Field trip to the Seattle Arboretum

God’s Eyes and Apple Eating

This morning’s handwork was making Eye of God and/or a woven spider web.  The kids enjoyed it so much they continued to make them for most of the afternoon, especially Cyan.  She has made 4 so far.  All more beautiful than the last!

This is Alex’s:

Isn’t it lovely!?! I just love how he used the blue in the midst of all these drab colors.

This afternoon was dedicated to using up the last of two laundry baskets of apples we had gotten from a dear friend.  I made batch after batch of applesauce.  And after I was done and tired of it, Cyan took over and made yet another batch.  We now have 18 quarts in the garage and more in the kitchen and still had enough left over for some for dinner tonight!

In Logan’s last workbox today was ‘make fresh apple pie with mommy’ and he just loved helping me prepare a pie for the family.  We made the whole thing from scratch and fresh apples.  No store bought dough or pie filling in this baby… Logan really honed his rolling pin skills!

With the left over dough he got to make his own little ‘pielette’. He just LOVED that!

As I put the kids to bed this evening I realized that even my ‘treat’ to myself tonight was apple:

Tis the season!

Happy FALL!!!

Autumn copywork, pressing leaves, and preserving spiderwebs

We have been very focused on the changes going on in nature right now. The nights are getting colder and the days are getting shorter quickly. It is very clearly almost fall.

Logan got his first taste of copywork today.  We copied a Waldorf poem onto watercolor paper and he wanted to be included… so I had him write the last lines on his watercolor sheet.  I think he did a fantastic job!

Here was Cyan’s copy work.  Her painting and her handwriting were just lovely.  They both are on the nature table now.  I knew it wouldn’t stay empty for long!

Today for Kindergarten science we pressed leaves! As we went on our nature walk he found fallen leaves and brought them in to press.

He loved the ones that still had green on them because they were ‘pretty’.

Then, along with the siblings, we preserved spiderwebs!  First, we went on a spiderweb hunt around the yard.  The best ones were found on the rhododendron bushes in the back of the yard.  They were still complete, even though there was no spider in them. 

Most garden spiders build a new web every night, so I didn’t feel bad about taking the three that we had found as it won’t take the spider long to build a new one.  I was careful, however, not to spray paint a web with a spider in it. 

The two we found with spiders sitting in the center of their webs we left alone, but we spent some time observing the spiders that lived there, and noting their brown and yellow markings (making them a type of ‘garden spider’).

I preserved the web by holding up some cardboard behind the empty spiderweb and spray painting (very gently and from over a foot away) the web.  I took about 20 minutes to let that dry.  Then I sprayed a sheet of cardstock with Elmer’s spray glue and waited until it was good and ‘tacky’.  Then I slid the cardstock behind the painted web, and gently pulled it forward until the web was stuck to the sheet of paper and this is what I ended up with:

We did two, and although you can see the color on the black sheet better in photos, I like the detail you can see clearly on the white sheet… which doesn’t show up in pictures as well, but is quite amazing in person!  We added these to sleeves in the kids nature notebooks after some fun up close observation and now they will have a spiders web to study at will!

It was a neat project to do after yesterday’s school project of reading about spiders and trying to make our own webs!

 

What a fun and awesome school day!

First day of school learning

The first day of school went well.  We were a little bit off schedule as we had an unexpected (but welcome) visitor.  Our first order of the day was to change out the nature table from ‘summer’ to ‘fall’!  The kids handed me stuff as I arranged it on the nature table.  I am sure we will have many more things to add as we take nature walks and get more into the fall season but for now, it’s just lovely and clean.

Box #1: Nature Study!  Today we got to compare bird nests that we have found over the summer.

This was a all kid activity.  They each got one and they described it as the others wrote down what they said on a comparison and contrast worksheet.

Box #2 - Animal Farm Game - was just for Logan.  He read all these and placed them so fast that I think I may have to make some harder cards for him!  The farm is expanding!

 

Box #3 was our interview box.  He wrote his name (with no help, I really wanted to see his progress between now and the end of the year), and then drew a picture of himself.

The interview was here.

Box #4 was a jar and some craft sticks.  Each day we put one craft stick in the jar.  Each tenth day we bundle the craft sticks together showing counting by tens.  However, today we only had one craft stick in our jar.  Hardly picture worthy. 

Box #5 - Cyan and Logan played number dominos!  They were both really good at it.  I am going to have to get a set of real dominos and look up the rules for another day.

Box #6 was wet on wet watercolor.

This was a Cyan and Logan activity.

Box #7 was the Dolch Word Kit.  We just worked on review for today.

Box #8 was Digraph Sorting from Pinterest.

 

Box #9 was a “September Me” from A Year of Kindergarten Writing.

No box #10 today…  just lunch!

All in all it was a great day!

First day of school ~ Interviews

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Interview with Logan ~ First day of Kindergarten

“I HAVE A LOOSE TOOTH!!!!”

Favorites:

Color - Golden

Season - Winter with the snow, but wait!  Halloween!  Those are both my favorites!

Food - Pizza!  Corn chowder and mac & cheese, and tomato soup.

Animal - It’s a River Monster - an Alligator Gar - but I haven’t watched all their seasons yet so I don’t know.  Something could be cooler.

What do you want to learn about this year?

I want to learn two things - piano and ninja moves.  I already know one.  I know how to build stuff pretty well.  I didn’t say I want to learn it…  just that I know how.

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Interview with Cyan ~ First day of 6th Grade

Favorites:

Color - Peach (Like a sunset)

Season - Depends on the sun or snow.  Seriously, it depends on how much sun or snow there is.  Cuz if there’s lots of sun yu can go swimming and if there’s lots of snow you can go snowmobiling and that’s tons of fun!

Food - Potatoes

Animal - Horse

What would you like to learn this year?

More history with my friends.  I think the books “Love that Dog” and “Hate that Cat” were really good so I want to learn more about poetry and stuff like that.  I want to do singing lessons because I want to be a singer and I want to be a babysitter for dogs and children.  Like taking care of dogs.  Kinda want to learn how to make crepes because Alex doesn’t always want to do it… and pancakes!  I want to learn more about how to be in movies.  I think that would be cool. 

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Interview with Alex ~ First day of 10th Grade

Favorites:

Color - Ocean Blue

Season - Spring - I love all the colors.

Animal - felis domesticus - Cat

Food - Sliced apples and pickles

What do you want to learn this year?

I want to learn how to socialize and how to blow things up with chemicals.  I want to learn how to play the piano and how to actually draw stuff.  I want to learn basic gymnastics cuz I feel like I’d be good at it but I’d be terrified to do a flip cuz I feel like I’d break my neck!  I also want to learn to write fancy (calligraphy) and how to sing.  OH!  Walk a tightrope.  And photography.  That’s all.  Oops, I forgot, I want to learn to dance, too.

Let the school year begin!!!