Souvenirs

What did the boys pick out from the gift shop at the Truman Presidential Library?

I'm glad you asked.

Lex picked out a little replica of the replica of the Liberty Bell that we saw.  (Yeah, I know, what is he going to buy when we visit the real Liberty Bell in Philadelphia?)  It's a working bell, and he said that he was going to use it to train Tik.  Then he changed his mind, and said that he was going to put it by his bed, so he could ring it and I would know that he wanted his breakfast in bed.  Then he changed his mind again, and he put it with our little village of souvenir buildings. Which is fine by me.  That whole breakfast-in-bed-at-the-ring-of-a-bell thing was a little sketchy, in my opinion.

Connor picked out a coloring book.  Which is amazing!  I am finally getting him to color!  I *heart* coloring, and my children, well, they have always been reluctant color-ers.  Which has been breaking my Crayola-loving heart.  But that seems to be changing!

This coloring book is awesome, because Connor loves the presidents, and he has been fascinated by their pets since we saw an exhibit about presidential pets when we were at the George W. Bush library last December.  For the record, some of the presidents have had some strange animals at the while house.

I also think that he picked it out because he is currently working on two of these types of coloring books already.

We are learning all about the Greek Gods and Heroes and myths this summer while we are learning Greek.  We are also reading the Percy Jackson series of books.  He usually picks a God, and I read to him the page about the God in this book, and then he colors the picture that goes with it while I am reading a chapter out of Percy Jackson.

Sidebar:  Connor and Lex demand that the third Percy Jackson book be made into a movie already!

The other coloring book that we are already working on is this one about pirates.  We did a unit study on pirates this summer, because summer=pirates, and also because we read the Magic Tree House Book #4:  Pirates Past Noon.

I really like the Magic Tree House books because there are two books on each topic.  One is the fictional story, and the other is a nonfiction companion that covers the related topic.  Book one was about dinosaurs, book two was about medieval knights and castles, and book three was about Ancient Egypt and the mummies.  We did an entire unit study for each one of these topics this past school year.  We are currently getting ready to read the fifth books in the series, Night of the Ninjas (the fiction book) and the Ninjas and Samurai Fact Tracker (nonfiction companion).

What Connor didn't know when he picked out another Dover Coloring Book at the gift shop was that I have already bought a few more for this coming school year.

One is going to be used for our United States geography and history lessons:

And this slimmer volume is going to go with it:

And, finally, it is high time that the boys learn the sign language alphabet.  It drives me crazy when I am trying to finger spell a word to one of them as a secret message and they don't get it.  I have been trying to get Kevin and the boys to learn it for years now, but it's time that they actually do.  And this book has a few signs for each letter as well.

Because secret messages are cool.  And they can come in handy when you need them.