At Home and Learning

Last week we didn’t do much for learning. I was sick as a dog and unable to even move. So we just took it easy. Thankfully we are doing a “de-schooling” time. It’s a recommended time to re-learn that learning can be fun and doesn’t HAVE to look like a classroom. We still read everyday and try to do some kind of math and writing activity, but I don’t pressure him right now to be perfect. Heck, I’m still learning my teaching style!

We are currently reading The Indian in the Cupboard by Lynne Reid Banks – a childhood favorite of mine! We discuss what’s happening (Omri just made a horse come to life for Little Bear) and what he thinks might happen later in the story!

This week we are starting our “Friends Around the World” tour using The Friend magazine. They are highlighting a different country every month.  So this week we will focus on Mexico until this month’s edition comes in the mail. They even have a “passport” that you collect stamps in. Here’s Ethen’s

January was Mexico and since I didn’t have the subscription, we are getting a late start. Today we learned about a family that lives in Mexico, where Mexico is (in relation to the United States), it’s capital city, and what their flag looks like. It was a lot of fun! Ethen painted his own version of their flag for a craft today.

We then headed out to take Boomer for a walk. Boomer did great, of course he wants to stay with Ethen, but Ethen gets drug if he hold him.

We walked about a mile and a half total, stopping at a park at about the half way part for Ethen to play. While there I snapped some pictures of the pooch and this is my favorite!!! Look at that tongue!!!

After we got back, Ethen and I snuggled on the couch and watched Eragon and talked about how cool it would be to be dragon riders! We then headed outside for some fun. We looked for some smooth rocks for tomorrow’s activity and then Ethen was inspired to build – and he kept building! He built a cannon and rocket launcher…

and a parachute… (my little thinker)

He said the parachute failed and he was going to try again and had ideas about what went wrong. Of course that was with some probing and encouraging him to think about what he didn’t like about it!

We started dinner and Ethen wanted to help. Why not – he’s old enough to help peel potatoes! And that’s exactly what he did, then I helped him dice them too!!!

He was nervous about dicing because about 2 years ago he cut his thumb pretty bad because he didn’t wait for me. Tonight he was super careful and of course followed instruction to the “T”. I did the big quarter cuts while Ethen diced them and put them into the pan. After they were cooked he even mashed them! They were so tasty!!! Ethen then had an idea and I said “why not!” We ate dinner by candle light! It was fun and a special moment!

So, Ethen learned about Mexico, how to make mashed potatoes and even learned that failure doesn’t mean the end, you can always try again. Not all learning is ABCs and 123s, yes those are important don’t get me wrong, but there is so much more to learn in life that isn’t taught in a classroom. I am grateful for the time Ethen spent in public school, if it were not for their programs he would probably still struggle with speech, but I am loving being a fulltime mother and teacher to him. It is hard, don’t get me wrong, but I can see the benefits from it all ready!

Children’s Discovery Museum

What an eventful day! First we had to take Jonathon to work today (just like every Friday) so we could have the car for our Friday Fun Day’s – today we were going to the Children’s Discovery Museum with our friends the Smith’s. We get home and we find THIS…

I just about killed me a dog! Then I realized he was stuck and couldn’t figure out how to get down – that made me laugh. I’m still pretty mad at him, but I know I will laugh about this one day!

We headed out with the Smith’s and had a blast. The first thing we did was climb “The Tower”. Man who ever designed that, needs to be shot… or given a job designing gyms! My legs got a massive workout climbing the stairs, in which each step HAD to be at least 15 inches high!

They had this drum that shot air out – Ethen tried to figure it out on his own but realized it worked best if someone stabilized it while he pulled the plunger back!

One level was nothing but music and had a giant guitar, drums, chimes, xylophone and maracas! It was fun making music with the kids. I bet the person working that level had bleeding ears by the end of the day though!

Now that we are out of the tower of “Death to all Quadriceps” we moved onto the rest of the museum. They recently added a new exhibit for thinkers – a mystery room where clues were given and problems needed solving. It was a bit out of the scope of our young learners so we quickly moved on. The ONE game they enjoyed, a spelling game, other kids would interrupt the game so it wasn’t much fun after all! There was a mat with a bunch of random letters, you had to spell a word all the way to the end. If you stepped wrong it would misspell the word. The tiles were very sensitive and unsupervised kiddos kept running onto it, thus messing up our game! Oh well, onto the next one!

Next we hit up the “Invention Room” and this is where Ethen shined! They had several building stations. One was to build and test a racecar from Legos. They had ramps to test them on, if your car made it to the end, it was a good one. If not, rebuild until it does! Ethen set straight to work building his racecar and it made it all the way on the first try! WAY TO GO!!!

Ethen then started helping our friend, Ben, build his racecar!

This next table was the BEST one and by far Ethen’s crowning achievement! The task was to build a bridge from one ramp to the other that would allow a ping pong ball to roll completely through. It was tough and to be honest I had to step back and (which was the hardest part for me I think) let Ethen figure it out. It took him a few tries, but with encouragement and a few subtle hints he finally got it!

 

Watch as we test out Ethen’s bridge! For a brief moment you can see the pure satisfaction on his face! He was very proud of himself (and so was I) that he had done it all on his own! So glad I didn’t ruin that for him by trying to do it for him!

Our last station was the water station, for obvious reason! These kids had so much fun playing in the water. Building dams and learning about the power that water has. There was one part where you could close doors to let the water build and then open them again to let the water through. Ethen and I did a test to see if it would be easy or hard to open the doors with the water full. We tested the water low and he found the doors were fairly easy to open. We then closed them and allowed the water to fill. Then we tried to open them again and he discovered that they were definitely harder to open! He learned that water has weight and it’s force can make it hard to move objects! What a discovery!'

There was so much to see and do, we didn’t get to it all. Thankfully it’s not a one time thing. I’m sure we’ll be back for more learning very soon!!

Boomer

So we rescued this Golden Retriever a couple of months ago. We were nervous about it at first because of Ethen’s allergies – but he has been managing very well. This dog has warmed his way into our hearts and there’s no doubt that he’s meant to be with us! So this post is all about Boomer. Appropriately named because his tail – when it hits, well, anything – makes the loudest noise! BOOM BOOM BOOM!!!

Yes, that’s Ethen in there with the dog!

ROAD TRIP!!!

Look at that face!!!

The boy and his dog!

Boomer was first raised with Chihuahuas and not thinks he is small enough to be a lap dog!