"I thought you were a professional!"

Growing up, my only experience with a library was the one that we owned and the little bus that came to park in the corner of the Handy-Andy every Monday morning. I still think it's amazing that this stranger (a librarian, I guess) would allow us to board her vehicle, which had its walls lined with books and then allow us to borrow as many books as we wanted! Thanks, Mom, for taking us!

Then my next memory was in high school going to the college library with the rest of my class. And I can now appreciate the looks from the "older kids" (college students) who were annoyed that our class was even there. We would go over to OW and have to walk through the metal detectors...I still have no idea why they're there in a library, nor do I like them to this day! We learned how to use the Dewey Decimal System, microfiche (which Chip Adams could still get me giggling when he asks 'where the aquarium is'), and supposedly work on our term papers. [;)] All of this to say, it was quite a production, and I still to this day do not like large college or downtown libraries! Boy-am-I-thankful for the use of google...and my little library that I use today!

We do have the quaintest, little, satellite library with the most reliable, wonderful, helpful "Mr. Greg" and "Miss Hallie." Honestly, it's not that much different from the library that I used when I was little...it's just stationary, and it has TWO librarians! Yes, it's tiny; there's no metal detector, and it's always such a joy to walk in and be greeted by name. So today after running around town (and finally going to get an x-ray of my foot that's still bothering me), I quickly ran inside our little library to pick up some books that we had on hold.

As I picked up one of the books, I asked, "Hallie, have you read any of these books by this author?"

"No, I haven't. Have you?"

"No, not yet, but some of our curriculum calls for one of them, and the other book looked interesting as well."

"What grade do you teach again?"

"Actually, I teach all of them [the girls] together, so 2nd, 3rd, and 5th."

"Oh! That's right; you home school...I thought you were a professional!"

You've gotta love our little, quaint library and the blessed ones that run it!

We just had a good laugh about it! "Bless her heart!"

(By the way, Ricci did just tell me that they aren't "metal detectors" but that they are "scanners"! Same dif!)

"Field of Poppies"

Hmmm....can you guess what artist we studied this summer? Macy brought me this coloring this morning, and I am so proud of her for remembering such detail, for it's been a couple of weeks since we studied this painting/artist!

For those of you that might be interested, this summer we came across some excellent books that are written by an author named James Mayhew.

We are still currently checking out his books as often as we can, but this summer we read (over and over and over!) a set of books which describe a little girl named Katie who goes to art museums with her grandmother. Each book begins with Katie and her grandmother making the decision to go and visit an art museum, and once they get there, for some reason or another, Katie's grandmother always has to stop to rest. She allows Katie to wander around the different paintings. So through the beautiful, colorful pages Katie and her vivid imagination enters the individual paintings and discovers lots of interesting stories and details.

In the particular book, Katie Meets The Impressionists, when Katie jumps into a painting called, "Field of Poppies" by Claude Monet, she has a good time playing with Claude Monet's son Jean before going on a picnic with Jean and his mother in a "field of poppies." The other artists included in this particular book are Pierre Auguste Renoir and Edgar Degas.

These books really make the art/artist more real for a child! I highly recommend them!