J complained today that we're not getting out too much. She's right. It's winter and cold and I've been lazy. I always had so many plans to "do NYC" but between the 2 kids in school, the weather, the endless dance practices, and the not-getting-done housework, I haven't really had the ambition or the time. But I decided right then and there that I'm going to change all that. We talked about our week and planned a weekly library day as well as a weekly trip somewhere. Then one day for shopping and errands and the other 2 weekdays she'll get to do stuff at home like workbooks, reading, science experiments, cooking, arts and crafts, computer stuff, tv, or whatever else she wants. The way it will work is if we plan our trips around places in Queens instead of Manhattan due to the time crunch. So today, I did about an hour of cleaning, brought W to school, and took J to the Noguchi Museum. It was wonderful. They have a cool exhibit called "Imagery of Chess" with tons of artist interpretations of the chessboard and pieces. J loved it and wanted me to get her a new chess set so she can re-learn the game and we can play together. We also watched a movie on how Japanese paper lanterns are made and noticed the ones in the movie were all over the museum.

After we left, and in keeping with the "theme", we stopped at a Japanese restaurant for lunch. J ate miso soup, 4 California rolls, and chicken teriyaki. Her tastes must have changed since she didn't like any of that stuff a year ago. We picked up W right after that. He was supposed to come with us, but chose to go to school instead at the last minute. It's sort of a good thing - the museum wouldn't have interested him at all. After picking up K, we went out to Bayside for some shopping. At Barnes and Noble the kids got some books and magazines and J was interested in the "Comprehensive Curriculum" workbook. It's a big $25 book. I skimmed through the 4th grade one and then 5th grade one and was a bit perplexed at the fact that she's already covered most of what was in them. So we settled on the 6th grade book. I don't know if that series of books is on the easy side or what, but she like the book's setup so I bought it. J had dance at 6:45 today and they went through all they're group and solo numbers for this weekend. She's supposed to go to a birthday party, but since it conflicts with the competition, they decided she'll just have to come for a sleepover another day.

Link of the day:
http://www.homeschoolnewslink.com/v8i3_root.html