Sunday, December 16, 2007

Using my words

Sometimes having your kids quote you can be embarrassing. Tonight, William cracked me up. He's a little monkey, and everything's a jungle gym. Just ask the people who've seen him calmly playing on top of the bookshelves. But I've been really working with him to not climb/stand/bounce/insert verb here on the furniture. So tonight when he was hanging upside down over one arm of the couch, all I had to say was:

Me: William...
William: Stop abusing the furniture? Ok.

Followed by a little somersault off the couch.

Monday, December 10, 2007

How to Play "Guess Who"

by William

This is how you play Guess Who. There are cards of different people with their names under them. You pick one, and you have a big board with all the people on it. There's two boards, one for each person. They ask you a question like "Does your guy have white hair?" and if you say "No," they flip down all the guys on their board that have white hair. And then you ask a question like "Does your guy have a moustache?" and if they say "Yes." you flip down everyone else besides the guys that have moustaches. If the other team guy decides that he thinks he's found your one and he says, "Is your guy Chris?" and if you say "No." they flip down Chris. And if you say, "Is your guy Bill?" and if they say, "Yes." you win.

(Homeschool writing assignment. Have your child explain how to play his favorite game in no more than eight sentences.)

Thursday, December 06, 2007

The Tower Treasure by Franklin W. Dixon

by William

"The Tower Treasure" is about detectives. The detectives names are Frank and Joe Hardy. And they're trying to arrest someone who stole the jewels from the tower and who also stole Chet's car. They tried to explore places to try to find the car. The person who stole the car stole the car before the jewels from the tower. The person who stole the treasure and the car was Red Jackley. He always wore red wigs. They found the car and the jewels.

(William's first book summary. The assignment was to condense a book into eight sentences, which was harder than it sounded!)

Wednesday, December 05, 2007

Eureka!


On our walk today:

William: Mom, you can't walk backwards and forwards at the same time.
Me: Nope. Sure can't.
William: I just discovered that. I'm trying to walk backwards and forwards at the same time, but it takes two legs to go one direction.

Tuesday, December 04, 2007

Run, Forrest, run!


William ran a mile today. He's run/walked a mile before with me, but this is the first time I've turned him loose at a track to pace himself and get himself through a mile. He didn't exactly make it--started too fast and got discouraged after finishing the first 1 1/2 laps. Of course he started out at an 8 min/mile pace, which is a bit ambitious for his first time. :) So he walked a bit and got a pep talk from me, and ended up finishing in 12:23.

He's actually beginning to take an interest in sports lately. He did a basketball clinic on Sunday with a former Spurs' player, and, while he didn't exactly stun anyone with his skills, he stuck with it all the way through. And he tried ice skating for the first time on Saturday night. Firsts are a big deal for him. He doesn't like trying new stuff, so I'm very "well pleased" that he's giving all these new things a shot. Now if I can just get him to try some vegetables.