Books & Bugs!

Instead of school this morning, we finished the last few chapters of The Mysterious Benedict Society. It was so exciting that we had a hard time putting it down last night, and then I was sad when we'd finished it and didn't have any more to read. But now we are looking forward to when we can get the sequel! And we got to use Morse Code to decode Mr. Benedict's first name, which was fun and vaguely educational!
Then we did our poetry and math flash cards and called our school day "done." (Ed can do these things because he is principal and superintendant.)
Today's library program was a special, "by registration only" event featuring a woman from the Catawba Science Center (or it might have been Nature Center... or something like that) and a whole lot of oversized creepy-crawlies. She told the kids all about insects, then about things that you might Think were insects but really aren't. She walked around holding the various critters and let the kids pat them (or not). Katie patted the Madagascar Hissing Cockroaches, and also the Enormously Gigantic African Millipede, and would have patted the Grumpy and Venomous Tarantula if she had been allowed. Travis chose to observe and Not Pat. For the last part of the program, the children paired up and each pair had a tray with tweezers (I'm told they are called "forceps" in a scientific setting), magnifying glasses, and an enormous, dead grasshopper. The children had nicely detailed charts showing the anatomy of the grasshopper, and they were supposed to identify various parts. Travis was awfully lucky that he had Katie for a lab partner, because he wouldn't even touch that grasshopper with long tweezers. Katie found all the bits very handily though, and had a great time doing it!
We spent the rest of the afternoon at the pool, and I am sure that the children will be eager to get back to their regular lessons tomorrow, having had such a nice break today!