Book 49 on my way to 52.

Book 49 on my way to 52.

I think book was warmly received, and it's hard to speak against it because of the subject matter—the roundup of Jews in Paris, France, is not a well known piece of history and deserves some highlighting, but I found this book tedious and depressing. Granted, the subject matter is depressing, but tackling it from the view point of a repressed woman in current times just added to the heaviness of the story. I see that parallels are being drawn between the time periods—repression then, repression now, and de Rosnay does a fine job of drawing the character of the French citizens, both now and then, but I expected something that felt uplifting, and never really found it. What I did find was florid and overly dramatic writing, and my attention waned about half way through.

Book 48 on my way to 53.

This was a great read.

Book 47 on my way to 52.

Book 46 on my way to 52.

Then today I had a flash of creativity and happened upon an idea for finally putting the chart to good use. Since many of the same roots were used in naming early Cenozoic animals we played a "creature creation" game where one of use would use the chart to make up an animal name while the other had to then draw the imagined animal and provide a short description.

I can be a craft person, but my imagination is sorely lacking at times. So are my drawing skills. Nonetheless, this was a really fun activity.

This was book 45 on my way to 52.

The main premise behind Carcassonne is the building of a medieval map. Two or more players take turns drawing tiles (with roads, walled cities, monastaries, and fields) and using them to create the map. Each player has little wooden figures that they place on tiles of their choosing in order to own cities, roads, farms, or monastaries, thereby earning points. Points are kept on a small gameboard using an additional wooden figure.

For young children, simply creating the map is great fun, and the rules are easily alterred for varying degrees of difficulty. When we first started with Calvin we played it more as a cooperative "create a map" game. We introduced the rules and point system as he gained understanding of them. Since the game uses a combination of luck and strategy it can be played cooperatively, lightly, or competitively depending on the players and their skill set.

The basic original game consists of a number of sturdy cardboard tiles, wooden figures for up to five players, and a sturdy cardboard scoring board. It is enough for getting started and has a great replay value as is, but the company also sells expansion packs that are great either for adding depth to game via additional story lines (like dragons) and additional rules and strategies, or can be used simply to expand the map and make the game last longer. We have the original game along with The River, the Inns and Cathedrals and the Princess and Dragon expansion packs.

Included in the kit:
Instruction booklet (with a section for the parent and one for the child)
funnel
popsicle stick
balloon
glue
fiz tablets
borax
raisins

Needed from the house:
water, bowls, cups, measuring cups and spoons
small glass bottle with narrow neck
soda water
sugar
corn starch
food coloring
vinegar
baking soda

Instructions in the kit guide the user through observing raisins bouncing around in the soda water, using the vinegar and baking soda reaction to inflate the balloon, making a solid with corn starch, making "slime".

The good: we had fun with the kit. I handed Calvin the instruction booklet and we identified all the things we needed from the house and collected them, then he read through the instructions for each experiment and we tried almost all of them out (I didn't have corn starch). The experiments are fun—especially making "slime"— and I liked the "materials, methods, results, and conclusions" breakdown in the instruction booklet. Eventually he'll be writing those for himself, but seeing the process first is valuable.

The less good: After really enjoying his reading through the decently scientific insructions while we did the experiments/demonstrations, we realized that he'd been reading the "guide for parent, teacher, or supervising adult". The pages aimed at kids are less scientific, more cartoonish. The kid pages are still decent instructions, written as though a conversation with a bug, but Calvin and I preferred the parent instructions and will ignore the second half of the booklets from now on.

The disappointing: Every one of the experiments described and included can be found described in a variety of home chemistry and experiment books, while the list of what was included versus what was required additionally seemed random at best. I understand supplying the liquids, and also the bowls, utensils, etc., but if they're supplying the raisins, borax, and glue, why not supply sugar, food coloring, corn starch, and baking soda? Or how about supplying only the very rare oddities, like fiz tablets, and charging less for the kit?

Conclusion: I think I've said this before, but the only reason I would consider buying these kits again (at half price) is to have the instructions in a neat format (in the adult pages) that I can conveniently hand to Calvin and which we can write on and get messy, etc., etc. Plus there is something to be said for pulling out the box and having him get excited about what is coming up, but I assume that sooner rather than later he will be asking to experiment with household goods on his own, and then the kits will have done their job and become obsolete as a material good.

When we finished the kit I left Calvin at the counter with all the materials in reach and let him go to town, resulting in fizzy raisin and goop soup.