I absolutely love the titles to the Bunnicula series books… so cute. This newest installation in the series does not disappoint…. Have you wondered about the white vegetables left behind after Bunnicula eats?? Chester has! With an additional main character in the puppy Howie, The Celery Stalks At Midnight by James Howe is a fun afternoon read (for an adult).

I have seen great improvement in Zander’s reading and comprehension just due to the language levels and accessible vocabulary. Add in a good, fun storyline and he has been absolutely motivated not only to read more but to share what he has read which has been a bit of a struggle for him! 

The adventure is fun, the characters engaging and the entire series a hoot. But you don’t have to take my word for it. Let’s hear what Zander thinks… beware of spoilers…

ZANDER:

I think anyone could enjoy this book and anyone who can read could read it. I like that they added a new main character (Howie). I don’t think it is a scary book. I think the vampire rabbit is very cute. I like that they have a ton of jokes in the book. I give it four stars and a half out of 5.

So it is unanimous… good book, fun read and well worth your time to pick up! But don’t believe us… read it for yourself!

Well what to do in April when the weather simply will not accommodate but dream of flying kites and educate the kids on proper tornado safety. Amazingly enough this lined up perfectly with a surprise tornado warning siren that was done during extreme weather education week and that we did NOT know about in advance. So we got to experience first hand going into our sub basement and discussing how to stay safe there until the all clear was given!

We used our scout book and their very timely arrow points to make a grand total of THREE different kites – diamond, sled and barn door. Yup we even looked those up and found more single string kites to do topic cards to put on our poster. We were on the ball! And to top it off, we also bought a brand new (and very decently priced) TURTLE kite from Sam’s Club. Now for a good day with a nice wind to trial fly them all. You can find the actual instructions we used for our diamond kites HERE. The scout book was a bit too vague.

Of course we also did a whole mini unit on tornadoes, being as we are in an area where they do occur. You can find our tornado lapbook HERE.

Of course we had a list of links we used…

• Facts thanks to Kids Kites HERE.
• MyBestKite.com has amazing history and individual kite information resources HERE.
• KiteMan has a great LONG list of interesting kite facts about kites and history around the world HERE

And books…

• The Kite That Bridged Two Nations by Alexis O’Neill based on a true story about the bridge across Niagara from the US to Canada HERE.
• The Story of Kites by Ying Chang Compestine HERE.
• Let’s Fly a Kite by Stuart J. Murphy where we even got a chance to deal with symmetry HERE.
• I Face the Wind by Vicki Cobb HERE.

We did borrow a nice line up of wind and tornado related books and used most… I will include all of what we borrowed used or not…

• What Makes a Good Tornado Twist? by Mary Kay Carson HERE.
• The Wind by Craig Hammersmith HERE.
• Wind Power by Kathy Allen HERE.
• The Magic Schoolbus Presents Wild Weather the Nonfiction Companion HERE.
• It’s a Disaster! Tornado by Jessica Rudolph HERE.
• Fueling the Future Wind Energy by Elizabeth Raum HERE.
• Tornado! by Judith Bloom Fradin and Dennis Brindell Fradin HERE.
• World of Weather by David Adler HERE.

And video of course…

• The Magic Schoolbus Takes Flight HERE

Hopefully these items will help out in case of wind and kite interest!!

I am firmly remind that as the months pass so the kids grow. Where did baby Echo go? And when did Trinity all of a sudden mature? Don’t even get me started in regards to the boys… seriously SLOW DOWN WORLD!

Anyway… April… Easter you can check out HERE with a brief foray into the images and simple day we had. Traditions upheld of course.

Hello Cookie meet your predecessor Fat Sheep and live in fear of the love of Echo!

Trinity’s birthday is ALSO in April… You can read more about her special moments HERE.

Of course we must draw attention to the slick hair cut Mr. Emanuel sported over April as well! His curls… all gone. Not sure if I should be sad or impressed at how mature he looks?

Miss Echo spent some of her April educating her Baba on all the current card shark techniques…

And spent plenty of time introducing Hugo Bear Dog (otherwise known as Bear Dog) to her teddies, her night time routine and her life in general.

We had nature walks in the lovely spring weather…

And made sure to make use of not only our playset in the backyard, but the sport equipment set Gammie gifted the kids. Once spring is here and light sweater weather is on… we just have to grab those moments and get outside!

We had a bit of a religious/faith landmark reached for the 3 boys as well… at this Lutheran church which is ELCIA (Evangelical Lutheran Church of American) instead of ELCIC (in Canada) they do first communion at an earlier age with a one night special class for the kids and parents. We got to make the bread for communion and learn about about the Jewish roots of the service. We then came to the Ash Wednesday service for Communion. It was an interesting class and I think the boys got something out of it. Still very different for me as all this was part of Confirmation growing up! I am still muddling through how I feel about these little and big changes in our faith system being in the States instead of Canada. 

We have continued out swimming lessons with great results. 

We have been having tea time as often as possible… tea, snacks and good books read together. anything increase our interest in reading right? 

Made kites and actually did a whole study on different kinds of kites and things as well as covered a few scout requirements in the making! HERE

April was my stash busting month… everything I made was made out of yarn I had on hand! Here are a few finished pieces!

We even snuck out and took just the boys out for Taco Bell! I think we did rather good with our April…

And now for the rest of our spring fun… scout activites, backyard fun… a wee bit of green and some dress up. Spring is sprung! 

Checking out the dishwasher with Baba

Batgirl in disguise… Mustache style.. thanks Alex!

We even wore them out a few times!