Beautiful Day!

Today was the first, honest to goodness, HOT day we have had this year. It hit 91* where we are! We were all in short sleeves outside, and the kids were all in swim suits playing in the kiddy pool. :) It was a fun afternoon...

Then of course, Logan and I did some more plane watching:

See his poor sweet face? He is doing ok. But wow... he is mangled!

A plane and the moon!!

"Ok mama... my turn!"

Train Depot

I don't have pictures of this trip because I spent 90% of the time chasing Logan around. It would have been much better if I had been able to leave Logan at home.

The Snoqualmie School Train Depot is wonderful though! The people that worked there were amazing! There were four parts to the 2 hour long day. First, they talked about Train Communication. We got to watch as they demonstrated how they used to get messages to the conductors of the trains before there was such thing as telegraphs or telephones. It was fun to watch the kids as the lady and gentleman demonstrated the use of sticks with string and notes attached that the train conductor's of old would stick their arms through to get messages.

The rest of the day is somewhat of a blur. The kids and other families went to the Train Functions class, while I chassed Logan. The kids and other families went to the Trains History class, while I chased Logan. We nearly missed the actual train ride because Logan (and by now a couple other kids) were done with the day, and ready for lunch. The train ride was great! What a fun little ride. Not too long and not too short.

When we got back to the train station, we all sat down to have an honest to goodness lunch at last, and that was when Logan fell down three brick steps on one side of the gazebo we were eating at. Poor thing has such a smashed up face! He screamed nearly all the way home. I had carpooled with a friend too, and so she and her kids had to deal with him being hurt and upset. We got a small respite when we stopped for icecream, but after that he cried some more. Poor sweet baby!

He is doing better today, but I doubt I will drive very far with him for a field trip again. He is just too little.

Progress Review for April - May

Language Arts...She is really starting to read! Finally! She is reading Dick and Jane faster now (we have just started the second and harder book), and is doing Explode the Code book 1 and 2 with little or no help in most cases. She is starting to read random things like the word "mushroom" by herself. She is also starting to write by herself and not just dictate which has been the method of choice for most of the year.

Math...
We are still working on graphs, and doing some simple geometry. We haven't done much more with place value as our books have not come back to it, but I still plan on spending a few days at the end of the year firming up that knowledge.

Science...
Our caterpillars turned into butterflies yesterday. She is a very proud butterfly mama. :) We have been reading about different kinds of butterflies, and have also been reading about natural instincts of dogs, as well as how to behave around them, etc. Her garden is growing well and starting to flower. We are talking about pollination daily right now, and she is starting to understand the 'flower into fruit' concept as she watches her strawberry plants turn so well that she is telling the neighbor kids.

Social Studies...We had a family move in next door that has an 8 year old little girl. Cyan and she have been close to inseparable. We are still doing our bi-weekly story time and PE play dates with our homeschool group.

PE/Health...
We have been talking more about food lately. We pulled out our place mats with the food pyramid on them and have been talking about organics vs non organics and what they do to our bodies, etc. She is still going to PE play day with the homeschool group, and learning about water safety.

Fine Arts...
We still draw every day. She has started to draw things that are far beyond her level (like hidden pictures in line drawings, etc). She is practicing her handwriting all the time, and really getting the hang of her fancy letters, although cursive gives her more of a hard time than the 'princess' letters, which could be due to interest.

Technology...
She has started using "Starfall" about twice a week to reinforce her language arts studies. With that she is learning how to use the mouse for the first time.

Evidence of a good homeschool outing

And our new bunny: Domino.

In her home in the back of the garden:

New art skills...

Cyan is a natural artist. She is always drawing something. Her skills usually come out in drawing, but that may be because that is my prefered artistic outlet. It is the least messy, and the most containable. Heck, you can draw just about anywhere. :)

Here is her latest:

Yes, she accidentily ripped the corner off.

Can you see the unicorn with a man on it's back? Can you see the snake in a coil? Can you see the caterpillar? Or the perfect 'a'? Or the other thing that she doesn't remember what it is (little, to the bottom. Has a face.)

I think this type of stuff is amazing.

Alex's artistic expression lately has been very... boy... lately. LOL!

This was the inside of my Mother's day card:

And this was what he made with the pearler beads that night:

Yep, it's a guy, mowing his lawn. I just thought that was so funny!

I love the art that is coming out in my kids. I love that I am being able to capture these things on a blog too... it sounds funny. But I just wouldn't be able to find the time to scrapbook this stuff. I wouldn't dedicate myself to it. It takes hours for me to perfect a scrapbook page... and I love doing it, but it just wouldn't get done. I would rather be out playing with my kids! So this is a perfect medium for me.... it is artistic, but also can be nothing but words. It requires little thought, but still looks good, and I can do it all from my house. No new scissors or gadgets or widgets reqired.

Slugs and Butterflies

Just call my daughter "The Slug Whisperer"

At Breeseman Forest, the kids kept finding banana slugs on the pathways. The first one they were excited about. My friends daughter even drew a very detailed picture. And they continued to be intrigued by these critters the whole time every time they saw them at the park. We all talked about how slugs feel vibrations through the ground, so when you stomp close to them (I did this, so there was no accidental slug stomping... that would have stopped the fun pretty quickly) they curl up and become about 1/4 of their stretched out size. It was interesting, even for me, who has seen slugs all my life (one of the perks of living in rainy WA state I guess).

That night, just before I got into bed, I saw this little critter climbing through my bathtub.

Considering I have NEVER seen a slug in this house I thought it was a very odd coincidence.

Our caterpillars are turning to chrysalis this morning. They started climbing the sides of the cup yesterday and they are all hanging upsidedown this morning. One is even putting on his glossy shell.

I love the transformation... butterflies are so interesting! We are not doing as much with the study this time as we did the first time we did it... but we are finding it more interesting now that we know the names of the pieces, and how long to wait until they turn to butterflies, etc. Cyan likes standing on the stool and waiting for the caterpillars that are upsidedown to jiggle. She says it looks like they are dancing. Last time it was a 'lesson'... this time it is just fun. I hope we get some pictures of them as butterflies this time!

Dog Education

Which means, education about dogs... not educating a dog. lol...

Since the dog bite, we have been working on our dog etiquette. She is doing wonderfully. We have had three encounters with dogs since we have talked about how to act around them... and every one, she has followed the safety directions perfectly. It has been a nice variety as well. The first dog she met was very friendly. She was able to ask the gentleman walking the sweet white pup "May I pet your dog?" and he said "Of course, she loves kids." She did it all... the holding out her hand to meet the dog, the walking to the side of the dog so she didn't reach over it's head to pet it... everything... right down to saying thank you to the man who was walking her. It was so sweet to watch. She knew some of that before, but the reasons behind it, and the actual dog etiquette was lost on her. It was nice to see her pull it off so well.

The second and third encounters were at Breeseman Forest.

A very nice, but VERY hyper dog decided to bound on us when we were studying a slug in the middle of a connected path. It was irritating, but great practice for Cyan to "stand like a tree", which is what you need to do when a dog is hyper or frightened. She did it perfectly... although I had a harder time keeping my composure. This dog really needed to be restrained. It was way too hyper to be off a leash in a public park.

The third dog didn't like children. So when Cyan asked to pet the dog, the owner actually stepped off the path and told her no (nicely), and to please go around because his dog was skittish and he didn't want them to spook her. She took that with grace, although loudly asking me why his dog was so frightened... but she didn't pester... just asked.

We have been documenting all of this (and the books we have been reading) in our dog notebook. She will draw either the cover of the book or her encounter with the dog she is writing down, and then write a bit about it. It is not only the first time she has written about dogs, but it is the first time she has written herself without dictating to me first. She is doing a beautiful job, even if spelling errors are an every line occurrence.

Her face is healing well. She may always have a little scar, but it isn't bad, and she doesn't seem phased by it at all (I am a bit upset, but that is a different story). It seems that we will weather this well afterall. I have a feeling we will have a much better time with dogs from now on. I am really proud of her. I feel like we were able to take something that could have been a tragedy (and ended with her being petrified of dogs), and turned it into a real learning experience.
The best book, in which we got most of our dog etiquette education, was "May I Pet Your Dog?".
It was a wonderful compliation of information, and a couple fun things. Very good information. I was thinking of owning it... but it is a better rental from the library since Cyan actually got the lessons that the book held. But I was impressed. It was the only book of it's kind I found. And I even had library people looking for me. Most people write funny books about dogs. Nothing about how to treat them for children. It was interesting that it was so hard to find. Yet another book I have to put in my head to write eventually. ;)

Innercity Nature Tour part 2 - Breeseman Forest

The day started out with a visit from a little friend:

This little guy has become quite friendly lately. He has taken to following me around the yard, watching me... I do suspect he is also the one that has taken to pulling up my pea seedlings and eating them too... But I forgive him... mostly. He is cute.

After some school work, and the visit from the bird, we got in the car to head for the second half of our Innercity Nature Tour with our friends.

What a lush and beautiful forest they have in the middle of Spanaway. It was beautiful! Once again, we had toddlers with us (and other children that had no voice control that day), so although we were always on the lookout for wildlife, all we saw were a few adventurous birds. Mostly, we saw things like slugs. The river was beautiful though:

The kids found lots of fun things to do and explore:

"I wonder what is living in here?"

Then they drew what they saw:

She took that quite literally:

From Cyan's angle:

Then they had a bit more fun.

After that, we had some lunch... then we got to go exploring some more:

It would have been great to spend the whole day there, but the kids were tired. When we got home, every one took a nap. I woke up to Alex getting off the bus, and this:

I love my kids... they are such goof balls!

The pictures really don't do the Breeseman Forest justice. I was chasing toddlers or wrangling a jogging stroller a bit too much to take pictures of every beautiful thing I saw. But it was a really nice place... full of new leaves, little flowers, and singing birds. All right in the middle of one of Washington's cities. I love places like that... it makes my heart sing that someone thought to save that space for my kids to walk through. I can't wait to go back. It was a great day.

Inner City Nature Tour part 1 - Watershed Park

My friend, Sarah, and I have been talking about our inner city parks for weeks. She has a beautiful protected area in the center of her city, and so do I... so this week, we decided to do an inner city nature tour with the kids. First at my city, then to hers on Wed. We got some phonics done this morning (phonograms are fun!), read a dog ediquette book, checked on the garden and then got ready for our hike.

This is the first of a two part innercity nature tour. Our first stop was Watershed Park. It was the perfect day for a hike... not too hot, and the sky was stunning!

All of the wild flowers were in full bloom:

Kids running down the path:

Kids exploring:

I am sure there were a hundred varieties of animal life all over the place there... it was a lush and beautifully protected place... but we had two toddlers with us. So we saw none but birds that were far overhead. By the end though, we got some peace:

It was a sweet day, and I love hiking with my kids. They see amazing and magical world in the holes of fallen logs, muddy puddles, or the bent mossy branches of a tree. Going to a place with a child for the first time is like looking with new eyes. I can't wait for the second part of our tour!

Funny Boy

Move over Uncle Fester... the new generation is going green.

It's May and we have offically hit 'that' time of year.

The time of year when EVERYTHING they do is drudgery.  They suffer through the day... whine, complain, ask that next year we "not do anything that isn't fun".  

I tried SO hard to make things 'fun' this year.  She just doesn't see it yet. 

Here is a conversation we had about an hour ago:

"Can't we do anything "FUN" today?"

 "Nope.  You are not even allowed to smile today." 

"Well, what are we doing today?" 

"We are mapping the garden, drawing in our ecojournals, playing with paper shapes, and then reading a story.  After that we are going to make paper flowers and give them to our neighbors for May Day."

"What?  That's all fun!" 

"Well, that's up to you, isn't it?"  

The truth is, school is hard this time of year.  The weather is terribly sparatic and when it is warm, none of us want to be inside.  Especially after this Winter.  We have a very small house, and sometimes it is VERY hard for the least distractable of us to try to stay on task (for Alex, I built a desk in his bedroom closet, because he just can not concentrate in the living space with the rest of us).  

It will get easier.  Already it IS getting easier... but the days are long.

May... beautiful May.

Cyan's nature assignment for today was to draw a peice of the garden:

Other May things that are happening today:

Logan blowing the seed heads off dandilions, spreading the dandilion joy to the neighbors. Won't they be thrilled?

Alex's rosemary cuttings from the pruning I had to do, he wants to propigate and make new plants (I need on at my garden gate for luck. He took that on as he would grow me one. Such a sweet boy.):

A plane went by (and we could actually see it) "Mom! Look!" :

And much more.

Enjoy this spring day my friends!!