Despite being very pregnant, exhausted all the time, and so sore, we've still been managing to do quite a lot as far as 'lessons' go. Colwyn has made a lot of progress in his math workbook.. he's gotten through counting by 5's and 10's (which he already knew, really), subtraction, and telling time. The time unit was simplified because it came before counting by 5's, so he mainly knows how to tell the hour and if it's half past. Lachlann picked that up as well, and even though our only analog clock in the whole house has Roman numerals, they can still tell what hour it is.

Colwyn's doing great at reading, getting more confidence and all. His main problem now is that he'll guess too quick, rather than actually paying attention to the words. We have to remind him now and then to focus on the words. Lachlann is great at sounding words out, if he knows what sounds each letter makes. He's spotty on letter sounds, so I'm going to try and dig up our old LeapFrog videos.. but still, if I just tell him what each letter says, he can sound words out pretty well. Not reading, but doing quite well for a 4 year old.

In my last post, I hinted that early humans might be a big topic for us, and boy, have they. Colwyn is just so fascinated that we've been spending a lot of time on it. We've done most of the links given in the Usborne Encyclopedia of World History, we've watched various documentaries I've found on NatGeo and PBS, and we've picked up supplemental books from the library (like the DK book on Early Humans). We had been planning to do a science day about it but I was sick then, so our last science day before the new baby comes will involve some caveman role playing. I've got a couple games all worked out, and Colwyn can't wait.

We finally got the deck washed off (the chickens have been free ranging all winter, and they spend a lot of time on our deck looking for handouts.. thus, lots of chicken poop on the deck) and refilled the bird feeders, so for the last couple of days, we've been IDing birds that visit our house. We've also had a few really warm days and we've been out as much as possible. We're due to have another stretch of good weather starting tomorrow, so we've got lots of park playdates planned.

We've been watching some interesting shows on TV, which has led to fun discussions and games. The first was a show where a team of archaeologists tried to recreate an Egyptian sea-going barge. Colwyn and Lachlann were really into and asked lots of great questions. Later they played with blocks and created their own versions. That led us to try some engineering challenges for our science day this month. I love the website Think! Engineering. We tried building a few different bridges using the supply lists given, and we also tried the catapult (which we sucked at).

Another day, we watched Walking with Prehistoric Beasts, which we probably haven't seen in a year or more. Colwyn especially liked the parts with the hominids and Neanderthals, so I think we may skip the dinosaur section of the World History book so we can move onto human evolution. After all, they've been studying dinosaurs for years.

Lachlann surprised me a week or two ago by doing some simple addition and subtraction orally, in his play. A while later I asked him a few questions like, "Hey, I want to bake some cookies, and I need 6 eggs, but only have 3. How many more do I need?" and "I bought 2 donuts and Auntie bought 2 donuts, how many do we have altogether?" He was able to do them all pretty quickly, in his head. Like I said in my last post, he observes Colwyn's math lessons most of the time.. I just didn't realize he was getting that much out of it. It makes me feel better because the other day, my mom seemed surprised that he still wasn't writing his name. Right now, I have him cutting paper as his lesson--I'm trying to come up with fun fine motor activities for him so writing will hopefully come easier.

I checked some of the books Colwyn's been reading to determine his reading level. Turns out he can pretty easily read at the second grade level. He was quite pleased with himself when I told him that. It's normally something I'd keep to myself, but he tends to get down on himself for not reading perfectly like Mommy and Daddy do, so I thought he could use the boost.

Post-Holidays

I love the holidays, really I do. But each year it's sort of a relief to be through with the craziness.

So Colwyn is starting on subtraction in his Singapore Earlybird 2B workbook. He's done great with addition and seemed to get subtraction immediately. It reinforces my feeling that the practical, hands-on, incidental math we do daily really helps. I almost feel like the workbook is just a way of checking to see what he already knows. When he pipes up with, "Mom, you gave me seven pieces of chicken, I ate five and just have two left, can I be all done?" - do we really need a workbook? But it is nice to not have to draw up my own worksheets so he can learn the symbols, I'll admit to that. Lachlann is working on learning how to write numbers. His recognition is great, but his pencil (well, dry erase marker in our case) grip is horrible, and it makes him not enjoy writing. We've been playing with plates of flour or sugar and drawing numbers (shapes, letters, etc) with our fingers. I'd love to let him do that with shaving cream, but Doug doesn't use any.. maybe I'll have to grab some at Target. Lach observes most of Colwyn's math 'lessons' so I'd be surprised if he didn't breeze through subsequent lessons.

Colwyn's reading is coming along really well. It's wonderful to see how proud he is of himself when he reads through an Elephant and Piggiebook. The only time he really experiences difficulty is when his own impatience or irritation gets in his way.. then even an easy word can seem hard. That's when we usually take a break and come back to it later. For book club, we just finished The Five Lost Aunts of Harriet Bean. That was a big hit with Colwyn. Last month was Welcome to the Bed and Biscuit, which was very sweet. We ended up missing the actual book club meeting that month, though, as the kids were sick.

Our other work has been haphazard, at best. We're slowly working through the Early Life section of The Usborne Internet-Linked Encyclopedia of World History, which has included working on learning the names of the continents and oceans. We've explored some of the neat websites on arthropods, and Colwyn liked making the connection at the Museum of Science when we saw fossils of arthropods. The kids got a calendar for 2010, so we talk about that daily. In the process, I've learned that, yes, Colwyn is firm on the days of the week, and yes, he knows his cardinal numbers pretty well. The months are new to him, but no biggie. He likes knowing what day it is, and we draw little symbols or write easy words on days we have stuff planned, so he'll tell me, "Mom, we have two more days until Lego Club!"

What else? We've worked on our Secret Agent social studies sporadically. Our Earth Scouts meeting last month dealt with the water cycle (briefly) and habitats. The kids all created terrariums, which was much more fun than I expected. The mess was exactly what I expected. Thankfully all the moms are great about helping pick up. We also did caroling at a local nursing home, which was a great experience. I was surprised at how Colwyn was really into memorizing the words to the songs, he did really well. The kids were a big hit with the elderly residents as well as the staff. For science day last month, we created a diorama of a dinosaur habitat, as well as Play Dough dinosaurs. The diorama included a volcano, which we set off with baking soda and vinegar. The kids loved that part, and with some foresight on my part, it wasn't very messy at all.

We've got a bunch of stuff coming up this month, it should be exciting. Hopefully I'll get better at keeping track.

Month(!) in Review

Yikes, I really dropped the ball on posting. October was a very busy month for us, so I'll blame it on that. We've done all our usual work - Colwyn has about 8 pages left in his Singapore 2A workbook, so that'll get done this week, then we can start on the second half of his kindergarten math. He's pretty much done with Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons
, so we're moving on to using easy readers for his reading lessons (which we try to do for at least 10-20 minutes a day, in addition to our regular read-alouds).

We've been working a lot on science/history. We covered (the basics of) the formation of the Earth, composition of the Earth, plate tectonics, the start of life, early life, and evolution. Most of that was through the The Usborne Internet-Linked Encyclopedia of World History
. We used some websites for the composition of the Earth. Plate tectonics was covered in the Usborne book as well as through some Science Day hands-on activities with our homeschool group. To complement the Usborne book on evolution, we also read How Whales Walked into the Sea by Faith McNulty.

For Earth Scouts, we read When The Root Children Wake Up
by Audrey Wood. Then we brainstormed some ideas on how to take care of the Earth and used those to play "Mother Earth, May I?" It's pretty much just like "Mother, May I?" except the kids say, "Mother Earth, may I compost our kitchen scraps?" and then the kid playing Mother Earth tells them how many steps to take. They seemed to enjoy it, I think. We were supposed to go on a walk to look for creatures outside, but it was rainy, so I assigned that as homework. The week before, we had done a Recycled Art Day (which Dani planned and hosted), so the kids who participated in that got a Recycling Badge.

For book club, we read The Wind in the Willows
by Kenneth Grahame. We only read the first three chapters or so, but Colwyn (surprisingly) really liked it. I think a lot of it went over his head (due to the language), but it was so enjoyable to read aloud. Both boys participated really well during the book club activities and enjoyed playing outside with the other kids afterwards.

We also went on a field trip to the Aquarium, which was quite a lot of fun. The boys spent a lot of time exploring with Alex and Mila, which was nice. We toured the Beverly Fire Department last Tuesday and will do an encore tour of the Danvers Fire Department this Tuesday. That obviously led to many discussions on fire safety, but I think the boys were most excited about climbing in the fire truck.

Our homeschool group's Halloween Party was a big success, as well. We rented a room at Endicott Park and the kids played that "Guess the Body Part" game with cold spaghetti, a peeled tomato, hot dogs, lunch meat, etc. One of the dads entertained the kids with some acoustic guitar music, which was super nice of him. They played Red Rover and Duck, Duck, Goose - both big hits.

So, all in all, a pretty busy month. We also had various park days, playdates, and who-knows-what-else going on. I'm going to make a concerted effort to stay on top of the journaling, since it's a pain the butt to try to remember what happened over the course of a whole month. :)

Week in Review

This week has been a pretty slow week for us. Doug and I have been really sick (the kids just had sniffles), so I haven't been very motivated to do much.

On Tuesday, we got the boys' new bunk beds delivered, so that was an interesting experience. We did our usual reading lesson, and then because Doug was home sick, he helped them do a science kit we had - digging for dinosaur fossils. The kids have done similar activities before, but they still enjoyed it.

Wednesday was our big apple picking field trip and it went so well. I was really dreading it, because when I went as a kid, the branches were all so high and it was a real pain. So, I was imagining having to lift the kids up to pick apples. But we were pleasantly surprised when we got off the hayride to see that the branches were almost brushing the ground, and they were heavily laden with fruit. I think it took the boys maybe five minutes tops to fill their bags. When the hayride dropped us off back near the farm store, we got to have cider donuts and cider, and then each of the kids got some animal feed. I figured the boys wouldn't be interested since they typically hate farm animals (except our chickens, of course), but they ran off ahead of me and fed the chickens and the sheep. Fiona, for her part, loved the pigs and did not want to leave them. She kept oinking, though her version sounds more like a Frenchman laughing (ie - 'Hon, hon, hon!'). It was very sweet. When we got home, we did a reading lesson and called it a day, I was exhausted.

Thursday was a park day, so we met at Endicott Park. There were a few moms there, all new members with only toddlers. It was interesting trying to make conversation since they don't have any older kids, but we managed. That afternoon, Colwyn did his math workbooks (which also included reading, as he's working on the number words). Then we did a page from his history book, though it was more earth sciences than history - composition of the earth, plate tectonics, continental drift.

On Friday, we did more reading, but mostly had a lazy day. In the afternoon, though, we decided to go into business selling eggs (we have a surplus from our chickens). The boys made signs and I filled a cooler with eggs, which we set out in the front yard. I told the boys that they could keep any money people gave us, figuring that would be a good way to move into learning about money. We also gave our neighbors some eggs as a gift, but they surprised us and gave us $5 when they returned the basket. The boys were thrilled!

Fledgling Co-Op

Our homeschool group is going through some changes. Now that it's not nice enough for us to just meet up at the park, attendance has been changing and I've had to reevaluate what the group needs and what I can do to keep everyone coming. Jen and I talked about it and we decided to set up something along the lines of a co-op. Jen is going to be in charge of a book club geared towards younger kids. They'll meet every other Friday to do an activity based on a book we've all read. I think she's going to go for beginner chapter books.. the sort of things that parents can read to their kids if the kids aren't reading on their own. We did a bit of brainstorming about what kind of activities we might be able to do.

On the alternating Fridays, we're going to meet at my house and do either science experiments or craft projects. Today was the first meeting at our house and only one family showed up, but that was actually great since it was a nice way to ease into it. We let the kids play for a little while to warm up, then I lead an experiment about color dispersion and molecular properties. The only problem was that Fiona was fussy, so I was trying to soothe and entertain her while also keeping the activity moving along. Robin was a great help setting and clearing up, and we got to chat for a while, too.

Hopefully with some cross-posting to other groups, we'll get a bigger turnout and it'll end up being something that everyone looks forward to attending.

Finally Getting Going Again

It's been a long three months. To be honest, we haven't done a whole lot of schoolish stuff, like I said earlier, which I've been feeling guilty about. But now that I'm coming out of the first trimester, I'm feeling a little bit better and we've been doing more. We've done some workbook pages, we've been practicing sounding out/spelling things in Word, and playing with our math manipulatives.

I didn't really talk about Colwyn's birthday party, but we did some fun science-y activities. It was space themed, and here's a picture of the kids in their "space ship" - basically the kitchen, with little chairs and pictures of dials and control panels taped to the cabinet doors. They all have jet packs on that they received after completing astronaut training (which was basically just jumping jacks, toe touches, etc).



And here's where they got to wash the moon rocks they found hidden throughout the house. They were tin foil with a few tablespoons of baking soda inside, along with a little parachute guy. The bowls were filled with diluted vinegar.



Fun stuff.

Neighborhood Pests

We had a very exciting evening last night, and as with most things, it was a real learning opportunity for the kids. We were sitting at the table working on a long-neglected math workbook (more about that later), when I noticed a raccoon prowling around on our deck. I quietly got the kids attention and tried to move them slowly to the slider, worried that we'd scare the critter away. Well, this guy certainly wasn't scared. I had set a garbage bag right outside the door for Doug to bring down to the trash barrels when he got home, and the raccoon was happily digging through the bag and pulling out bits of food and wrappers.

Now, let me just interrupt the story here to say that I fully recognize a normal reaction would have been to try to scare the raccoon away to avoid a big mess. Well, first off, it wasn't me that was going to be cleaning it up. ;) And secondly, how often are my kids going to get the chance to see a raccoon less than a foot away, while still protected by a thick glass door?

It was a fascinating experience. We observed the raccoons' behavior (we quickly spotted another hanging near the stairs), how he rummaged for food and held it in his paws, how he got a Ben & Jerry's carton stuck on his head (lots of laughter at that), how whenever they heard a noise outside they would freeze, and sometimes climb up the railing and into the arbor vitae. We got to examine the markings on their faces, their stripped tails, and their long claws. We talked about where raccoons live (Colwyn worriedly told me, "But raccoons live in the forest!" right when we saw them) and the geography of our neighborhood, why their fur was so thick and why their bellies were so fat, what hibernation means and what other animals hibernate and why. We talked about weather and the seasons, and how animals (including humans) adapt to changing weather conditions. We talked about why we shouldn't open the door, and how if we ever see a raccoon while we're outside, how we should stay far away. We talked about wild versus domesticated animals, and why we couldn't let the dog out to say Hello. We talked about baby raccoons and fully grown raccoons and their relative sizes. Today we came up with a few different stories about the raccoons and why they didn't come back, where they might be, etc. We also pretended to be raccoons. If Colwyn is still interested tomorrow, I may pull up some info on raccoons online.

All in all, it was a very thorough lesson. Just look at the different subject areas we touched on. I was quite impressed. And to top it all off, Doug was perfectly willing to clean up the mess (it wasn't that big of a mess anyway) and thought it was very cool that we got such an up-close encounter with raccoons.

As I mentioned earlier, we returned to the Singapore Math workbook after nearly a full month of not touching it. I didn't think it had been that long, but I date the pages as we do them. Well, we did several pages and Colwyn thought it was great fun. I'm always sure to stop him before he gets tired of it, and we only sit down to do it if he's agreeable to it in the first place. I do have to suggest activities like that most of the time, as they're out of the way and he would never think to ask for it on his own, though he does really like doing the workbooks. So far all of the concepts and activities are things he already knows how to do--I haven't had to explain anything other than briefly give him directions. I'm pretty sure that'll be the case throughout most of the book (I've looked ahead), and it isn't until the next book (we're on 1A right now and will start 1B whenever he finishes the first one) that there are some things he's probably not familiar with at all.

We also wrote thank you notes yesterday for Colwyn's birthday party. I've been having him write out "Thank You" on the front and then draw a picture on the inside, and while his spacing is usually a little off, he does great with the letters. I even had to take Lachlann for a diaper change before he had started writing "You" on one of them and he did it all by himself. We've got a few more left to do, including our out-of-town relatives who sent gifts.

Tomorrow we have a playdate with Charlotte and I'm planning on trying to fit a library trip in either before the playdate or maybe after naptime. Either that or we'll go Thursday.. but I've got a book on hold and I'm anxious to get it. :) Plus, I can handle reading the same childrens' books over and over and over again for only so long.

Supplies & Exchanges

Eee! We got a package in the mail from Rainbow Resource and I was so thrilled. I'd only bought a few things, but boy, were they good choices.

The biggest hit, much to my surprise, was these:



The kids just love playing with them. We've used them in a lot of math-y ways.. I make a pattern and Colwyn copies, we talk about different and same (how 2-blues are the same as 3-blues for color, but 2-blues and 2-greens are the same for number), I've showed him some addition problems and some subtraction problems, and some other random stuff. But they've also had fun constructing with them, too.. which I think is half the appeal.

We also got a math curriculum. I know, I know.. strange for someone who's unschooling preschool, right? Well, Colwyn loves workbooks, and most of our workbooks are pretty lacking in math activities. So I ordered Singapore Early Bird 1A and 1B, and he loves it. I looked through 1A, and he'll easily be able to do any page in there. 1B requires that he write some numbers himself, which he's still not able to do yet, so we'll work our way through 1A as Colwyn feels like it, and hopefully when he's done, he'll be able to do 1B.

And for fun, we got a Melissa and Doug outer space puzzle. It's beautiful, and Colwyn and Lachlann both enjoyed putting it together. And the best part is that it only cost us $7.75! Normally they're about $11.

This is old news, but I don't think I actually wrote about it here. We did an exchange with another homeschooling family a few weeks ago. We put together a package of some natural treasures we'd found (stones, seashells, etc), two necklaces that Colwyn beaded, a package of clay, a dinosaur, and some bubbles. We also made a mini-scrapbook with pictures of the boys and information about Massachusetts. And in return, we got all this:




It was a great experience, and hopefully we'll get to do it again sometime soon.

And to end on a kooky note, here's a picture of the boys hanging around.

Unpleasant Surprises and Productive Mornings

We went to the Museum of Science this weekend. The boys had a good time exploring and playing with the various exhibits. Colwyn really liked the maps, dinosaurs, and archeology exhibits. After lunch, we were sitting on the upper level of the kid play area. Lachlann was sitting on my lap playing with blocks, and we were next to a display of Bernoulli's principle--a jet of air holding an inflated ball aloft at a 45 degree angle. A woman and her child asked the interpreter what was making the ball "float." The explanation he gave was.. appalling. He said nothing about air pressure, or lift, and didn't relate it to flight. He certainly didn't mention Bernoulli at all. I couldn't believe it. I mean, honestly.. a MOS employee can't explain the few exhibits he's supposed to know about?

On the other hand, we've had a great morning so far. Colwyn drew a picture for Emily and wrote both their names on it. Then we put it in an envelope, addressed it, and stamped it. Then he helped me write a letter to the Geology Department at Salem State College, asking if there are any spots around here where we might successfully search for fossils (I also sent an email to the North Shore geology club asking for info, too). We also mailed a membership form to a local homeschooling group, and when I included a check for the dues, we had a discussion on what checks are, how they work, and why we use them.

Then we went for a nice walk around the block, found a piece of bark in the grass and figured out which tree it came from, then came inside and read The Lorax.

Not bad for a Monday morning. :)

Catching Up

Here's a little bit of what we've been up to:

Creating a passport for Colwyn:



And one for Lachlann:



Measuring things:


Baking a cake for Daddy's birthday:



Having lunch at the park with Paige:



Going to Salem Willows with cousin Daniel:



Measuring the length of an apatosaurus, using a chalk line to illustrate:



And drawing life-size apatosaurus, T. Rex, and Colwyn footprints:



That's not to mention all the other fun stuff we've been up to.. you can see pictures of hot air balloons and helicopter rides at this Shutterfly album.

We've also done our usual workbook pages, craft projects, library trips, and other goofy stuff.

Gardening and Growing Tadpoles

Our garden is growing like crazy. We started everything from seeds except the strawberry plants, and I'm just happy that things are sprouting. :) We have a total of 40 square feet. Six of the square feet have to remain fallow for the big vining plants, but pretty much everything else is full. I have three squares that I can put something in and I just need to decide what I want to put in there. So far we're growing pole beans, cucumbers, acorn squash, yellow summer squash, zucchini, romaine, spinach, mesclun, onion, garlic, broccoli, carrots, and peas. The peas are in pots on our deck because I ran out of room, and the strawberry plants are in front of our deck. I also have four big pots that are roughly a square foot and at least a foot deep, so I'll probably get some tomato and pepper transplants for those.

Here's a Shutterfly album with all the pictures:

http://share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=8Absm7ho0bNmG_

Our other big (new) project is tadpole-raising. Mary had mentioned in an email that she and Charlotte had found tons of tadpoles in the pond at Patton Park, so yesterday afternoon we headed there to see if we could catch any. We only had Colwyn's little bug jar, but after a half hour, Doug managed to get one. We brought it home and got it settled in a makeshift home (a giant tupperware container). This morning I took the kids to PetCo and we got a much bigger terrarium and some floating lilypads. I'll add some rocks for it to perch on as well, but it doesn't have legs yet. When I went to get more pond water (tap water is bad for tadpoles, oops), I ended up catching another one quite easily with the net I had brought along. So we have two tadpoles, and Colwyn has decided that he wants to call them both Bob. These things are HUGE.. their bodies are at least an inch long and their tails are another two inches or so.

Right now we're feeding them boiled lettuce but as they grow, we'll have to get them little buggies. When they're grown, we'll release them back into the pond where we got them. It'll be a nice lesson in biology, animal husbandry, and environmental responsibilty. I'm really looking forward to finding out what kind of frogs these things will turn into.. I think it'll be neat looking them up with Colwyn in our field guide.

Here's a Shutterfly album with pictures of the tadpole:

http://share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=8Absm7ho0bNmHI

Creating Rockets and Coloring Eggs

So we are pagan homeschoolers! ;) Here the kids are coloring eggs for Ostara.





Our mega project for the week was transforming a box into a space ship. We cut a door out of the back and a windshield out of the front. We left the windshield as more of a flap and attached a string to it so Colwyn can pull the string from inside and the windshield will open. We also made several dials and Colwyn taped them to the inside, just underneath the windshield.



I printed out a bunch of pictures of planets and nebulae and whatnot, and we taped those inside to serve as windows. We wrote the kids names on the ceiling, and punched holes to make constellations. Colwyn and Lachlann both colored on it quite a bit, too. For the first time, Colwyn spontaneously told me he was making certain letters (of course, they didn't look like letters, but it's the thought that counts).



We attached a metal measuring cup to the box with a string for Colwyn to use as a radio, and a spare paint roller became a telescope. Even Maddy got in on the fun.



This week we're probably going to go the zoo, either with our homeschooling playgroup or without. I'm not sure what we're doing for our other playgroup, so we'll see. We're leaving for a long weekend in DC very very early Thursday morning, and I'm so excited to take the boys to all the museums. Whee! I've got to remember to show him DC on the globe and on the states puzzle, and I think I'll also see if I can find a simple map of the city for him to look at.

Worksheets Galore

Colwyn's been in kind of a worksheet mood lately. I printed off a bunch of things from Enchanted Learning and he did them all really well. These are some that he did a day or two ago. On this one, the only one he needed help with to figure out the pattern was the bottom one. I was really surprised that he did so well on it.



Colwyn counted the bats, then I held his hand so we could form the numbers. This is also how we write his name on the worksheets. He wanted to work from the bottom up on this one, and I thought of how nice it was that nobody was forcing him to go in a set order to follow along with the class.



Ah, don't you just love my artwork? I wanted to see if he knew longer vs. shorter, which he obviously does. They're circled twice because we went back and circled the shorter ones after. Again, it's nice to be able to let him follow his whims.



Colwyn loves mazes. We did about four or five of them in a workbook today because he asked if he could do his "work." Sometimes he purposely goes down the wrong path so he can say, "Oh, no! Look at that! I have to go backwards!"



We did some other worksheets today but I didn't want to bore you with too many pictures.

Today the kids engaged in doll play for a good half hour. Colwyn dressed up in a kangaroo costume that has a little joey in the pouch, so he pretended to be the kangaroo mommy (normally I refer to him as the daddy when he plays with dolls, but obviously, only mommy kangaroos have pouches) and gave his joey milk, baby food, and a binky. Lachlann also played with his dolls quite a bit, it's so cute to see him feeding the babies and smacking his lips. He pushed the stroller around for quite a while (a bit faster than is acceptable with real babies, heh), then put the babies to sleep in his bed. It's interesting to see how differently the boys play with dolls vs. how I remember my sister and I did.. when Colwyn was giving the joey a binky, I asked if the joey was upset. Colwyn sad, "Yes, he's scared that the T. Rex is going to get him!" Any time Colwyn says T. Rex, in any context, it's always in a deep, scary voice. I don't think my sister and I ever mixed dolls and dinosaurs. :)

Oh, and we finally got around to correcting the color of two of the planets on our space display. I told Colwyn how I thought that we painted Mercury and Venus the wrong color, and asked if he would come help me find out what colors they're supposed to be. We sat down at the computer, and he watched me look up the website that I had found explaining the true colors of the planets. I explained how when we don't know something, that we can use a book or the computer to find out what the answer was. We talked about how silly we were to make a mistake, but how we just had to fix it and it would be all better. He got a kick out of the fact that we messed up.

While it's important for me to teach the kids some facts and skills, I think my most important job in homeschooling my kids is to teach them how to learn on their own. I don't want them to be the type of person to say, "Oh, gee, I don't know what such-and-such means, oh well" - I want them to go and find out. So hopefully this whole fixing-the-planets thing is the first of many "lessons" in how to learn.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

What a change in weather since I wrote last. Wednesday was sunny and in the 70s, Thursday was rainy and in the 50s, and Friday was in the 30s and it snowed. At least the snow made for some fun activities.. I brought in two giant bowls of snow and let the kids play with it at the table. Lachlann was a bit hesitant at first and kept saying, "Cold!" but after a few minutes he really dug in. We made mini snowballs and threw them at the table to see them break apart. Then we put green sprinkles on the snow, as I was also baking sugar cookies and had them out. The kids hands are still green, despite repeated washings. :) I have pictures, but since I'm posting at work, I'll have to put them up later.

We also decorated sugar cookies for St. Patrick's Day (since the kids can't drink beer, they get cookies). We looked up Ireland on the globe, and talked briefly about St. Patrick.

Last week Colwyn saw a show on Animal Planet (Most Extreme something or other) that talked about prehistoric eagles. There was a reenactment of an eagle trying to catch some people, and Colwyn got a big kick out of that. We spent a good amount of time pretending that he was an eagle, and he'd chase me around. He also showed up his beak, and how he could gobble us up. He also likes pretending to be a bat, so when he does, we talk about where bats live and what they eat.

I bought some glow-in-the-dark stickers of planets and stars so Colwyn could put them on the wall next to his bed, but we were disappointed to find that the stickiness was gone. What a waste of $5. I also bought some of the plastic stars that you adhere with putty, and we're going to put them on our planets display. I still need to figure out where I want to put that.. it's frickin' huge. Unforunately, Lachlann likes to try to scrape the paint off the planets, so I can't really let him have access to it.

We were planning on going to the library today, but unforunately, it didn't open until 1pm because of the snow. So instead, we went to Target (so I could buy the kids their Ostara presents) and then to Sylvan Street Grille for lunch. Not quite the educational activity I had planned, but oh well. Oh, actually, we did fool around with the concept of more and less when we were playing a travel fishing game.. after we played, we counted how many fish we had each caught, and then figured out who had more.

Okay.. back to work.. I may add more later, and I'll definitely post the pictures tomorrow.

The Boys Get Wet

I don't talk too much about Lachlann in this blog because, to be honest, I'm not really doing much "homeschooling" with him. Not that I'm doing any school-y academic work with Colwyn, but I do make more of an effort to plan fun learning activities for him, where as with Lachlann, I just play. He is, after all, only 18 months old.

One of the "enrichment" things that I do with Lachlann (and Colwyn), though, is water play. In the summer, water play is easy.. but in the winter, it requires a bit more work. At least once a week, I lay a few towels on the kitchen floor and set out several big bowls of water and as many interesting utensils as I can spare. The boys have tons of fun with this activity. Just so ya know, kids that engage in frequent water and sand play are more likely to have better language skills.



In other water-related news.. we took a 45 minute walk today down near Norwood Pond. I say near because we never actually made it there.. turns out it's a much longer walk when you have two kids and it's icy. The weather was really nice, though, close to 50 degrees, so we went for it. The kids had a really good time, despite getting wet, as did Maddy, who we actually let off leash for a bit. We didn't see much in the way of critters, but we did hear a woodpecker. We talked a bit about what woodpeckers do, and when we got home, looked up a picture on the Internet.





So Colwyn has resumed his interest in space. I finally got him to glue down the planets, sun, and appropriate labels. He really likes pointing to planets and either telling me which ones they are or asking me to identify them. I don't have a picture, because unfortunately, I realized that two planets are painted the wrong color. Apparently, a lot of the pictures you see in the paper or on websites are artificially colored. So, I found the right colors, and as soon as I feel like bringing out the paints, I'll explain it to Colwyn and we'll fix them. I figure it'll be a good lesson in correcting your mistakes, and in how to research things. I may "stage" looking up the real colors online.

But we have done a few other cool things. The most recent was when we dropped objects into a container full of baking soda to see how moon craters are made. We did this after watching a Naked Science episode about the moon. Colwyn really liked this activity. Here he is dropping an "asteroid" onto the "moon":



And here he is shaking the container to clear the craters:



Right now Doug is reading Zoom! Zoom! Zoom! I'm Off to the Moon! by Dan Yaccarino. I've got some other recommendations for good books about space, so I'll try looking for those at our next library trip.

And just for the fun of it, here's a quick picture of the boys dressing up in Doug's t-shirts. Colwyn wore his all day, and insisted that I call him Dad. It was kind of weird saying, "Here Dad, let me wipe your bum" and various other things I would never say to Doug. :)

We're Back on the Dino Again

Despite a short-lived fling with space, Colwyn really only has one obsession in his life again.. dinosaurs. We finished painting the planets (although Doug and I are still arguing over whether Venus is blue or red.. anyone know for sure?), but I still haven't been able to convince Colwyn to participate in gluing them to the display board. I even printed out little labels--they're still sitting on my printer tray. So for now, I have several half-planets taking up way too much space on what I call my Homeschooling Counter of Clutter. Here's a picture, just for the hell of it.



You can see our huge number of crayons, the bowl of polished stones we use as math manipulatives, the real math manipulatives (multicolored bears), our globe, a few workbooks, lots and lots of paper, our Dino ABC book, the states puzzle, some tongs, scoops, magnets, eyedroppers, magnifying glass, dustpan, lots of puzzles, a few board games, play dough, and the poor planets. For those of you with a good eye, you'll also see a book written by Doug's aunt.

You won't see the dinosaur fossils (they're hiding behind the stones), the majority of our craft supplies (they're on the bottom shelf, in drawers), or the two books on science experiments we just checked out from the library. We got Mudpies to Magnets and Flash! Bang! Pop! Fizz!. The first book I had heard about on MDC, but the second one was recommended in this book, which lists tons of great books. We haven't tried any of the experiments yet, but I've flipped through the books and can't wait to start.

Back to the dinosaurs.. last week we did a lot of activities with those ever-present reptiles. I drew a picture of a triceratops skeleton and cut it into pieces (tail, spine, ribcage, back legs with pelvis, front legs with shoulder blades, and skull) and Colwyn glued it back together on a piece of cardstock.



We've also been sorting his toy dinosaurs a lot. We'll sort them into herbivores and carnivores, or we'll sort them by species. Colwyn always wants to sort dinosaurs that we only have one of (like parasaurolophus), so we usually have a few T. Rexes stand in. He's also been playing this strange game that I think he picked up from Charlotte. He'll ask you to be a dinosaur and roar, and then he'll say that he's a race car and vroom loudly. When he vrooms at you, you're supposed to act scared. If you can fall over backwards, even better. Colwyn recently saw Charlotte and Mary acting out a scene from Cars, so I think that's where he got the idea.

Yesterday we took the kids to the Aquarium. I had a feeling it was going to be busy, and it surely was. It's funny, each time we go, the kids find something else to be totally fascinated with. This time, they spent a while looking at a tropical fish tank that had a unicorn tang in it. When we went outside to look at the seals, we noticed that there were some turtles in what we call the "sick fishy room." There was a big sign next to the window explaining how some baby turtles don't start swimming south soon enough, and get sick from being in the cold water off the Cape. They drift around until someone rescues them and brings them to the Aquarium. After getting nursed back to health, they're brought to Florida or some other warm place. Colwyn was quite taken with them, and loves telling everyone how the turtle doctor is going to make the turtles better, then bring them to Florida to see his Grandma and Lang Amma (although his stories include the turtle doctor running up to us and saying, "Oh my goodness!" even though we didn't actually see any staff in the "sick fishy room").

Last week we went over to Jen's house to play with Calvin and Miles and bake bread. The kids played really well together. Colwyn stuck with the trains mostly, but Lachlann had fun playing "tag" with Calvin and Miles. We kneaded the sourdough bread for a while, and after it was done, had a delicious snack.

Today we had everyone over here. Colwyn and Lachlann got to play with Calvin and Miles and Thomas and Aidan. Colwyn is definitely warming up to his new friends.. both Colwyn and Lachlann cried when they had to leave. I hate to see my boys sad, but I'm so glad they like the other kids. They all play together nicely, which is great because it lets us moms chat rather than breaking up fights or chasing the kiddos around.

Dinos: To Your Rockets!

We seem to be making a transition from the dinosaur obsession to a space obsession. Or (hopefully) if it's not a real transition, Colwyn is at least making room in his busy life for two obsessions.

I think I mentioned before that Colwyn likes the Magic Schoolbus episodes that have to do with space. He's also really liked the Little Einstein's episode where they visit the planets. Lately he's been pretending to be in a rocket and will take off to visit Mars or something. So, I decided to try to do a bit more with this interest. We're making a styrofoam ball model of the solar system, using one of those giant cardboard displays. Today we painted the display board black (and talked briefly about why space is black), and started painting the styrofoam balls I had cut in half. So far we have the sun, Earth, Mars, Saturn, and Neptune.



But dinosaurs are still a feature in much of Colwyn's play. Last night we used a 50% off coupon to get him a nice dinosaur puzzle at AC Moore. It's a 48 piece Melissa and Doug one. Here he is searching for that elusive piece:



Afterwards, he had to "hide" from the Allosaurus:



He really is quite good at puzzles, and only rarely needs help. Sometimes we prompt him with observations like, "That puzzle piece you're holding looks like it has part of a spotted dinosaur on it. Where might that go?" Reminding him to look more carefully at the piece in his hand is usually all the help he needs.

Actually, my mom and I got into a bit of a argument over the puzzle yesterday, as she insisted on giving him way too much help, or doing pieces for him, or cheering him excessively. I know that seems like a stupid thing to argue over, but the way I look at it.. what is he learning when someone tells him exactly where to put a puzzle piece? He's capable of doing it perfectly well on his own. As for the cheering.. we certainly tell Colwyn he's doing great, but we try to keep our level of praise consistent with his level of achievement. To us, putting an easy puzzle piece into place merits only a "Nice" if anything. Harder pieces, ones that he has to really think about, or finishing the whole puzzle gets more praise, like "Wow, Colwyn, look at how well you did. Aren't you so proud of yourself?" We really want him to have intrinsic motivation to do things.. that is, we don't want him completing a puzzle so that we'll praise him. We want him to feel proud of himself because he thinks he did well, not because we heaped on the praise. Plus.. I think laying it on thick when he hasn't worked hard for something kind of cheapens the comments, you know?

Well, anyway.

I tried to teach Colwyn to play Red Light, Green Light today (gotta get in PE somewhere, right?). We've done something similar in the grocery store before, where I'll say "Red Light!" if he runs too far ahead, and say "Green Light" when we catch up. He follows those instructions just fine, but today he completely ignored all my "Red Light" commands. I think he just really felt like being three. :)

We're having Thomas and Aidan over again tomorrow, and on Thursday we're going to Jen's house to bake bread with Calvin and Miles (Thomas and Aidan will be there, too). Wednesday is our other playgroup, and we're going to Lisa's house since it's school vacation week. Hopefully we'll be able to paint the rest of the planets sometime over the next few days and glue them onto the display board.

Co-Op Madness

Some weird things have been happening in the homeschooling co-op we joined. The short version is that everyone has left except for me and the two founders. The slightly longer version is that the people who were in the group were either not committed to homeschooling, or wanted something very different from the group. I think they're going to start advertising a bit and hopefully some new people will join. I think that as the kids get older, it'll be easier to find people who are sure that they want to homeschool (or are actively homeschooling), rather than just considering it.

We had a playdate at our house today with Dani and her sons, Thomas and Aidan (they're from the co-op). Colwyn is the type of kid to just play by himself in a large group of kids, so I wanted to set up a few one-on-one playdates so he could get to know the kids better. Colwyn and Thomas did so well playing, and didn't get into any fights. As they were leaving, Colwyn told Thomas that he loved him and that he could come back after Saturday. :) Dani and the other mom in the co-op, Jen, are bringing their kids here on Monday, so he was actually right about Thomas coming back after Saturday.

So, oddly enough, Colwyn actually enjoys doing worksheets. This is only slightly to my dismay. As much as I'd rather be doing fun, creative activities, if he's happy to do worksheets, I suppose that's fine. After all, I liked (like?) worksheet type things, too.

We played with the states puzzle for a while today. If I take out 10-15 states, he does great at putting them back, but if they're all out, he's a bit lost. He really likes pointing out where we live, where Mexico is, and where the space shuttles and dinosaurs are. We also played with some math manipulatives (a set of bears in 3 different colors and 3 different sizes), but after a bit of sorting - which he called making parades, he kept insisting that one of his bears was going to be mean and knock down my bears. So we ended that game.

I've started showing Colwyn some Magic Schoolbus episodes on TV. He really likes the one about the asteroid. I'd really like to get some of the books, though, as the TV show is just a little.. weird.

Well, Lachlann has a diaper that needs changing, so until next time!

Life Gets Crazy

Things have been a bit crazy this last week or so.. that's my excuse for not updating, and I'm sticking to it. I do have quite a few things to share, though. We'll start with the boring and work our way to the fun stuff. :)

I know I've said that I'm not into worksheets, and I stick by that. However, Colwyn got a random workbook for his birthday, so occasionally he'll take it out of the craft drawer and want to do some pages in it. Here's what he did today:




We've been steadily working on our dinosaur ABC book, as well. We're up to Iguanadon so far. Colwyn now knows whether the following dinosaurs are meat eaters or plant eaters: apatosaurus, brachiosaurus, corythosaurus, deinonychus, edmontosaurus, fabrosaurus, gigantosaurus, hadrosaurus, and iguanodon. He knows that giganotosaurus was bigger than T. Rex, and that brachiosaurus's nose was on top of its head. :)

Last weekend, we took the kids to the Museum of Science again. This time, they were healthy, rested, and fed, and thankfully the museum was a lot less crowded. Colwyn didn't spend as much time with the dinosaurs as I had been expecting, but he did really like an archaeology exhibit, and enjoyed looking at the model exhibit. We also had some fun with stop animation in the animation exhibit, and he looked at a few random things through a microscope.



The other really cool thing we did was make a volcano out of playdough, a paper cup, baking soda, vinegar, and red food dye. We filled the cup about halfway with baking soda (more would have been fine.. in fact, we refilled it later), then used playdough to turn the cup into a volcano. While the boys and I were doing that, Doug added some red dye to a cup of vinegar. Here's what our volcano looked like:



When we poured the red vinegar into the baking soda, it bubbled over and nearly looked like lava. If you're patient, you can see a video of it here. But I'm warning you, it's quite a big file and will take a minute or two to load even on broadband. The kids seemed impressed, but I think Doug and I actually had the most fun. Oh well. :)