Holes

I'm loving that Samuel is now a bonafide reader...he is gobbling up books like I gobble up chocolate chips and baked goods.

We just finished reading Holes by Louis Sachar. I really love his writing style and how he ties up little details in subtle ways. I really liked reading Holes to my middle school students when I was a teacher.

I decided to do a Holes party and let them watch the movie. We made our plans and gathered our supplies (Sam is a good party-planner!) and then got the movie from the library. I was trying to remember how PG it was from years ago when I last watched it...I looked the review up online and realized I would need to do some editing, so the party ended early (no movie for the kids but Jeremy and I watched it after they went to bed and I took notes of where to skip or mute). If you haven't read Holes, most of what we did at the party will not make sense to you. Maybe the fact that I read a book about a curse and a murder and juvenile delinquents will not make sense to you, either. I'll let you read it and decide for yourself, but I think that the whole point is that there is actually a greater plan at work than what we can actually see, you can retain good character even in the midst of difficult circumstances, and that greater love has no one than this: that a man lay down his life for a friend. But I told you I would let you decide for yourself.

The weather is finally nice again after a couple weeks of rain!

If you haven't read the book, the sign says "Camp Green Lake" (no Girl Scouts) and has a picture of the deadly yellow-spotted lizard.

Making yellow-spotted lizard puppets

The boys wore orange, I wore cowboy boots (I was the Warden) and they dug holes (of course) and looked for interesting things (if they found something, they brought it to me and they might get a minute's rest from their digging). We hid toy lizards in the sand and if they touched one, they came to me and had to eat some raw onion. They are also holding a canteen and sunflower seeds (important in the story) and we played "3 Flies Up" or whatever that game is, but they had to catch tennis shoes instead of a ball.

They liked eating the onion waaay more than I thought they would!

Here's Evan (I mean Zero) hiding behind his Sploosh (peach juice and Sprite served in a jar).

And of course, for dessert, they got to dig holes in some chocolate pudding with Oreo "dirt" on top (and gummy worms rattlenakes hidden inside).

Stanley and Zero

So tonight we will watch Holes together (though I hope that the kids will agree with me that the book is way better). Evan can't wait; he keeps asking me, "When do we get to watch the movie with the scary parts and bad language?" Please don't judge :)