Abra Cadabra!

Ala Kazam!

This week, we dared to try magic tricks using coins and ropes.  We watched a couple of YouTube videos of a professional magician revealing how coin tricks are performed and how to use the power of misdirection to amaze your audience.
Has your student shown you how to push a penny through the back of their hand?  Have you seen how a coin can disappear from a hand, then re-appear behind your ear?  
The most popular trick seemed to be the rope being pulled out of ears to look like brains, and out of noses to look like boogers!
Zoe (a.k.a. Touchstone) performed her favorite rope trick- wrapping a rope around her neck, then magically pulling the rope straight through!  We gasped at her terrific trick, and breathed a sigh of relief that her head was still attached to her body.  :)   Zoe and Fischer also demonstrated the "Black Magic" party trick of mind reading.   So awesome to watch.

What fun we had practicing and performing these "magic" tricks with each other.
I DARED them all to amaze their families with their newly learned tricks this week.  Ta Da!

Double Dutch

Whoever said jumping rope was not "daring" enough has never tried to jump Double Dutch jump ropes!

This week, we took ourselves outside with four long jump ropes.  First, we practiced jumping in and out of a single rope.  (which takes a lot of practice and timing)  Then, we tried our jumping skills with double ropes.  This is much harder than it looks- and we've got the sweat and rope welts to prove it.  We also learned that being a rope turner takes skill and teamwork, too.
What a thrill it is to try, try, try again until...success!   Take a look at the pictures below to see how much fun it is to challenge ourselves.

I love the look of thrill on Grandma Jill's face when Tyler is successful jumping double ropes for the first time

Everyone has their own style