White Socks

The car ran out of gas again today. That’s why we’re staying in this shelter tonight. It’s just for one night, though. Mom said my Uncle George in Ohio will send some money.

She must be reading my thoughts, because she says, again, “Uncle George will send money.” She says it like saying it will make it true.
Then she says, “Go wash up for bed, Ben, but don’t talk to anyone in the men’s room…and be quick.”

She worries about me too much. I’m ten, and I know how to take care of myself. We’ve had this problem with restrooms for a few years. When I was little, she took me into the women’s room, but of course that won’t work now. Technically, my dad took me into the men’s room, mom told me, when I was potty training. But I don’t remember that. Or, him.

I take my toothbrush and soap to the men’s room. There’s an old man with a scruffy face staring into the mirror, rubbing his whiskers like he’s thinking hard about something. He looks kind of sketchy, so I stand sort of near a guy that looks like dad material.

“Here, son,” he says, “have some toothpaste.” He explains that a donation of travel-size toothpastes came in today. I accept the toothpaste and check under the cap for a seal. I brush quickly while the guy lectures me on the best way to brush. I leave before he tries to adopt me.

Back at our room, Mom is talking to a lady about whether we left our car in a safe place. That seems like a pointless conversation. Like we had a choice where to leave the car. I crawl under the itchy green blanket on my cot and hope this place isn’t too noisy. Someone in the next room coughs a lot. I’m glad there aren’t any crying babies. I can hear sirens in the distance, and the wind rattling the window. What I really want to hear is sleigh bells. Because tonight is Christmas Eve.

I know I probably won’t get any presents. We’ve had tough times for a while. Well, really since my dad died of cancer when I was three. It has only been extra bad since mom lost her job and couldn’t pay the rent. There’s always hope, though. Santa has a hard time finding kids in shelters, but I’ve been especially good, for Mom. So, I go to sleep as quickly as I can.

I dream about my cat, Socks. It’s a lame name, but honestly, he does look like he’s wearing socks. He’s all black except for his white feet. Santa brought Socks when I was five. He’s my best friend, and I dream about him every night. Tonight in my dream he’s chasing after a string I pull along the kitchen floor. He pounces on it with those sock feet then I pick him up and snuggle him. He tucks his head under my chin and purrs. He is nothing but softness and warmness. Suddenly he is crying. He is trapped in the neighbor’s window searching for me and calling for me to come get him.

I cry out and wake myself up. I look over to the next cot to see if I have woken my mom. Luckily, she is still sleeping. If she had woken, she would have said, for the hundredth time, “Ten-year-olds shouldn’t be homeless. You’re too young to know so much about heartbreak.” It takes a long time to get back to sleep.

Mornings come early in shelters. The last one sent everyone out at 6:00 am. Mom is shaking me, so I think we’re heading out, probably to see if our car is still there, and maybe to get some money from Uncle George, whoever that is.
“Ben,” she says, “Santa came! He’s here, in the lobby! Let’s go see, maybe he brought something.” She says that las

Sometimes you're just in a bad mood. No one knows why Finn has a huge, wild tantrum. He just does. The author and illustrator do a really good job of showing Finn's feelings in this book. Readers of this book will be happy to know that bad moods go away, like sunny days after a storm. Yes, Finn does throw a fit, and it's doosie, but he gets over it, and that will make you feel better.
written by David Elliot, illustrated by Timothy Basil Ering

Adventures of Penelope, Pierre, and Paquito Jambes


French: les petite jambes (lay puh-teet zhahnb)= English: the little legs
French: le chat (luh shah)= English: the cat

Click on the comic to enlarge.
Click on the comic to enlarge again if you can't quite read it.
You may print this comic if you'd like.

I wonder...
I wonder if adding antifreeze to the glass-making process would stop my car's windshield from frosting over.

I wonder...

Why is BIG shorter than LITTLE
and LITTLE longer than BIG?

Why do we say "let's put ON a show"
but "don't show OFF"?

Why are moths attracted to lights if they
are night creatures?

Why is w called "double-u"
when it really is a "double-v"?

I don't know, beats me, good question, good night!

Game #2

* You can play this game by yourself or with others.
* Open your Boredom Buster Box and take out one item.
* Either choose an item you like, or choose one without looking.
* Decide if players will be timed or not.
* Now name 10 things in the room that begin with the same letter as the item you chose.


I chose a wheel:
1. window 2. wrench
3. wall 4. Windex
5. welcome mat 6. watermelon
7. wheat bread 8. wires
9. wood 10.white (fridge)
Can you guess what room I am in?
OK, number 10 gave it away!

Come back again for more games!
See the September 13, 2009 post for directions for making a Boredom Buster Box and game #1.

GLOBULAR

pronounced: "GLOB-yah-ler" or "GLOBE-yah-ler"

shaped like a round ball, a sphere, or the globe
or
something made of sphere shapes
or
something that is found worldwide.

Charlie Brown has a very globular head. If you draw continents on his head, you could use it as a globe.

This is Maddie.
She has 3 teeth.

"Sticks and stones may break my bones,
but words can never hurt me."

Well, actually, words can hurt a lot. Sure, maybe words can't break a bone, but words are powerful things.

Brett Westcott and Cameron Brown realized they could make the world a better place with the power of words. They do it for free, too.

Brett and Cameron stand on a sidewalk at Purdue University for two hours every Wednesday. They give out compliments to people walking by. The nice things they say to people make the people feel noticed and happy. So many people enjoyed the compliments, that they started calling Brett and Cameron "The Compliment Guys".

A hero is someone who uses power for good. Now, more people at their school want to be kind, too. Paul Shepard, who works at their school, says Brett and Cameron make him want to be a better person. The Compliment Guys sound like 'heros' to me.

Maybe they can teach all of us the power of kind words.
Maybe kids will soon be saying:

"Doctors and nurses may heal my bones,
but words can save my soul."

Okay, it doesn't rhyme, but you get the idea!

sources:
Hometown Heros, The Compliment Guys, by Maria W. Aldrich
and
http://www.purdue.edu/UNS/x/2009a/090313ComplimentGuys2.html
Purdue News Service photo/ Andrew Hancock

MATERIALS NEEDED:
* a small box
(A little metal box like the ones that mints are sold in works well.)
* lots of little items that will fit into the box
(The box in this picture has twenty things in it!)
* paper and pencils

DIRECTIONS FOR GAME #1:
* the first player chooses items from the box and lays them out for everyone to see.
(choose fewer items for younger children, more for older children or for more players.)
* everyone except player one closes their eyes while player one removes an item.
* player two tries to tell what the missing item is
* player one congratulates player two and returns the item
* player two now removes an item while player one closes thier eyes.



variation:
* player one does not return the item after player two names it
* player three (or more) closes their eyes while player two removes an item
* player three now names items 1 and 2 that are missing
* continue this pattern for as many players in the game

variation:
* player one lays out 10 items and gives everyone a few minutes to look them over
* everyone except player one closes their eyes while player one removes five items
* everyone except player one writes the names of the five missing items onto a piece of paper
* the player with the most correct 'wins' the chance to choose items for the next round

Print these directions and put them in your box.
This is a great game to play at a restaurant or anywhere else that you have to wait. Check back for more ways to use your Boredom Buster Box.

An acrostic is a poem that usually begins each line with a letter so that the beginning letters spell a word going down.
You don't have to worry about rhyming, just have fun!
How would you write an accrostic with the words AUTUMN DAYS?
Leave your acrostic in the comments for others to read!

Apples, red and sweet,
up in the
trees and crunching leaves
under
my feet, fall is
nature's lullaby.



Drowsy bees
And honking geese, autumn
Your song will too
Soon be done.

It was a good thing I bought new mud boots. It had been raining for several weeks, so I knew I would need them on our hike up to the Harvard Mine. Harvard Mine is at the top of a mountain in Maine. My two sons, Nathan and Sam, and my mother and I like to go rockhounding there at least once a year. It is a beautiful hike and we love looking for gems. We would also stop at Perham's, a jewelry store and museum near the mines. The Perham family owns the mines and lets people rock hunt there for free. They were always friendly when we visited, and would help us identify our finds.

This time was a special trip, as it was also the day Perham's was closing forever. Perham's had been in business for ninety years and was famous around here. Many people were sad to see them close their shop, and came to visit the mines for what might be the last time. The trail to Harvard Mine was busy that day, but not everyone prepared for the hike as well as we had.

Some parts of the trail were more like a stream. Sections of the trail were a foot deep with mud. Other parts were dry, but mud boots were definately needed today. Many people we saw were wearing only flip flops or rubber clogs. "Are they crazy?" we would say after we passed them, watching them pull their feet out of the mud. We had been up to the mines many times before. We knew what to expect.

We had to stop and rest often, because my mother was getting tired easily. It was a steep trail in places, and we were carrying hammers and chisels in our backpacks along with water and a snack. We also needed to stop so Nathan and Sam could fix their socks. Their socks kept slouching down off their feet and bunching up in the toes of their boots.

As my mother rested and my boys fixed their socks, I looked around at the woods and the piles of boulders spilling down the hillside. Suddendly something caught my eye. I climbed over huge rocks to get a closer look and pulled myself up the hill by grabbing onto small trees. It was just a bunch of rocks, but they looked like a face!

I called Nathan and Sam to come see. They scrambled up and were as amazed as I
was. We took pictures and pretended to talk to him. "See my new boots?" "Are you enjoying all the visitors today?" "We might never come here again."

The rest of the hike was just as wet and tiring. We stopped to take more pictures and to examine and collect rock specimens. At the top of the mountain we enjoyed the company of the other rockhounders and had our snack. We cracked rocks in half with the chisels and "ooohhhed" and "aahhed". I even found a baby snake that we admired for a while. As usual, our backpacks were heavier on the way down, but we were happy with our selections.

When we came to the spot with the rock face again, we took one last look. To think that all these years that we have been coming here, that face was sitting there in the woods all along, watching. We didn't think anyone else had ever noticed it, since it was pretty well blocked by trees. How sad to think that we found it on what might be the last day to hike here, if the Perhams sell the property.

Back at the van, I pulled off my muddy boots and wondered if others would think the rock looks like a face. I tossed all our boots in the back of the van and thought perhaps we saw the face because we needed to. It seems that sometimes we find things at just the right time.

If the mines remain open to visitors, we will now have a new addition to our traditional hike. If not, then we got to say goodbye in a very interesting and unique way. And maybe, just maybe, the mountain was saying goodbye to us. Or maybe he was giving us the boot.

Starfish are an ocean animal. They are not a fish. The correct name for starfish is sea stars.
Sea stars live on the ocean floor near the shore and can be found in all oceans of the world.
There are about 2,000 kinds of sea stars, and many of them have 5 arms. Some kinds have more than five arms.
Sea stars have spiny skin to protect themselves. They can also lose an arm to keep a predator from eating their entire body.
They have tube feet all over their underside which they use to walk and to pry open shells. Sea stars eat the meat from inside shell animals.
To read more about sea stars, visit the sites below.
sources:
http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/invertebrates/starfish.html
http://www.buzzle.com/articles/interesting-facts-about-starfish.html
http://www.enchantedlearning.com/subjects/invertebrates/echinoderm/Seastarprintout.shtml

This short rhyming story is about a young girl and her grandpa and the things they like to do together. It is a very sweet story that makes you want to call your grandpa! The colorful pictures are beautiful and perfectly match the gentleness of the story.

Story by Kristy Dempsey and art (pictured here) by Christopher Denise

Today is Wednesday so I will tell you about one of my favorite clippings on our family wall of wisdom. It shows a Harley Davidson motorcycle with a biker dude sitting on it. He is 59 years old and has a beard and long hair. He's wearing jeans, sunglasses and a Harley Davidson t-shirt and skull cap. He is also holding a quilt he made. Yes, that's right, a quilt. I tore this story out of my quilting magazine because I like the way this biker dude, nicknamed Biker-Dude, is also an artist.
His real name is Butch Myers and he learned quilting to help him quit smoking. This is different picture of Biker-Dude.

There are many things I like about Biker-Dude's story. Not only did he learn how to quilt, but he also designs his own. He didn't give up on his goal. He was in really poor health and found a way to get better. His story shows that you are never too old to learn something new. You might find yourself learning something totally different than what you thought. He had the courage to do something that others might make fun of him for. It is even cool that quilt has almost the same letters as quit.
What I like best, the biggest reason Biker-Dude is on our wall of wisdom, is that it shows you can't judge a book by its cover. Would you see a rough-looking Harley rider and guess that he designs quilts? You don't know a person just by looking at them.

go to www.allpeoplequilt.com/206 to read about Butch.
go to www.lilcountryshoppe.com to see his designs (click on the Biker-Dude link)
photo from allpeoplequilt.com

CACOPHONY

pronounced: "kuh-KOF-uh-nee"
or
"kah-KOF-uh-nee"

loud, unpleasant, confusing sounds

The cacophony in the crowded lunchroom at school gave me a headache. I was glad when Mr. Jones asked everyone to quiet down.

This is Maddie.
She is one (and a half).

Dad parked the van in the Home Depot parking lot and we all climbed out and dashed through the rain to get inside before we got soaked.
I lifted Annie and Charlie, my four-year-old twin sister and brother, into the double seat section of the big orange racing car cart. My seven-year-old brother, Ethan, climbed into the merchandise section.
“Stay on your bottom,” I reminded him.
He answered back, “You’re not the boss of me, Hannah Banana!” I ignored that.
“Orange!” said Annie, “Let’s paint your room orange!”
“Ugh, no!” said Dad and I. We laughed. She sure likes those carts.
“Hannah, you can go look at the paint. We’ll be in the garden area,” said Dad.
I was glad to go look at paint alone. It had been raining for five days straight and I was really tired of my siblings. I was also glad mom stayed home while we went out. She was tired from being sick so much.
I always liked looking at the little colored cards, all neatly arranged, that showed the paint color choices. So many choices.
I studied the cards for a while. I could never decide. Dad said whatever I picked, I would have to like it for the next six years, until I left for college. I finally took a card with ‘clear sky blue’ and a card with ‘fresh cut grass’ then went to find my family.
It wasn’t hard to find them. I could hear Annie and Charlie chanting, “Yell-ow, yell-ow, yell-ow!” from three isles away.
Dad was putting yellow potted lilies into the cart and the twins cheered. “Ethan,” he said, “You need to get out of the cart now. What color flowers do you want to get mom?”
“I want yellow, too,” he mumbled, climbing out of the cart.
Annie called him a copy cat, but Dad put some yellow marigolds into the cart. I knew I wanted to get mom some miniature roses. Since it looked like the thing to do, I picked yellow.
On the way to the checkout lanes I showed everyone my paint color cards. Dad said green walls would probably not be a good idea, since my carpet is green. “Clear sky blue sure sounds good, though!” he said.
“Does color have a sound?” asked Charlie.
“No, stupid!” said Ethan.
We all just looked at him. He stared at the flowers, scowling like it was our fault he was grumpy.
Suddenly Ethan’s eyes widened. He picked a rose right off one of the plants. “Oh!” he said.
I was about to scold him, but Dad said, “What is it, Ethan?”
“Hannah should paint her walls blue, and paint yellow flowers all around, like a garden. Then it will be like her carpet is grass, and we could go look at her room when we get tired of too much rain, and in the winter we can remember mom’s birthday garden.”
Annie and Charlie chanted “gar-den, gar-den, gar-den!”
I liked his idea so much I gave him a big bear hug. He smiled.
We bought enough blue to paint my ceiling blue too, a small can of green for the stems, and a can of sunshine yellow for the flowers.
The rain had stopped. As we walked to the van, the sun began to poke through the clouds. My heart felt warm and happy and I knew we made the right choice.

The Wall of Wisdom is in my laundry room.
When someone finds a saying or story that is wise, we hang it up there for everyone to read.

Come back next Wednesday to read something from our family wall of wisdom!

ALGOLOGY

pronounced: "al-GOLL-uh-jee"

Do you know that green slimy stuff on rocks at the beach or on the sides of a dirty fish tank? It's a plant called algae.
Learning about algae is called algology.

Jim said, "Hey, this rock has more algae than that rock."
Sara said, "Boy, Jim, you sure are good at algology."

This is Maddie.
She likes cats.

Maybe you can't have a snowball fight in summer, but if you use your pretending skills, you could try. You don't need mittens, either! Well, you could wear mittens if you want, to make the pretending more real. If it is just way too hot to play outside today where you are, or if it has been raining for days, here is a fun, easy, cheap game.
Get a stack of newspapers and give each person an equal share. Each person also needs a large shopping bag that can stand open.
Crumple each sheet of newspaper into a tight ball and fill your bag with paper 'snowballs'.
When everyone is ready....snowball fight!
What else can you do with your snowballs?
Bury each other!
Here is another idea:
Pile them on a towel, have each person hold a corner, and on the count of three throw the snowballs up into the air.
When you are done playing, make the cleanup a game too. First person to fill their bag is champion.
If you used paper shopping bags, you can roll the top down and make a paper snowman!
Decorate you 'paperman' and enjoy his company as long as you'd like, he won't melt!
Happy playing!
(Remember to put all your snow into the recycling when you are done.)

Arugula is a hedgehog who likes everything to be perfect. But she finds out perfect isn't always much fun. Find out how Arugula learns her lesson!
This is a fun book to read, with lots of speech bubbles. Look for it at your bookstore or library.

Now it's time to go to sleep,
Tomorrow I will find my sheep.

If home if where they want to be,
I guess they will come back to me.

Which Mother Goose character is this?

Happy Thursday!
Time for a Kids Can Do It update:

**Sam (age 7) can swim in the deep end of the pool without help or a float/ lifejacket**

Way to go Sam! Let's hear a cheer for Sam!

Would you like to be on a Kids Can Do It update?
Send an email to [email protected] telling about what you can do.
Remember to get your parents okay first and use your first name and age only.
(no last name, address, phone numbers, etc.)