Rock Science

Amethyst geode.

After a half-hour in the school bus with Aubrey's class today, we ended up at Crater Rock Museum in White City.

It's this completely unassuming building on the outskirts of dumpy little White City -- and it's amazing.


A donor recently provided over $1 million to add room after room to the once-little museum, and other donors have provided millions of dollars' worth of rocks, crystals, petrified wood, and fossils.

A rickety little volunteer provided us with a slide show and commentary, as well as semi-crotchety nudges from room to room through the museum. To her credit, perhaps she was only crotchety because the information she had to share was way cool and she wanted those wiggly little third and fourth graders to hear it all.

She wanted them to hear that every geode in one particular display case was worth $10,000, and that one of the geodes hadn't even been given its spot in the display before a buyer offered $70,000 for it. (That rock's still in the museum -- and it's this huge red crystal coming out of a mound of shiny black jagged crystals.) She wanted them to hear that there was amber imbedded with creatures 40 million years old, and that the thunderegg is Oregon's state rock, plain on the outside, but when cut open it conveys a wide range of colors that look like liquid when polished.

And here's the other cool thing: those wiggly kids may have been missing some of the volunteer's lectures -- but only because they were riveted by the gigantic colorful sparkly crystals, the real saber tooth tiger skull, the mineral atoms dancing under black lights in a special dark room, the huge fake raptor, and the real fossilized raptor dung, lying right where'd you think it should be under the raptor.

Who could compete with that?

Magic for Muggles and the Fourth of July parade

Hermione with Sirius Black

Petrify!

Hermione Granger and Draco Malfoy

Li'tle Tiny 'Arry Po'er

Under the invisibility cloak.

Little League

Little League float.

ScienceWorks Magic for Muggles.

Bud, Not Buddy and my buddy

"If I had to give a rating out of a thousand stars for Bud, Not Buddy, I'd give it a thousand. This is the best book I've ever read."

I love my boy. He's sensitive and insightful and says things like that when he's sitting around on the couch -- and he says things like that even after he's read the Percy Jackson series five times.


Here's what the book is about: A ten-year-old African American boy in 1930s Detroit who leaves foster care when he gets sick of being treated poorly. This is the story of his journey to find the man he believes is his real father, a renowned jazz musician, and how Bud deals with rejection, adventure, and his own sense of identity. It won the Newberry Award in 2000 and I love that a book with such big ideas spoke to Dane. I also love that there are writers like Christopher Paul Curtis out there.

Teaching Note: Dane chose this at the school library for his upcoming book report, which is supposed to be Historical Fiction, and he's supposed to create a diorama along with his written portion. He's already decided to depict a scene at a train station.

Blog Question: Would you have given a book a thousand stars when you were a kid? Which book(s)?

Dane's Hugo Cabret Poster

Dane's completed his movie poster (11x14) for his first book report. The directions say to create a movie poster with images on the poster that you would emphasize if you were the director. The directions also say to use bright colors so the poster stands out while on display.

We're 1 for 2 on that score.

Dane chose to sketch in black and white because the Hugo Cabret novel has black and white sketch illustrations; the book also focuses on the black-and-white movie career of George Melies`, who created that kind of moon up in the corner with the telescoping eye. I don't think Dane'll get docked for this.

He's still working on the report. He's got a first draft that needs revision and editing, but it should be ready by Wednesday's due date.