For us, this was a captivating book with a handful of serious discussion topics. As we found from another of her books, “The 14th Goldfish”, Holm excels in characterizing family dynamics – in this case we ended up wanting to be a part of the protagonist’s father’s extended Italian family. “Penny from Heaven” – we’ve just finished this fun fiction read by Jennifer L. They both did so well! ( And if you are looking closely at the photo above – my son selected correctly – researchers now say that Pandora had a JAR, not a BOX!) Just to make sure my son had a grasp of the basics, I gave him two quizzes – one that matched Greek gods with Roman gods and a multiple choice quiz that covered mythology vocabulary. There is a dizzying quantity gods, goddesses, muses, nymphs, and super-strength mortals. The fact is this: the Greek mythology family tree is hilariously confusing. Greek Mythology a la Ken Jennings – The fact is this: my son and I are still loving “Ken Jennings Junior Genius Guide to Greek Mythology”. We are sort of hoping that her evilness doesn’t disappoint…tonight is promising – we will be reading a short essay that appears to infer that Cixi poisoned her enemies. How upside-down is this? My son and I seem to have this small discussion every night: does a country with any sense at all go to war to force a clearly reluctant other country to engage in COMMERCE? Suffice it to say, we open this book every night hoping we will start to understand, and in the meantime learn more about Empress Cixi. China had a centuries-long tradition of NOT welcoming foreign trade, so GET THIS – during the 1800s, Britain and France ( I am sorry to say), using vastly superior military might, forced China to trade. So far, the lead story is about the most preposterous foreign invasions. So: China in the 1800s – we thought the book would be about inner-court intrigues or friction between royalty and peasants.

“Cixi – Evil Empress of China?” – we are half-way through yet another book from the “A Wicked History” series. If Farmer Brown plants 1,000 radish seeds and is able to harvest 800 radishes, what percentage of the seeds transformed into an edible ( vocab) vegetable? If rabbits ate half of the unharvested radishes, how many did they consume? If the local diner garnishes every salad with two sliced-up radishes, how many radishes do they need for a PTA luncheon of 150 attendees and a bowling league dinner of 20 team members? ( answers at bottom of post) And whether he likes it or not, we are going to be serving up home grown radishes in a few short weeks.įarmer Brown grows radishes (story problem) – ( oh my, this one is so easy) It is rather late in the growing season, but Farmer Brown is laying in another crop of radishes – Le Fictitious Local Diner will buy all that he has to sell, and the radishes grow so fast. But at least I can tell when my son is engaged and when he is not. My son LOVES this challenge! As opposed to this: I thought my son might be interested in watching a plant grow from seed, so a few nights ago I brought up a packet of radish seeds to the STORIES AND STUDIES CENTER and was met with (in Victorian terms) “the cut direct”. I mix up the letters of a word, and my son unscrambles the letters. Jumble! – we have been playing our own version of the popular-since-1954 newspaper word game, “Jumble”.

Jumble word game history