Read for Your Life

My dd6 asked me how paper is made. We watched a few clips on youtube and this is our favorite.  Now she wants to make some paper right away.

If you want to change your status from an armchair writer (ahem) to a productive, real writer, here are some great tips.

We had an errand to run in Encinitas so I checked to see what there was to do while we were up there and found a treasure.  I paid for admission, and by the time we were done looking around I decided we had to have a membership.  My kids love this place and they ask me often when we are going to go there again.  It isn’t a huge place, but it is big enough for many lovely twists and turns.  And the children’s garden is wonderful.  They have some great programs for kids.  I am very impressed and am hoping it will make a greenthumb out of me somehow.

Here’s a story from the BBC about a judge in Australia who just couldn’t admit he was speeding.  How absolutely sad.  Just think how different it would have been for him if he had just said, “I’m sorry”  and paid the fine.

An article on the BBC news page had some advice for memorizing numbers.  This might make the pain of memorizing math facts more fun.  We’ll have to try it.

My dd6 is extremely interested in Arabic lately.  My dh knows some Arabic and taught her a few letters and she loves it.  It has made her curious about all things Arabic.  I found a website called Islamic Playground that has a few games she can play to learn the Arabic alphabet.

I also found a great system for teaching the arabic alphabet based on the shapes of the letters, called the Abjad System.  It is interesting to see the way the letters are arranged here.