Back to normal

With all the birthday hoopla over, we're back to school and all the everyday things.  Here is today's science experiment, a M&M Habitat.

You're supposed  learn about camouflage, b/c some colors of M&M's will be easier to find than others.  But maybe it's our love of chocolate, we found all but 2 M&M's.

There's a big box on the front porch

Most of it is for me!  Well, for school.  It really doesn't matter what you're getting, when you see  box like this from the Post Office on your porch, you go regress to 1st grade, "What is it?!  What's inside?  Lemme see?!"  Even though I had studied the things I was ordering very carefully before chosing to order them, it was still like Christmas in Ju...I mean August.  Maybe we'll order curriclum earlier next year so I can say that.

 The one thing that wasn't really for me, was Bry-D's new lens.  It's a zoom lens.  It's ME!

 And Eliz!  While we're painting and flooring the kids' room, they are sleeping in the playroom/sewing room.

 And Lex, er, Spiderman!  He was as far from each of us as he could get, but since he really wanted to test it out, he had to find a better, further away subject.

 Wow.  That car is a little more than a block from our house.  We've got some cool stalker gear now.

Later this summer you'll find out what Bry-D's plans are for this lens.

Summer Manifesto

In the same day, I saw the same post from Hands Free Mama on Twitter and on Facebook.  I had been thinking of writing a list of summer goals, but I never could get the list going.  But what she did that I had not thought of, was consult the kids.  As my friend A would say, *Facepalm*  This summer is all about them, shouldn't they have a say in what happens?  Also, God's been on me about a few things.  I remember summer being a time where the rules were relaxed, if not just tossed out the window. And so, God has been telling me to toss my rule book out the window.  Not completely, but He's pretty firm on a few points.  So as I present the Elliott Summer Manifesto, I'll explain some of the reasons why these things are on the list.  And a few addendums are at the end of some of the items.

1.  Stay up late
     I am a big stickler on bedtime.  But if my kids always go to bed by 8 in the summer, they will never get to catch fireflies!  And that's just wrong!  But, sleep is so important!  So this isn't going to be an every night thing, but more often than not, I'm going to let the kids be up past 8.  Dear Jesus, it hurt just to say that.

2.  Watch TV
     Oh Dear, if there is anything I feel more strongly about than bedtime, it's tv watching.  We don't have a tv, we use our Playstation and computer to watch Netflix.  The kids are only allowed to do that on Saturday & Sunday.  What they don't know is they only get 4 hours of TV for those two days.  Also, my favorite punishment to dish out is to take away tv time.  Not because it's so very effective, but because it means the kids aren't watching tv.  This is going to sting, but here goes.  The kids can watch tv everyday.  Aarghh, it burns!!!  To make it easier for me, they have to have chores done, and schoolwork before they can do that.  And there will be a time limit per day!  Exhale of relief, that makes it better.

3.  Play video games
     This is right up there with TV.  And so, just like TV, the kids can play video games everyday.  Before I start convulsing, the same addendum applies to video games as tv.  Whew, that was close.

4.  2 days of school will be games or on the computer.
     We are going to have school through the summer.  Reason #1.  I know that if I take a break of more than 2 weeks, I won't get back to having school until November.  Reason #2.  Eliz is still behind, and I want to see if we can get her to 2nd grade by October/Novemeber.  However, it's summer.  So, Tuesday and Thursday, school will be done with "fun" stuff.  Games, computer time, field trip, something not like our regular school activities.  This one doesn't hurt at all.  In fact, the rest of the Manifesto will be mostly painless.   

5.  Do 2-3 crafts a week
     The kids are always creating stuff, but this will be a more directed, purposeful crafting.  Kind of like Home Ec.  When our schedule gets hectic, the first thing to go is time to be creative.  And summer, by definition is hectic.  This is really just to be sure this happens in all our craziness.

6.  Go to the Pool once a week - at least
     Again, this to make sure it happens.  It looks like this is going to be a hot and humid summer, so the pool will be an absolute essential.

7.  Go Creekstomping & hiking each week
     There's a great creek in our nieghbor hood, and another one a few miles down the road.  Picnic lunch and into the creek we go!  Share nature with kids, yay!

If you've noticed, even though I've said that the kids can watch TV & play videos games, I'm hoping we're so busy they don't have time to watch tv and play video games.  We've also got activites at the library, Eliz is doing Mini 4-H, not to mention all the friends that are out of school, yeah, we'll be all over the place.  The good side is, we can cancel any of these things if we want.  This is our summer, so if we need or want to toss everything to just sit and do nothing but look at the clouds, so be it.  I'm flexible.  Happy Summer all, let's enjoy it!

An Ordinary Day

Just an ordinary day here.  School, outside play, trip to the YMCA. 

Oh, the concentration!  Oh, the cuteness!

The Baric Tablets.  One of our problems in school is when the girls won't do anything but work with each other.  This isn't to much of a problem, but Eliz is further along than Tater Tot, so I have to hang some sort of carrot in front of her to get ehr to do her own work.

I've tried over and over to get this video right side up, but I have to share it.  Eliz had learned how to do this the day before, and so has had a little more practice.

Geology on a cold day!

For our geology section, we went in search of rocks.  We took a chilly walk to the creek, and everyone filled their egg carton.

 Of course, we had to explore the creek.  No-one got wet, but I had to bribe them with offers of hot chocolate and cookies to get them to head home. 

Either I'm getting old, or I'm just mature enough to know when it's to cold to play outside.  It was early in the day though, by the afternoon it was warm enough for me to be outside without a coat!

Dino Dig Progress

On the first day, her dad joined her, and immediately decided she needed smaller digging tools.

 In just five days, she's made alot of progress, and her interest in it isn't waning yet.  She would really excited over uncovering a new bone, and so spent alot of time just looking for as many bones as she could.  Then she got to take that arm piece out of the rock.  That changed her perspective, and now she is working diligently to get each part she's uncovered out of the stone, b/c then, she'll get to put her dinosaur together!

A young palentologist

Apatasaurus, Brachiosaurus, Corythosaurus, Dimorphodon, Eudimorphodon, ummm, yeah, I'm stumped when it comes to a dinosaur name that starts with an "F".  I never thought I would know as much about dinsoaurs as I do.  Sauropods and therapods, flying reptiles and sea reptiles, ornithischions & saurischians, so much information I'm not sure how I remember it all.  I know it because of Eliz.  Around the age of 2, Eliz discovered dinosaurs.  I honestly don't remember how she was introduced to them, but ever since,  dinosaurs have been a staple in her life.  We get books from the library about dinosaurs, we visit websites about dinosaurs, she has all sorts of dinosaur toys and books of her own.

I get asked weekly(not kidding)if we can go to the dinosaur museum, aka the Children's Museum, which has a really great dinsoaur area.  For a homeschool science project I got her a Dinosaur Excavation Kit.    There are two others avilable, however, this one came with a book and tools, so we started with it. 

Eliz is like me, wants to get it done, and get it done FAST!  Doing something slowly and carefully is a big challenge for her; so while she's excited about digging up a dinosaur, I'm excited that she's going to learn that some things must be done slowly.  We'll see how she takes it.

Introducing Mary & Joseph

Our Tadpoles.  Or, Eliz's tadpoles.  We got them as part of the Unit on weather that we're doing.  They are bullfrog tadpoles, and they are much larger than I expected.  I've only seen scrawny little wild frog tadpoles, so when I opened the bag and saw these monstrous things I almost dropped the bag.  They are bigger than my thumb, in length and in width!  Eliz named them, and I like their names, altho I still hope she'll change her mind and go with Han and Leia.  At least I didn't try for Jacob and Bella.  Yes, I'm Team Jacob.

I'm glad I got the plastic figures, it seemed to help her get her mind around the process they were going to go through easier.

A place of his own

Eliz, being older and having been the only child for awhile, has several places where "her" things are kept.  She shares most things well, but I felt that with school going full swing in our house, he needed a place all his own. 

Library books only, please.  See all the dinosaur books?  Eliz is really turning into a little paleontologist.  I'm pretty sure I spelled that right, and I didn't have to look it up.  Dear me.  Lex's board books are harder to see, but they are all things with wheels and cars and machines.  B/c those are the only books he will sit still for.

A xylophone, truck cards and shape cards.  I don't expect much learning from these, but he likes looking at the different trucks and saying "Big" or "Truck"  The rest of the baskets are Montessori activites- the measuring cups are for stacking and banging.  The cup and bowl usually have a spoon for him to use to play with.  Inside the can are some sticks that he can drop into the slot.  Which reminds me I need to switch those out for some paper strips.

The paper in the box is for crumpling and tearing, I'm also working getting him to put them into the basket after he tears/crumples them.  The bag is a mystery bag, the bowls get used for all different activites, and the cup, block, mini bilibo and lid are used for different vocabulary activites. 

While Eliz is working on something, I'll do a few of these with him, to keep him occupied, and he will come over and play with them on his own.  His personal favorite right now is banging the measuring cups and stirring the spoon in the bowl and the cup.  Then he drinks out of the cup. 

A new morning rhythm

I’ve been reading a lot of Steiner/Waldorf books lately. Waldorf seems to me a perfect complement to Montessori, and I am determined find a way to integrate both into our lives, though purists from both philosophies argue that is impossible.

I always did enjoy breaking the rules.

Waldorf proposes that people need a rhythm to their days, one that is similar to breathing. Some activities are like breathing in-painting, reading, walking outside; and some are like breathing out-running, jumping, tickle fights. As I've reviewed our daily "rhythm", we seemed off balance a bit.   I’ve noticed that in our house, the faster we get outside, the happier we all are. And so, our new morning rhythm has been born! 

Now then, just throw on long sleeves over PJ's if it's chilly, and it's off to the swings!

It's very wet outside, so a towel is a necessity

It was much easier to get a picture of him swinging slowly than it was of her swinging fast.

We all enjoy the 15 minutes outside before breakfast, except the nieghbor's dog, who seems intent on reminding us that we are outside _very_ early!

Once we come inside we eat breakfast, wash up and change clothes.  We have one more day of swim lessons, which will change the rhythm a bit, since we won't have anywhere to go first thing every morning.  Maybe add a walk?

 

Some more school pictures-

Building the Pink tower with a blindfold, harder than you think, also a study in moving slowly and carefully.

She tried to peek a few times, but found that she couldn't tilt her head back enough and stack blocks at the same time.  I officially introduced her to Mozart today, going over some of his biography.  I have to make a timeline to help her understand Past/Present; she told me she'd like to meet Mozart soon. 

Grassy feet

Somehow we were outside very early the other morning, sometime between 7:30 and 8:00.  It was already horribly humid, and I still had to fight the kids to get them inside.  Altho, more and more, I have to wrestle Lex to do anything...not even 18 months and he's already asserting himself.  Geez.  Gotta love her style, it's 120% humidity(or so it seemed) and she's wearing a velour dress and knee high socks.

Her brother is a little more reasonable.  Tho I'm worried about how I'm going to keep his pants up once he's potty trained and we no longer have the diaper to help out.

Bry-D had cut the grass the night before.

I keep forgetting to put the DVD player up where niether of them can see it, b/c they are getting into a bad habit of turning it on first thing every morning.  That's probably Kung Fu Panda they're watching, it's been in heavy rotation.

In school, this is her favorite activity, color mixing.

She draws a color tablet from the pile, and has to mix the colors to match the tablet.  I had to make a rule that once she's out of colored water, the activity is over.  Orange is her nemesis, but green, the color she's doing now, is easy for her.