This morning NT was up bright and early, as usual, to watch PBS's Cyberchase where today's topic was observing and tracking animal behavior.

We read several chapters of our current Hardy Boys mystery and looked up the words "spume" and "cowling" in the dictionary. We also read Silver Spurs by Minnesota author Robert R. Knigge, the story of the elf who helps Santa get into homes like ours that have no chimney!

NT was working on new paper airplane models from one of his books again this morning. I showed him how to use a ruler to make a 6" x 6" square out of an 8.5 x 11 sheet of paper for one of his planes. I also showed him how to make and use a template so he didn't need to keep measuring out 6 x 6 squares whenever he needed one.

Lizzy practiced reading some of her alphabet letters, and then we ran last-minute pre-holiday errands. Along the way we discussed the difference between "building" and "remodeling". We also explained to Lizzy what an "advertisement" is, and I quizzed NT on the "tricks" of multiplication when the numbers have zeros in them, like 10 or 50 or 600.

We stopped at the library for a new round of books, including some for NT on keeping fish as pets since he is really hoping for a big fish tank (the kind that requires lights and filters and heaters...) around his birthday.

The kids spent the late afternoon working on crafts for some of their cousins while listening to an audio book of Encyclopedia Brown mysteries.