So many things to catch everyone up on, but first time to introduce the newest Reinsch-Johnson to join the family… Momo the Destroyer, informally known as Momo or simply Mo.

Born April 13, 2018, Momo was previously known as Lucy and one of 3 adorable surrendered kittens. She was rescued by the group Angel of Hope. We got her at 9 weeks old and she is a purring, snuggly ball of love.

We have wanted a new cat since we had to say good bye to my beloved kitty Griswald who could not handle the twins at the crawling stage in his senior years and had to be re-homed with an elderly couple. This is a kitten who can really keep up with the kids, though we are gradually introducing her to the house and the existence of our original fluffy addition – Neko-Chan, formally known now as Neko-Chan the Fluffy Overlord.

Gavin (Zander took a day or so to warm up to her)

On our way home to surprise the kids we also stopped by and surprised Chris and Renee, they got first snuggle and pet with our new family member and she got to meet their youngest cat – Mystro (who is one of my favorite cats to photograph). 

So watch the cascade of adorable kitten pictures as I gush and fall deeper in love with our new baby! No apologies here.

Just in time for us to restart this program. The kids are bugging me constantly to pull out the nursery rhyme book. We really enjoyed our look into history last year and with the twins one year older I am hoping their enthusiasm to find out the weird but true will help keep me on my toes!!!  

So, as I promised HERE… the further adventures (and really mostly resources) of our foray into Nursery Rhymes. I try to pick rhymes that I remember and that may be at least a fun challenge to learn for half of the kids. As I am sure those who are on my Facebook or Instagram have noticed, not all of our rhymes have gone over well with the minions.

Hush a Bye Baby/Rock a Bye Baby is another of those. While looking into cradleboards was fun and interesting and the multiple origin theories fun to explore some of the kids were put out by the “meanness” of the original rhyme. Echo espeically disliked the idea that ANY babies were harmed in the making of the story. After all for the rhyme to have been written she believed at least one baby had to fall. So of course we included the “not scary” version in our copy work. You can read about that version HERE. I didn’t make them memorize this vsersion as it is not common, but it was fun to read through the sweetened up version and wonder if it was necessary to do so.

We made sure to do some research about Cradleboards as soon as it was made clear that that is what the poem is referring to. And am I ever glad we did, they are BEAUTIFUL! And then, at the science museum, we found an actual example of one. You can read all about them HERE.

There is always Wiki for a brief write up HERE, try Song Facts for more information about various uses of this rhyme HERE, and Mom.me for a dark origin HERE.

MotherGoose.com has a cute colouring page HERE. We did a craft for this rhyme with Education.com called Baby Footprints. As you can see from the additional picture… we really didn’t stop there!

3 Blind Mice was our next nursery rhyme. It was sadly much delayed with noise from siding construction. We could not get our video recorded and everyone was out of sorts so rather large amounts of work did NOT get done. BUT I do have links to share…

KidZone had an Itsy Bisty Book to share HERE. DLTK has a fun number sheet related to our rhyme HERE. A cute shaped colouring picture HERE was used by the kids. Check out Reading With Kids for another colouring page HERE

For research purposes check out rhymes.org.uk HERE or All Nursery Rhymes HERE. For a good joke page with animal related jokes, and most of the way down one specifically about the 3 blind mice head to THIS Activity Village link. Education.com has a list of brief information for various rhymes including this one HERE.

Hot Cross Buns came next with a lovely printable of pennies and buns that I printed in colour and laminated from Play at Home Teacher HERE. DLTK has a printable recipe HERE. Sadly we did not have time to bake buns but we saved the recipe for the holiday season to add to our cooking experience.

There is definitely religious significance to the rhyme in the subject matter, so if you are researching be aware. But the actual origins of the rhyme are as a selling tool. End of story. So not the most exciting. Though the kids loved singing it with the extended verse about having a daughter or son. You can read about it all on Powerfulwords.info HERE, Rhymes.org.uk HERE, Smithsonianmag.com HERE.

Kiddyhouse.com has both verses HERE.

Now as an additional bit of info Zander took some time and researched Mother Goose herself. Not an easy woman to pin down. But you can do your own reading with our resources. Bluebonkers.com HERE.

Back to the rhymes and Ring Around The Rosies (which does not have the origin story most people think it does). Echo really enjoyed learning the dance.

I will say straight off, I too thought it was about the plague. Wiki has a good run down HERE. Library of Congress has a helpful site HERE, Dictionary.com has information HERE. Dover Publications has a great colouring page with the lines of the rhyme in a traditional style HERE. And that is where we ended our series. Check back in the next months to see how we get on with our reboot!!

Ok another WAAAAAAY delayed post, no images just resources. (I fib, one image of a sari skirt I splurged on for this year’s wardrobe. The colours of India are AMAZING!) I am determined to get my bum in gear and get these posts up in a more timely manner. But for today, humble pie. I should have had this up half a year ago!!! Check back tomorrow as I continue to prove to my kids that even MOM finishes EVERYTHING (within reason…) she starts! 

So we had these grand plans to do a family project on India in a timely manner, oops. But we did spend a summer and then some learning about a very distinct and colourful country and I will try and share the links, books, etc that we used. And then I took a lifetime and a half to post this post

First off. Google is your friend. We spent a lot of time searching for pictures for topics to colour. Mandalas, saris, the Taj Mahal. There are all sorts of colouring pages out there.

Since my resource list is a bit weak this time around, here is the list of topics the kids chose from. I gave them the option to pick and chose and varied the expectations of report content and length according to each child. So Trinity would do a list of facts vs. Zander having paragraphs or Echo colouring a picture.

• Globe location
• Government – levels, type, capital, voting rights
• Country – independence, languages, time zones, founding, state/provinces
• Landscape – mountains, water bodies, landmarks, position on map
• Climate – seasons, one week of comparative weather, snow, natural disasters
• Animals – unique to country – we chose one to do a report on
• Plants – unique to country
• Agriculture – most prevalent and where
• Food – famous for
• Symbols/emblems – flag, official symbols
• Religions – main religions
• Currency – what is used, exchange rate to USD, when it came into use
• Main groups of people – who are they, caste system, poverty vs. rich numbers
• School – minimum grade required, types
• Inventions
• Imports/exports/economy – what are the main ones
• Sports – most popular
• Holidays – major holidays
• Music and crafts – most common, popular, make some
• Tourism/Famous people
• Choose a topic

Books were an important resource. Here is my short list. Libraries really are life saving

• India by Manina Chatterjee
• Focus on India by Bojang Brownlie
• Taj Mahal by Linda Tagliaferro
• India ABC’s by Marcie Aboff
• Welcome to India by Patric Ryan
• India by Don Nardo
• India by Joanne Mattern
• The Mauryan Empire and India by Ellis Roxburgh
• India by Julie Murray
• India by A. Kamala Dalal
• Living in India by Chloe Perkins

For a fun activity we tried out making Henna decorations on paper hands as explained by Activity Village HERE. Education.com is always a help HERE.  Beyond the Henna activity Activity Village has a whole selection of resources HERE.