Head, Shoulder, Ab-do-min...everything but your, um, spirit

Dr. Nico

My 7 year old son called my mom yesterday..."grandma, did you really make my mom take Shakey-Poo to school?" In between laughter I heard my mother say, "So its science fair time again, huh!!" Even as a 1st grader, I KNEW that shaking oil and water together, putting it in a cute container, and giving it a cute name does not a science experiment make. I have spent years making my mother relive my humiliation of shakey-poo. When she doesn't seem properly sympathetic, I call my sister, who had to bring similar experiments in. It only got worse when my own children had to begin entering their own Science Fairs. I would have happily forgot each year, but along came Tina. SHE loves science and doesn't believe anything labeled Shakey Poo counts as an experiment. My older kids have grown up with the Shakey-Poo story but my new 7 have missed that golden opportunity...Antoine opened the door when he rejected making a lapbook for his science experiment. He was doing a combined science experiment with his 4th grade brother. In fact, rather than do 5 experiments, most of my elementary kids shared 1 experiment and Tina, of course, did her own. Of the 4 that shared, only 2 had to turn in a deliverable. James, as the oldest, got to turn it on the fancy big board, but I wanted Antoine to have an opportunity to turn a small project in as well. But I got was an enormous fit... "All the kids will laugh at me!!" Actually, by the time we finished he was so excited about his project he comes home and asks everyday if he can make another one!! I LOVE lapbooks. I am definitely going to go there for homeschooling. When I asked if any of the children laughed, he blushed (have you ever seen a black kid blush before!?) and said no. Then I told him about Shakey Poo, and he had to call grandma to ask!!

Nene and Ant with his ant lapbook

James prepares his own ant presentation

Combined with Science Fair, we had the Kindergarten stage presentation. The kids put on a great show and had to dress up as what they want to be when they grow up...Nicolette decided to she was going to be a doctor and has been treating us to (interestingly enough) the ant song, sung to the tune of head, shoulders, knees and toes, knees and toes...head, thorax, ab-do-min...its been an ant week here at the Murphy Home! Sadly, we had cold weather and could not entice any ants out when we needed them, but we learned why and how they hibernate...maybe procrastination was my mom's problem too...oh, well, alls well and we did not have to resort to shakey poo, which I still consider child abuse...

I got the idea for the lapbook while investigating homeschool options. I have heard about lapbooks for years and decided to make one to use up some copies I had made of the new mass responses that I downloaded from Catholic Icing. We had a great time and they were absolutely adorable. What do y'all think of the new language. I want to use it all the time!! "how are you holly...I'm good...and with your spirit ;o)"

nene and nico cut paper...strong finger muscles!!

kiki, nico, nene, and T cut and paste and make messes...yeah, we would be great homeschoolers!

Luckily, I will have all next week to practice...LOVELOVELOVE Spring Break...Course next week I will be writing to you about the excellent Catholic School we have here... so how goes your spirit!!