From the peanut gallery

The first part of this photolog of our homeschool co-op is brought to you by my two older sons. They took most of these photos and the commentary is theirs:

J: We found out that a lot of girls don’t like their pictures taken. This is the table where all the girls sit in Discover Africa. They don’t know I’m taking their photograph or they’d all be hiding under the table. Well, most of them anyway.

N: It seems to us that boys more like their photo taken.

Even shy ones like our friend Fisher!

N: See? Girls.

N: I’m acting like the girls, I don’t want to show you my pyramid. But really I do. (They both dissolve into giggles).

J: The girls in Out of this World didn’t mind picture taking at all. Lots of them smiled for us! So maybe it’s only the girls in Discover Africa who are afraid of the camera. These two are examining our cloud in a bottle experiment. It was really, super cool!

N: Yeah. Mom put water in the bottom of a bottle and told us she didn’t know if this would work. She said that sometimes science experiments don’t work very well, and that’s why they are experiments. She swirled it around and…

J: (interupts) lit a match and filled up the bottle with some smoke. These were the particles for the cloud vapor to form onto.

N: (interupts again) Then she put the lid on and squozed the bottle a few times. A cloud formed! She told us about pressure. And the pressure on Venus and how it’s so heavy that it would smash us flat. (Demonstrates falling on the floor, miming suffocation).

J: Then we went outside with dad, and I gave mom the camera back. We had Diet Coke and Mentos!

N: We did rock paper scissors in a few rounds to see who the winning kids would be to put the Mentos into the Coke. I didn’t win (sad face).

J: This is the first one. He only got in two Mentos, but it still went pretty high.

J: And this is the second one! We got in 3 Mentos! Imagine if you could get a whole pack in?

N: (talking really fast) aaaand Sparrow Girls made sewing pouches and crowns, and we can’t go in their class not even to help, and it’s no fair. THEEND. Blah, blah, blah!

This part of this photolog of our homeschool co-op is brought to you by my daughter. I fired off quick shots and the commentary is hers:

K: (big, huge, laborious sigh because her brother is so exhausting sometimes) NO. You can’t go in, and neither can daddy, or even B! Because it is JUST. FOR. GIRLS. THIS girl is sewing her pouch.

K: Mom had felt for everyone and needles with string already on them with knots. But she made a mistake and the strings should have had BOTH knots tied at the ends, because our needles kept slipping off and she and her assistant JJ had to help us get them back on until they finally tied new strings and we all did much better. Sewing was fun, I liked it, and I did it all — except for when my needle fell off — by myself.

K: These are some of the pouches. Mine is on the bottom, it is purple, because I was the first one done, because I’m pretty much a good sewer. Mom is going to put buttons on them for us so they will close and we can keep treasures inside.

K: We had time left over after we earned our Arts and Crafts patch, so I had found these crowns in the art cupboard left over from my last birthday when I turned 6. I will turn 7 this birthday, which is taking FOREVER to get here. I would like more My Little Ponies because Azzo chewed two of them up. I said we should bring these crowns, and so we did, and we liked decorating them with stickers and markers. Mom stapled them around our heads. Two girls memorized the Sparrow Girls Promise and Song and GOT EXTRA TREATS!

K: That is all. Then we went to ballet, and I love ballet and iFamily (our homeschool co-op) and I wish they were on EVERY DAY!

K: p.s. here is my little brother who wants to be in Sparrow Girls too. Don’t tell J or N, but we let him in and give him our extra treats because he is cute and little.