The kids all wanted to watch Secret of NIMH this morning when they woke up, and afterwards Sam played around with Julia's quill while the girls played.

Emily had her drama class today. They began work on a new book Roxaboxen, and all the kids seemed to have fun. They all set up different pretend stores, and Emily chose to sell baskets and ice cream. Apparently, she sold all her baskets right away because everyone needed baskets to hold things in their own stores--pretty savvy.

Sam fell asleep on the ride home, and the girls spent more quiet time playing. When Sam woke up, we all went outside--it was a beautiful day! The kids rode their skooters in the culdesac with two neighborhood girls and played tag--they were very sad when it was time to come in for dinner, but it was getting dark. Everyone's ready for the long summer days!

After dinner, Em spent some time designing costumes for a play here at home. We're thinking about trying to do basically the same thing she's doing in class now: read a book, make the props and costumes and act it out. She's enjoying drama so much, and there are only 3 more weeks. If it goes well, maybe we'll see if we can get more folks involved and take the show on the road to one of the local nursing homes. We haven't been since November.

We watched a short video Life in the Middle Ages that introduced Charlemagne, the Crusades and the Black Death. The kids had picked it up at the library and it was due back, but it was a bit lame. Short, condensed, kitchy--definitely designed to be shown during a single class and keep school kids' attention. Wouldn't recommend it--many of the other documentaries are much better.