Catching Up

We have been laying low lately since my surgery. We spent a week at my parents', staying for Halloween; this week we were home again. "School" has been very relaxed. Lots of library books, Science Channel and PBS. Gabriel has been doing some interesting artwork, including weaving on a cardboard loom I made him and playing with Sculpey clay with his dad. Legos are a prominent part of the day, too.

Gabriel also spent several hours playing with a snap circuit electronics kit my parents have. We paired this with a Magic School Bus book about electricity.

Grandma and Papa helped the kids carve pumpkins.

Gabriel's has an eye and part of its mouth sewn shut. Annika's is happy.

For Halloween we were still with my parents, and spent most of the day with my brother and his family.
Here is a rare photo of me. I've got my foot up while watching the soccer game.

We watched my niece play soccer, had pizza, and went back to their place to chill. A party and Trick-or-Treating were later in the day.
My niece is a doctor, my nephew is a fire fighter. Gabriel is a mummy/zombie, and Annika is a princess.

The kids got way too much candy, and now I'm sorry I didn't come up with a creative way to get them to trade it in for something else.

We got a new book in the mail today that I am so excited to try out. It's Great American Artists for Kids by MaryAnn Kohl and Kim Solga. There is a nice little piece about the book on The Artful Parent. The book gives a bit of information about important artists, and then activities for young children to do imitating that style. Besides the obvious art implications, I could see this tying into geography and American history. I'll let you know how it goes!

Love of Libraries, whaledreamers, and Meaningful Stories

One of the best things about homeschooling is that we get to go to the library and check out all kinds of books about whatever we are interested in. While we were browsing among the whale section, I cam across a video that looked intriguing. It is called whaledreamers, and was produced by Julian Lennon. It talks about the connection between a tribal culture in Australia and the whales they had a special relationship with. It follows this tribe as they host a gathering of other indigenous tribes from around the world and share their stories of their connections with whales. The respect and closeness they developed between cultures was inspiring. The video also brought up issues of genocide and forced migration from ancient tribal lands. These topics were explained well, but would be best for older children. This video was over the head of my two children, and parts were more intense than I would like them to see, but the video and its message made an impact on me.

I started thinking again about the power of story. I have put my writing on hold for awhile after Aaron's cancer and job loss and beginning homeschooling and having surgery. But I started getting that "itch" again, remembering why I write and how meaningful writing can be. I thought also about the power of stories in our own home, on a more personal level. We begin our days with story time - snuggles, warm and cuddly, the two children sleepy on my lap, letting them gently wake up to begin the day. Stories later in the morning when we all need a break. Stories before nap to get Annika ready for sleep. Stories at bedtime, snuggling again with a child on either side, warm pajamas and blankets. Books for one of them when emotions overflow, helping them to calm down and become grounded again. Children loving reading and learning, asking questions and soaking up all kinds of information without even trying. Children hearing stories from all kinds of cultures and genres, looking at pictures and illustrations from wonderful photographers and talented artists, as well as creating images in their own heads with their imaginations.

What would we do without stories and books? Have you had any experiences with the power of story or books? I'd love to hear them!

Vacation

I have spent the last week in quiet luxury. Well, sort of. I had surgery on my ankle and foot, and have been spending all day, every day, in my special chair (except when I am napping). My parents took the kids for a whole week, and they spent two days with hubby's sister and her husband. I had the whole week to recover in peace and quiet, waited on hand and foot by my dear hubby. I worked on some knitting projects, spent a lot of time on the internet finding all kinds of cool stuff, and watched tons of TV. I worked on my website a bit, took naps whenever I wanted. Heaven, I tell you! I got so spoiled. But I did miss my kids. They came back yesterday, and today we tried to catch up on cuddles and stories.

One of the things I knit was a toe hat to keep my toes warm with my cast on.

I've also been working on Christmas gifts for people. I got some mittens made for the kids.

I have some other projects I've done, too, but don't want to post them because they are going to people who read this blog. I love knitting. I think I have 6 or 7 projects going on now. I am trying to finish a few of them before starting new ones. I don't want to have to buy new, duplicate needles.

A few days before my surgery I took the kids to the Aquarium. It was so wonderful to go when there weren't very many other visitors. There were mostly tourists and a few moms with toddlers. We got unfettered access to all the interpreters, and didn't have to get pushed around by the exhibits.
The kids fed sea urchins, observed the octopus, watched the otters and seals, and checked out the coral reef exhibit. My favorite part was that Gabriel got to put some water from the Sound under a powerful microscope.

It showed up on a TV so everyone could see it. The interpreter told us what we were looking at. He spent several minutes with Gabriel answering questions and showing him how the microscope worked. It was so nice to have that much attention. The kids loved having this outing and I was glad to spend that much fun time with them before my surgery.

I've been discovering all kinds of cool stuff on the internet to use for our homeschooling, but I'll save that for another post.

Big Helpers

The kids have been involved in some projects around the house in the past week. We are making a wood shed in the back yard. I should say, my husband and Dad are making the shed, I am supervising. We have lived here for over 6 years and are finally going to have a winter without blue tarps in the back yard. Yay!!!

Gabriel and Annika both helped move part of a load of gravel to the construction area, and then spread the remaining rocks in the driveway.



Happily, we will also have a winter without mud from the driveway getting tracked into the house. Wow, I feel so grown up. Today Dad came up with some panels he had put together this week for us, and a friend joined the men to help start raising the walls. Gabriel was out there with them for a bit, learning how to use the level to make sure the foundation blocks were level and true. We talked about the process at the dinner table this evening, filling in the blanks of understanding for him.





That's one of the coolest things about homeschooling for me. I love the conversations we have, just by living life. I have some more ideas about how to build some math lessons into this project, too. Math is one of the harder subjects for me to figure out how to teach my son. He is decidedly not a worksheet type of person, but I want to make sure he gets a good foundation in math so he can be successful in science or engineering or architecture or whatever he decides to pursue in life. It's also really good to see my boy out there working hard along the men. He needs that!

Chillin' With the Children

With the advent of homeschooling Gabriel, Annika has wanted to be involved in everything we do. Gabriel has been wanting to learn cursive, and Annika wants to learn too, but she hasn't learned her letters yet. I bought her some workbooks to work on tracing and mazes, and she ate them up. So we've begun printing out worksheets from the internet and letting her go at them. She loves doing worksheets! I have trouble printing them out fast enough. I found some simple kids' Sudoku puzzles off the internet, too. Gabriel liked them and asked for harder ones. I had to stop printing them out after several pages. I think this will be a good way to work on math logic for him. It amazes me how quickly he picks up on stuff.

Gabriel has also been working on making some paper airplanes out of The World Record Airplane Book. We thought he should do a contest with the planes he makes, and see which ones fly the farthest. I think that will be on the schedule for tomorrow. Then at dinner he said we should put up a notice on the internet and let people all over the world participate in the contest. So if anyone out there still reads this blog, and you want to participate in a flying airplane experiment, shoot me an email and we'll work something out.

Today Aaron took Gabriel out for a special guys' outing to a movie. So Annika and I had some girl time. We made playdough and played with it. She was thrilled that I would actually play with her with the playdough.

Then after lunch we watched a movie of her choice before nap time. So sweet to have time with my sweet girl.

A Dragonfly in the Hand

Yesterday we went on a short safari to a small lake a few blocks away. I am embarrassed that I have never explored this little area. I think I have been reluctant because I wasn't sure what kind of people would be hiding in the bushes, but it really is a sweet little pond in the middle of the city. It is a peat bog, one of the last in the area, and thus swampy and humid. We've had such a dry summer, though, that the trails were fine to walk, and we were able to walk the paths all the way around. There is a section that has some boardwalk over the lake, and we spent several minutes there, trying to find the frogs among the grasses, watching the ducks and dragonflies, and enjoying the sunshine.

My goal for the outing was to collect some pond water to take home and see what was in it (if anything), but the kids really weren't interested in that, so I nixed the idea. But the trip wasn't a waste, because we found a dead dragonfly in the middle of the trail, just before we got back to the car. We took the thing home, and today we spent some time drawing it.


The brilliant colors were already starting to fade, and it was pretty fragile, but I was surprised how long both the kids spent working on their illustrations. We also watched a video on YouTube about the dragonfly life cycle - it has some great footage. From there we watched other videos about different insects, all of them from the same producers.

Otherwise, we have been trying to figure out a schedule and routines for our new way of life. I am encountering some resistance from my free-spirited son, but I know he needs some structure and there are just some things (like math) a kid's gotta learn in life, whatever schooling method he chooses. I am praying he will relax into accepting my authority, and keep in mind that he has more freedom than some of his friends.

I do like how he chooses to spend his free time. He has been busy this week with a new book from Grandma and Papa, building paper airplanes and flying them.

He has also been building forts with Annika, reading books, and building with Lego and K'Nex. I hope I can relax some more and enjoy this time, and try to keep in mind what's important.

Evolution vs. Creation, Seven-year-old Style

Today I had the honor of discussing evolution vs. creation with Gabriel. He asked about why the dinosaurs aren't in the Bible, and why it doesn't talk about us evolving from fish. How in the world do I explain these concepts to him? I don't mind him questioning our faith; I know the probing will come. I just expected these issues to come up in the teen years, I guess. How do I explain my view of how evolutionary theories fit in with my faith and belief in the Bible? Over the years I have come to a comfortable understanding with myself about these topics, but trying to distill such concepts to a seven-year-old, who hasn't even studied basic genetics, was tricky. I really wish Aaron had been home for dinner to back me up on that one. I don't even know where to begin. I hope the answers I gave him hold him off for a bit until I figure this one out. Boy, this kid sure knows how to keep me on my toes!