The Rowdy Pea

a book for papa

For Father's Day, Ivo and I made Josh a book about our recent fishing trip up north. Ivo dictated all of the text to me, and then I picked out the pictures and put the pages together. When I asked him what he wanted the title to be, he said "Moby Dick" because that's a grown-up book about fishing. So here are some excerpts from Moby Dick:

To create the text, I put a slide show of our fishing trip pictures on the computer and as we watched it together I asked Ivo to tell the story of our trip. Then I wrote down his words. This was a really fun project and very easy to make.  Ivo loves hearing his story, and Josh said it was his favorite present ever.  Here's the whole story of Moby Dick:

We are going fishing.

We bring my life jacket, the rowers, and a tackle box.

We bounce the oars. 

In the canoe the fish swim under my seat.

We are rowing.

Papa casts his line.

We see a turtle, a line, and a loon.

All the fishes that we caught is model.

Then we row back to the dock.

We feel happy. 

 

We tried to make the cover look like an old-timey leather bound edition (it looks better in person than in this picture). The binding is a pamphlet stitch, which is very easy and only requires a nail and some string. Here are some good directions for making a book with a pamphlet stitch in case you want to make your own story.

 

sometimes life really is a bowl of cherries

we got worms

One recent, raining morning Ivo said, "Let's build a wormery Mama."  He must have seen this somewhere, because he explained all about filling a big plastic bottle with sand and dirt and leaves and worms. So I did a google search and lo and behold : A pop bottle wormery.  Later that morning we went to the library and checked out An Earthworm's Life which was perfect. There's just a sentence or two on each page and the illustrations are actually quite beautiful (which I'm sure is not easy when your book is about worms).  Ivo's favorite part was when a boy finds a worm "stranded" on a basketball court and gently moves him to a garden. That small act of stewardship really inspired him, and now he likes to scan every sidewalk for worms to help.

 

 

We love to watch our worms. In a few days they will be back in the woods, but for now they are sparking lots of questions and creative thinking. Yesterday Ivo asked me, "Do worms breathe dirt? Papa said the fish breathe water. So do the worms breathe dirt?" I thought that was very clever. And I got a chance to be clever too. Today I picked up a dead junebug from our laundry room floor and my neighbor said, "Ew! I can't believe you can touch that." I said, "Hey you're talking to the lady with a pop bottle full of worms on her dining room table."  She'd heard all about the wormery from Ivo so that sent us both into giggles.

pictures from our weekend

catching up

Well, I've been a lazy blogger lately if you haven't noticed. Last week I got walloped with the worst cold I've had in a very long time, and allergies on top of that. Yikes. It was a real scene around here.  But I am thankfully feeling much better now, and we are headed up north in a few hours to spend the weekend at our friend's lake house. Just the three of us-- woohoo!

Here are a few highlights from the past few days:

The salamanders are out and about. Right on time as usual. Ivo loves these little guys.

We had hail on Saturday.

My work table is so clean I had to take a picture. What a nice feeling to not be so messy all the time.

And last but not least, a funny kid quote. A few mornings ago I asked Ivo if he was all ready to go for our outing and he replied, "Yup, except I just need to spread my hair."

Have a fun weekend everyone!

a guided tour

This week I was invited to go on Josh and Ivo's usual Saturday morning nature walk. It's at a wildlife refuge near our house, and since I usually use that time to catch up with chores it had been quite a while since I last visited. Ivo had so much he wanted to show me. HIghlights of the tour included the *exact* location where a garter snake had been last week, a small group of coots floating peacefully with their little white bills, and most exciting, a lightening-charred tree.  Amazing!

archeology 101

Last Sunday we went out to an old farmstead east of town where Ivo's friend's parents were leading an archeological dig for grad students and volunteers. Now for playing in the sandbox Ivo wants to have a tape measure, a clip board, and a big box sifter. I can only imagine what wonders he will find.

puddle party

Puddle Monday turned into Bike Monday (no rain, no puddles!). We also had Bike Tuesday and Bike Wednesday. But on Thursday . . . puddles! Ivo had some friends over to enjoy the simple pleasures of the season with us. By which I mean the mud, of course.