to watch the news and take note of what weather was being predicted.

then, over the week, he was asked to write/draw/note his experiences, thoughts, observations of the weather in his journal.

cute.

so far, the first two entries seemed like they were worth sharing widely.

the first one was the one about the forecast. 

"the news said it will be icy"

***important note: anthony's teachers have asked that the parents allow the kids to sound out their words and not correct their spelling for them. 

i clearly am willing to poke fun at much of the day to day portions of my kids' lives.

anth LOVES homework. 

mom and dad love that anth loves homework.

so homework is sacred.

make fun of his spelling and we have issues.

ok, protective mommy PSA over.

the second included his prediction of what an ice storm would look like.

seeing it made me think that maybe my verbalizations regarding the coming storm were, in fact, quite "californian."

"this is what ice storm i thought it would be like"

apparently my  poor little man thought that an ice storm entailed people running around in the streets trying to avoid giant human-sized shards of ice.