A Science Project and A Red Balloon

This past week, actually for the past two weeks, Emily has been working on a project she was assigned by her after school science teacher. He had asked each of the students to make a diorama of a tsunami. Normally Emily is not a self motivated student, but this time she made me proud. She envisioned her tsunami as a mini 3d wave headed for the beach. It took me a few days to think what she  might use to make 3d waves and how the viewers of her project would see the fault in the sea floor that causes the waves that form the tsunami, but I prevailed. Carvable floral foam covered with paper mache on a cardboard base did the trick.

She was also fortunate that I keep boxes of every kind. I had just emptied a plastic cutlery box that had little windows in the lid. So, she used the bottom of the box to build her sea floor in and used one of the windows from the lid to make a view port. Of course it didn't occur to us immediately that  when the solid wave top was resting in place it would be too dark to see inside. But never fear, my creative daughter ran to her room and returned with some light up shoe lace lights from her last birthday that she never used. When glued to the bottom of the wave base they can be turned on revealing the inside of her magnificent ocean floor!

In between advising her on her diorama assembly and other home school assignments, I began the bake and freeze cookie regime I mentioned last week. So far I have the chocolate sugar cookies, the Swedish butter cookies, and the snicker doodles done. And I must admit that the chocolate sugar cookies were tasty even without icing.

And last but not least, I read an incredibly fun picture book titled, CONFISCATED, by Suzanne Kaufman. This book resonated with me because it reminded me of my nieces when they were little. They were two years apart in age and constantly fought over everything just like the brothers in this book. I remember one particular shopping day with my sister in which one of the girls found a small blank piece of paper on the floor, and the two squabbled and squabbled over that tiny piece of nothing.

The brothers in CONFISCATED squabble too. So much so, that their mom takes away everything they fight over until they have nothing left. The boredom is more then the two can take and they begin to talk to each other and share good memories. One memory is of a red balloon. In an effort to sneak the red balloon from the confiscation locker, they end up making a bit of a mess. You probably want to know how their mom reacted to that, but there will be no spoilers here, lol. So go grab a copy from  your library or get a copy of  your own.

Well, that about wraps it up for this week. Join me next week for another exciting episode, same crazy time, same crazy channel. Also be sure to drop by Literacy Musings Mondays for more great blogs as well as my personal website Fun With Aileen where you will find more on reading, writing, and my very own chapter and picture books. And finally, you can find me on twitter  @AileenWStewart if you want an extremely brief glimpse into my days.