American Revolution, as told by two 4th graders

(I'm really grateful our boys go to a school where they still teach this stuff - very cool)

Bearhug and Cuddlebug's class made ABC books about the Revolutionary War. For each letter of the alphabet, they chose one item from their study of the American Revolution and wrote their description of it, along with an illustration. In some cases, they each chose the same item for a particular letter, but not always (and even when they chose the same item, they each had their own take on it).

I love their perspectives on history and the drawings are really cute and funny. :) Each of them included an "about the author" page also. In the interest of space, I pulled out just 10 pages from each of their books to share below (click to enlarge any of the pages):

These were at the end of the books, but I'll start with the "about the author" pages :)

Cuddlebug
I asked Cuddlebug about the "he loves war" part and he said he meant he loves learning about war (ie. wars in history).

Bearhug
"Wacko & Weirdo" is a comic series that Bearhug has been writing. I need to post some here, they're really cute and funny :).

I love how they both listed their age as "9 3/4 years." :)

And here are some of the book pages:

(by Cuddlebug)
"Whatta fail" LOL.


(by Bearhug)
hee hee, "King George eventually went ballistic, so he taxed more!"


(by Cuddlebug)

(by Bearhug)
a little embellishment there with "he also maybe then ripped it in half," that drawing made me laugh :). I assured the boys that the Declaration of Independence is actually still in one piece.


(by Bearhug)

(by Cuddlebug)
Wow that is a lot of British soldiers with some serious firepower coming after Patrick Henry, brave guy!

(by Cuddlebug)

(by Cuddlebug)

(by Bearhug)
I love the time sequence showing the guy getting ready in a minute :)


(by Cuddlebug)

(by Bearhug)

(by Cuddlebug)


(by Bearhug)
It's a little small there, but the picture shows the prices going up (was $0.20, now $2.00) as a result of more taxes from King George.

(by Bearhug)
We've been reading scriptures as a family, and we started with the story of Nephi and his family in the Book of Mormon.

(by Bearhug)


(by Cuddlebug)
LOL, this cracks me up. Bearhug had the same thing for X. X is nothing. :)

(by Cuddlebug)
LOL, "King George III had a lot of zeal to tax the colonists."


(by Bearhug)
I love his interpretation of "zeal." :)

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Magic Marker Monday: Duck

Spring break is over and it's back to reality today... I have tons to catch up on but first I've been wanting to post this for a while.


An adorable ceramic duck, which Cuddlebug made at school and gave to me for my birthday. He did an awesome job on it! It's actually two parts, the duck and a little pond for him to sit in.

I took it to work and have it sitting on my bookshelf there :).

(I guess this shows how behind I am, since this is from January).


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Magic Marker Monday: He said what?!

Little Bitty brought home a packet of his daily writing papers from school.

I love reading through them to see what he chose to write about each day, as well as to see the progress with his handwriting.

This one literally made me laugh out loud. I have absolutely no idea what he meant by this (and haven't been able to get him to elaborate) but it seriously cracks me up. Huh?!

"My mom is a girl. This is a big problem."

Here are a few of my other favorites (click to enlarge):

"The marble is a spaere [sphere]."

"The levs [leaves] fall down."

"Dad is a '-ad' word."

"I play outside and swing."
I think the black line going everywhere may be intended to be the motion of him swinging.


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Magic Marker Monday: Thankful

From Bearhug:


I know what you're thinking, I had the same question.
"Chicks?"
Bearhug smiled when I asked him. "Yeah, they're so cute!"
me: "ummm... you mean girls?"
(confused expression)
me: "you mean baby chickens?"
(the smile is back)
"yeah!"
(whew, what a relief! I'm so not ready for that!)


From Cuddlebug:


He really liked that pumpkin bread. He's right about the Kit Kats too, hehe ;).

I love his poems. Love'm. :)


From Little Bitty:


(please excuse the color quality, I had to play with the settings to get his drawing to show up as it was done in light pink).

I think I may be the bald one, since I'm a little shorter than dh. :)

His handwriting is amazing. A year ago he couldn't write at all. When school ended last spring, he could barely write his name, but anyone outside of his family and teachers wouldn't have recognized it. And now he's not only writing but his latest milestone is he can do both upper and lower case letters. Go Bitty!


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Magic Marker Monday: Helping others

When the 4th and 5th graders were offered a chance to run for student council, both Bearhug and Cuddlebug decided they wanted to run (they each ran for different positions). One of the requirements was to write a short essay describing a time they helped someone and what they learned from it. Here are their essays (click to enlarge).

Cuddlebug wrote about helping a Kindergartener (not his brother) get to car riders at the end of the day for the first two weeks of the school year. It was something he volunteered for.


Bearhug wrote about helping a little boy's parents at church by playing with him to keep him entertained (he loves playing with younger children and has expressed an interest in babysitting when he gets older).


For reference, here's the snake he's referring to. It's kind of squishy, making it one of his favorite things to play with :).



They didn't end up winning their elections this year, but it was a good experience so they may decide to try again next year. Either way, I am proud of them for the effort they put in :).


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Magic Marker Monday: Family Portrait

Bitty made this adorable family portrait at school :).



Every time you give him a piece of paper, he draws a cat, so I suspect that's how dh ended up with whiskers in this drawing, lol.

Then again, I am bald here so who am I to give dh a hard time about his "whiskers"? ;)

I love that Bitty drew himself in his favorite color - pink.


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Magic Marker Monday: "Exciting Land"

Cuddlebug and Bearhug each brought home their writing folders at the end of the school year, and I've really been enjoying reading through them :).

Here's a story written by Cuddlebug, titled "Exciting Land"

You can click on the pictures to enlarge so it's easier to read, or the text is below. The only edit I did was to edit out Bitty's name and include translation on one word that's a little hard to read, the rest is pretty clear with great spelling :).

I love his descriptions, and it made me laugh that Bitty's unresponsiveness in the story ("sigh... I'll tell you insted" lol) is pretty true to life. And can I just say, his handwriting here is great! He has been working really hard on that.





Exiting land

Bitty's been bored for months. I'll tell him about exiting land - a very exiting place. "Hey 'Bitty'!" "Come to me!" I said. ".......(sigh)." said I... Never mind. I'll tell you insted. I'll tell you about the lava room and the cave room.

First I'll tell you about the lava room. There is a lava lake with rocks and a bridge. A train goes on train tracks that go over this hot smelling lake. But theres more, the train will go into a glass tube that leads to a rest stop in a black room.

A rest stop awaits. Wait, a rest stop in a black room? What the!? Anyway, here you may get out of the train and rest.

Now I'll tell about the cave room. Get on the train and go to the cave room. The train idmidItle [immediately] falls into lava! Nooooooooooo! Wait, this is red hot lava colared Jell-o! Eat up! Move on a 2 shaky bridges more and ride over.

Is it exiting? If so call 1-2-5-4. That's all about exiting land!


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Magic Marker Monday: Bitty's kitty

Bitty has started to draw pictures! He mostly likes to draw cats. Just like his Mama at that age, hehe :). He's drawn a few trains too (of course), I'll post some of those later too.

He started out just drawing a face with whiskers, so we've been working on adding the ears and the body, which you can see in this one. I love it!




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Magic Marker Monday: Christmas crafts

We have lots of creativity to share today, I couldn't choose just one and figured better to put them all in one post than still be sharing Christmas art two months from now (no I wouldn't actually do that. Or would I? hehe)

Bitty made this cute ornament at school as a gift for us... clearly his teachers helped with the details but the handprint that makes the snowmen is all him :)


Bitty also made this Christmas tree at school, it has since lost most of its beads because he wanted to play with it but that's ok.


Cuddlebug made this cool candle jar at school, it's made with tissue paper and the picture doesn't quite do it justice but the colors / shapes really stand out when the candle is lit.


Bearhug made this ornament for the tree, he put it up but I can't find it so he might have taken it back down to play with... good thing I took a picture of it on his desk at school ;).


Bearhug and Cuddlebug have been busy making things at home too. And what might two 8-yr-old boys who really, really want Pokemon cards for Christmas and just can't wait decide to make?

Yep, homemade Pokemon cards :). I love their attention to detail. Just like the real cards, they've included a picture of the Pokemon (some of these are their own made-up Pokemon characters too), its level, attack moves, stats, etc. and the Pokemon logo on the back :).

(click to view larger)

They also made Pokemon-themed paper ornaments for the tree. This one is Cuddlebug's. Those are dragon-type Pokemon ornaments hanging from his tree. (I'm pretty sure Bitty is responsible for the clump of ornaments hanging together below that):



And this is what is left of Bearhug's... I wasn't fast enough with the camera :(. It was a tree complete with star and hanging Pokemon ornaments, with a "Merry Christmas" sign hanging from the bottom. Apparently part of it tore and so he ripped the whole thing up except for this piece, so I asked if I could at least take a picture of that.

Consider it a Christmas greeting from our family to yours :).

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Magic Marker Monday: Turkey art

Little Bitty made some cute Thanksgiving art in school this year :).

Here's his little handprint:



And he made a cute turkey hat (that he didn't want to wear so this was the best picture I could get before he took it off):



Here's the hat so you can actually see it :)



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