Three Plus Two

We've Been Busy

So, the past few weeks there has been a lot going on!  And poor Amy who asked me about Life of Fred I have left hanging all this time.  (Sorry, Amy!) As it happens, I have spent much of the last few weeks going cross-eyed over math curricula so hopefully I will soon be able to do a giant middle school-ish math post wherein I provide you with every single one of my "expert" opinions (hah) about math. 

In addition to thinking about math (or trying to avoid thinking about math, which also happens at our house), we also made a short trip to my mom and dad's for my mom's birthday, had a lovely visit with a good friend, rode around in my dad's 1931 Oldsmobile (pictured above), came home and spent a week visiting Memphis' Pink Palace Museum and Brooks Art Museum, attended a giant homeschool convention (where Jim Weiss and Susan Wise Bauer were speakers)... and contracted a nasty stomach virus which has occupied most of the past week.  

Next week... baseball!

(4 kids, 3 teams.  Even bilocation wouldn't help me much.)

Anyway, back to the pictures. 

My dad's car does actually run -- remarkably well for a 1931.  Andy got to drive it around the neighborhood, and we all took turns as passenger.  "No seatbelts, no handles, no air bags," as Farmerboy told us, and a big cloud of smoke following behind.

As we've been home the past three weeks or so (and Andy has been traveling a lot), we've also been working hard on our garden.

Well, Andy has been working hard.  I hang out with the baby.

Here's how the garden looked when we started.

It's a lot greener now.  The lettuce we overwintered has really taken off.  And we now have hedges of young berry bushes, plus a fencerow of muscadines and a couple of fig trees. 

(For the curious, we're building a simple maze design. I tried to find a quick link but am holding a 9 month old octopus.  Potager post also forthcoming, I hope.)

And of course there is the normal craziness...

 

 

Botanical Gardens

A flower bed at the botanical gardens

Last week we chucked our chores and headed to the local botanical gardens on a beautiful, warm fall day.   I haven't visited these particular gardens in about five years, and they've made many interesting additions.  We spent an afternoon at the gardens and only saw two exhibits... but with membership in hand and only thirty minutes away, we can come back whenever we want!

The first area we saw was called My Big Backyard -- the children's garden.  That's where the "flower beds" were.

Living room couch...

Monster hut...

Chipmunk and Pip sitting in the "chrysalis swing", clutching the beloved maps...

Note that the hat has cars on it!!! BOY hat!!!

The kids found it enormously funny that the tree/playhouse was actually a bird house...

... complete with giant nest.

Chipmunk, playing on the giant worms in "Wormville"...

... and riding a dinosaur on the Prehistoric Plant Walk. 

The Prehistoric Plant Walk was a big hit with my prehistorically minded kids.  Magnolias, conifers, horsetails, and ferns grew in this garden.  Granted, the horsetails and ferns were less spectacular than the horsetails and ferns we could see in our backyard in New York, where most of the rocks we turned over were fossils.  But we did not have a big pit where replica Triceratops horns are buried.

We also saw petrified wood uncovered in a Mississippi site not from us.

And there was a big rock to climb on.

And, oh yeah, we saw some flowers.

And a good time was had by all!

 

 

Hummingbird Festival

 A few weeks ago we attended the Hummingbird Migration Celebration at the Strawberry Plains Audobon Center.  Considering the hype surrounding this festival, we had high hopes.  Unfortunately, we ended up disappointed and somewhat wiser: there were too many people at the festival to actually be able to see birds.  Next year, we'll avoid the festival and drive down on a weekday to watch the hummingbird migration sans hoopla.

It also rained -- poured -- which meant that people crowded into the few tents, with little respect for those who hadn't seen birds or for four year olds.  If we were disappointed by crowds and expense and the woman at the gate who refused to give us the 12 seater van discount because we weren't a "group"... Katydid was very, very frustrated.   She got to see exactly one hummingbird -- a male ruby-throated that was being banded.

Tiny birds -- the bands are so small I'm not sure how he was able to manuever them so well.

One surprise of the day: we got to see a Mississippi Kite up close.

But most of us felt like this by the end of the day.

What I Did on my Spring Break

We're back!  We got home yesterday around 4:30 after a long three-day drive. The wind was howling and temperatures were in the 40's (a far cry from the beautiful sunny 80's we experienced most of the time we were gone), but that did not stop the kids from gearing up and heading outside to investigate all the changes in the yard that have happened since the last week in March.  For one thing, all the snow is gone. For another, all the meltwater is, too.  The day before we left three weeks ago it was still Lent and much of the yard and garden was underwater... under ice... a gigantic mud pit.  In fact, when I let everyone outside to clean out the van before we left, the siren song of all that water and mud was too strong for the boys to resist, and I ended up doing an extra load of laundry that night... right before Pop slipped off one our dining room benches, bit straight through his lip, and endured his customary pre-vacation trip to the ER.  (The doctor and nurse on duty both shook their heads and said, "Boys.")  But now mud and injury are both distant memories as the forsythia and daffodils are blooming, the grass is turning green, and the crabapples are even forming little flower buds. (A bit early, I think.)

I am still surrounded by trip chaos -- laundry, suitcases, backpacks, and a bare refrigerator -- but I thought I would just make a quick post to let my 6 or 10 faithful readers know that I am still alive.  Here is a brief rundown of "what I did on my spring break":

• Got a tan.  Did I mention beautiful, sunny weather in the 80's?
• Forgot my camera.  So, alas, no pictures.
• Went to the zoo.  Saw grizzly bears and wolves.
• Missed meeting up with Jen and her family. Still bummed about that, but... next time! :-)
• Ate way too much drive-thru food.
• Noted that too much drive-thru food is NOT GOOD for certain small members of my family, who now need to detox in order to become human again.
• Ate catfish. Yum.
• Attended Easter Mass in a beautiful, vibrant church.
• Drove around looking at dozens of houses.  Unfortunately, most could be eliminated as good places for us without even walking inside.

All right, so I dropped that last unobtrusively at the end, but I guess it's official now, so I can say something about it, although "it" has consumed a great deal of energy since Christmas...

We're moving.  Some time this fall.  To west Tennessee.

If you know of a suitable house for a large family and a flock of chickens, let me know.

Honesdale, PA

We made an unscheduled trip to Honesdale, PA with Andy Tuesday.  It's not one of the great vacation destinations most people know (although, if you're a New Yorker you may know where it is because it's an area populated by summer camps for New Yorkers), but it was an interesting trip nevertheless.  Andy was headed down there to visit a small bank.  We went with him because right as he was getting ready to leave, a coworker sent him a link about a murder that had been committed overnight in our tiny little town.  The killer was still at large and details were sketchy.  Andy decided he would have no peace of mind if he were to go out of town (even on a day trip three hours away) and leave us at home with a murderer on the loose, so we all piled in the van for an improvised vacation.

(Police did actually find the murderer while we were gone.  In Connecticut.  It turned out that the man he murdered was his father.  In my experience -- having grown up in a small town -- most small town murders fit in this vein, and are big news because they are so rare.  I know that people who live in cities debate whether or not moving to the country to "get away from the crime" is worth it, because "there's crime everywhere."  There is crime everywhere, but events like this are very, very rare here.)

The drive down to Honesdale was gorgeous.  About half the trip, we followed the Delaware River, and even crossed it once or twice, so that we can now say that like Washington, we crossed the Delaware. Once in Honesdale, we dropped Andy off at his meeting and visited the Dorflinger-Suydam Nature Reserve.  (We did NOT visit the glass museum.  For obvious reasons.)

Katydid brought the camera and took some pictures while I herded boys.  I'll just say right now that I was glad we were the only visitors at that particular time, because I am sure we scared off any wildlife in a 5 mile radius.  Boys who have been cooped up in a van for 3 hours can be a little loud and boisterous when you finally let them out.

In any case, here are some of Katydid's photos...

 

Porcupine damage?

 
 Making the best of a difficult situation.
  
 
 
 
 
  
 
 
  
 
 
 

Week 7: Busy Week

9/28 -10/4

Of course, the busy weekend could be coloring my perceptions of the whole week.  Swim lessons began (for Gareth, Katydid, and Farmerboy), violin lessons continued (for Katydid), there was a trip to the library, and the rain held off long enough for our Little Flowers and Blue Knights groups to meet at the Shrine of the North American Martyrs in Auriesville.

 
The shrine is built on the site of the martyrdom of St. Isaac Jogues and his companions.  Bl. Kateri Tekakwitha was later born here, and baptized just a few miles away.  We had a picnic lunch with one of the priests and the kids played soccer in the field by the gift shop.  

Another important event this week...

The twins turned 4! Four years ago I could not imagine surviving to this point.  And yet -- here we are. :-) 

So those were the special occasions.  The boys had to unwrap presents early on Saturday morning as fast as they could, because Andy had to take Farmerboy to his swim lesson by 8 AM.  I don't think it bothered them much, though. ;-)

Other highlights of week 7...

The boys rediscovered stamping.  Here, Farmerboy is experimenting with thumprints.

 
Inspired by a project in The Usborne Complete Book of Art Ideas, Gareth cut up an eraser to make his own stamps.  He found that stamp ink worked better than the black tempera paint he started out with.

Gareth and Farmerboy also messed around with acrylics a bit...

Gareth's gas giants inside a nebula.  As he was painting, he realized he had very little black paint.  I provided him with a very cool book I bought off a bargain table several years ago, a collection of Hubble photos called The Universe.  Since some regions of space are full of colored dust, Gareth decided that might work for his background.  He tried to fill in some black in the gaps.  This was basically a painting to experiment with the qualities of acrylic.  Since I know very little about painting myself, I will need to do some research and experimentation to figure out how to extend his explorations.  I find that this is the area in which I often fall down.  I do a fair job at introducing the kids to novel materials and projects, but not such a good job at deepening skills.

Farmerboy was inspired by Gareth's painting, so he decided to paint his own planet:

The red circle is the planet, surrounded by purple atmosphere, streaming off into space.

Katydid and I fooled around with oil pastels this week.  I sat down one day when the boys were stamping to experiment with blending oil pastels.

I was just laying down patches of color to figure out how oil pastels work (on black paper).

Katydid drew a landscape instead:

On another day, she copied down this poem she wrote and illustrated it with oil pastels:

She and I also did some sketches for the monthly sketch project, but I'll put those in a separate post.

A Brief Summary of 1st grade academics:

I often forget to mention Farmerboy's academics, which are a little different (obviously) from the big kids'.  This is what we're using:

Modern Curriculum Press Phonics A , spending a longer time working on consonant sounds, as he has some trouble remembering them

Handwriting Without Tears , the 1st grade book

A mish-mash of reading materials, including silly sentences I write for him, word cards I cut out from cardstock he can use to make his own silly sentences (silly is a big draw here), and Sonlight's I Can Read It! series (Book 1).  I find the Sonlight stories a little weird in some places, but it's nice having them all together in a few books.

Mainly Montessori math materials... the 100 chain is what he has been interested in most since we began our school year in August.  He's learned to lay out the tens cards and count the beads one-to-one to 100.  He also counts on the 100 board, counts piano keys, counts lots of stuff spontaneously.  When we first began, he would often skip numbers, had trouble remembering the -9 to -ty (29, 30, etc) transition, but he's got them down now.  Last year I tried to use Singapore's kindergarten workbook with him, which was a disaster.  He learned to write his numbers, but that was about it.  (In my defense, I had to be able to do something with him while also rocking a baby for 2 hours every afternoon.)  This year, since we've switched back to Montessori, is going much, much better.  I've done presentations of the decimal system using base 10 blocks, and he is keen to be able to go on to the 1000 chain now that he can do the 100 chain.

 

A few words about the assortment of books here... on Sept. 29, the Feast of St. Michael and the Archangels, the kids reminisced about the year we made shields.  So Farmerboy got off on a bit of a knight tangent.  He made himself a cardboard and aluminum foil suit of armor, and shields for himself and his little brothers.  The boys then added their own coats of arms.  Why don't I have pictures?  I have no idea.

And then... the duck and chick books.  On and off for months, the twins have made it evident that they are fascinated with eggs.  They pretend to be flood monsters hatching out of their eggs (they lie on their backs and put pillows on their bellies for "eggs").  They pretend to be gigantic plum-plums hatching of their eggs. (Pip's invention.)  They pretend that they are chicks and I am the Mommy and they hatch out of their eggs and then go on the road. ("Chicks on the road!" they call just like we do when the chickens wander into the street.)  Their dearest wish is that we would get a rooster so instead of eating our eggs, we would let some hatch.  And then they became enamored of Daisy.  So I have been canvasing the library shelves for chick/duck/egg picture books.  I think I have found all of them by now, and will probably need to hunt through the rest of the library system.

(Ack!  How could I forget?  We also read Five Little Ducks about a million times this week!)

Read this week

Gareth: Peter and the Starcatchers, Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson; Fellowship of the Ring; St. Dominic and the Rosary (Vision Books); various Dig!, Muse, and Faces issues re: prehistory

Katydid: Little Women; Dealing with Dragons, Patricia Wrede; Louisa May Alcott issues of Cobblestone; Queen Victoria issues of Calliope; Dig! Neandertals

Read-alouds this week: The Hobbit (everyone); Farmerboy (little boys); Once Upon a Time Saints: Around the Year (appropriate pages)

Listened to this week:  Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH, CDs 3&4 (mostly)

Watched this week: The Planets: Formation of the Solar System; Ken Burn's National Parks: Episode 3 (I have no idea why #2 was skipped)

 

   

 

Week 4: We Catch Another Cold

Week 4 was this week, Sept. 7-Sept. 13.  I feel like I am writing a continuing saga with these colds.  "And then we got sick.  And then we got better.  And then we got sick again.  And then..."

It's just one of those years where I date events by the virus we had, I guess.

Anyway, I forgot to mention in week 3 that Gareth made his first ever trip to the ER.  The kids were having bike races down the hill in our yard and onto the driveway.  (The road is too busy to ride on.) Gareth hit the top of a metal trash can and fell off his bike, cutting his leg on the way down.  I was inside putting the little ones to sleep while this was going on.  So when Gareth came to tell me in a reasonably calm but somewhat loud voice that he had fallen and cut himself but that the cut wasn't bleeding much. I told him to try and take care of it himself so he wouldn't wake the boys up. 

When I came out in a few minutes (Chipmunk woke up anyway), I took a look at the cut and felt really, really bad for shushing Gareth.  Fortunately, Andy had just (as in, he'd been home for 5 minutes) gotten home from Boston, so he took Gareth to the ER for the staples that were removed on an extremely unplanned day in week 4.

Gareth and I are trying to work out a few kinks in the way the year is going.  I have tossed Lingua Mater... not because it's bad, but because it's just not working for him.  Katydid will probably use it next year, or perhaps even sooner, as she's using  Lingua Mater 6 with the grammar supplement right now and enjoying it.  I am thinking of using Our Mother Tongue: An Introductory Guide to English Grammar, which is what Ambleside Online recommends for Year 7.  For 2 reasons: 1) I own the book already and 2) it isn't as drill intensive as something like, say, Seton.  And then I think we're going to add in Editor In Chief Beginning Book: Grammar Disasters and Punctuation Faux Pas (Editor in Chief Beginining).  Because this is where we run into some of those learning difficulties I have mentioned before.

Another area we're tweaking has to do with planning -- his planning and his time management -- and also maybe a change in style to some extent.  What I've seen is that Gareth doesn't seem to be as motivated to work through plans that I make out of his interests after I have written them down and made them into "school" as he is if I just, say, leave the book out on the couch, or write down a series of choices on the whiteboard.  So I'm wondering again about unschooling vs. structured schooling, and how best to help Gareth learn to self-initiate, follow through, and finish projects, when goal-making on a weekly basis or making lists of assignments to complete both seem to some extent unpalatable. 

We also had to change the way we were planning with Katydid this week.  She decided she didn't like giving herself even vague assignments (like "botany") for each day of the week.  Instead we decided to make out a list of what she wanted to do for the week, broken down into subject areas.  In the morning she refers to the list and decides what she wants to do that day.  Katydid is mature for her age, motivated, and interested in what she's doing, so this works pretty well.  She knows she'll do some subjects every day -- math, Latin, language -- so those aren't written down; they're just assumed.

But the big deal this week was a visit to the NY State Museum in Albany. 

Your two year old throws fits when you attempt to make him leave the "mammufs", right?

Devonian era fossils found in our county... the bottom picture is a tree stump.

Playing in the Discovery Room...

Stopping to pose for a picture.

Blackberry Picking

Last Saturday we went blackberry picking at "Scout Farm", a piece of land near us that is owned by the Boy Scouts.  The wild blackberries are free for the picking, and all Scout families can go up there whenever they like.  My kids (especially Chipmunk) tend to eat every single blackberry off our bushes as soon as they are picked, and I wanted to make a cobbler.  So we packed into the van and headed up to Scout Farm.

I have to warn you, though, the whole experience was less idyllic than those of you who live in the city or suburbs might assume.  In order to thoroughly understand this experience, you must add to these pictures the sounds of gunfire not as far away as you might hope (target practice, I am assuming); the grumbling noise of construction equipment; and the chug-chug of an old tractor cutting hay.  Mix them all together, and you have a nice "quiet" day in the country.

One of the first things we saw were these prints.  The picture doesn't do them justic, because they were big.  Bigger than dog prints.  Bear maybe??

This is a beaver pond, but we couldn't find the lodge.

Andy and Katydid did most of the picking.  I was busy keeping track of Chipmunk, and the boys decided they would rather "hunt bear" than pick blackberries, even with the promise of blackberry cobbler.

Fortunately, they did not find one. 

Katydid and I had more luck "hunting" with the camera.

Frost Aster, by Katydid.

On the way home, we saw a porcupine crossing the road, but Andy couldn't get a good picture.   Can you see him in the grass there, a big blob of white-tipped quills?

Landscapes from the way home...

And finally, blackberries for cobbler:

  

A Busy First Week

According to the state, our new school year starts July 1.  So every year on July 1 I have a tradition of shaking everybody's hand and informing them that they've moved up a grade.  My kids always laugh at this, because I'm sure they know how arbitrary it is. 

Theoretically, we are on summer "break".  All this means is that we're not doing math or diagramming sentences.  At our Little Flowers/Blue Knights picnic Saturday, one of the missionary brothers of LaSalette asked me if we were done with our school and if we would start again on September 8 when our homeschool group has its annual "kick off the new school year" picnic.  I have a stock answer for those sorts of questions, which is that we go year round, taking breaks as we need or want them.  It's hard for me to limit our "school year" only to those times when we do math, and as patient and kind as Brother is, I'm not sure he really wanted to hear the long, complicated explanation.

So even thought it's summer time, I'll be doing week-in-review posts for the new school year as I can.  At the end of the year I print out all the review posts and add them to our documentation.  Even so, they're just snippets of our lives.  If there's anything that seems to be missing or that you'd like me to elaborate on, please feel free to let me know! 

This week was probably one of the busiest of the year (which is why there were no blog posts.)  I still can't seem to adjust to the yearly rhythm of life in upstate New York.  It seems like everyone tries to cram every single activity that could possibly be done into the first two weeks of July.  This year summer soccer season began (three nights a week), Gareth had Boy Scout camp, Katydid went to a day camp at the Farmer's Museum, and our Little Flowers/Blue Knights group had a field day.  That was all we could possibly manage to fit in. What we couldn't do that we had wanted to were botanical drawing lessons and photography at our local arboretum. 

 

Scout camp.  Gareth came within 4 points of earning his archery badge in one week.  He did manage to earn his geology badge and come home with some nifty fossils, and he improved his swimming skills. The camp has a terrific fossil bed with Devonian-age fossils (mainly shells) literally every few inches.  Camp is only about fifty minutes away from our house, so Andy drove down every morning and met Gareth for breakfast, and I brought the little boys and Katydid down for a family outdoor meal, cooked in rock ovens and over the campfire, and for the closing ceremonies' barbecue.  After running around in the woods with the youngest son of Gareth's scoutmaster, hauling firewood, and cooking crescent rolls on sticks over the fire, Pop turned to me with huge eyes and said, "Can we live here???"  Gareth did well being away from home for the first time, but was happy to be back with a hot shower and all his books.

The Farmer's Museum is supposed to replicate a small village around 1845.  Katydid spent her week at daycamp weaving baskets, pounding iron hooks in the blacksmith shop, quilling, making folk art paintings, wandering around the art museum across the street, taking care of farm animals, and playing Native American games.  Since Thursday and Friday were nice days (the other days were cold and rainy), we walked around the museum after we picked her up.  The major exhibit indoors is called "Wild Times" and displays the main animals of the various regions of New York.  They've set up a puppet theater for the little ones -- easily the little boys' favorite place.

 

Although Farmerboy also liked the bear rug. 

Katydid has been very upset with her brothers lately, because they never want to play soccer with her.  Having to play soccer after spending all day at camp made her tired, but happy!

So our daily routine was a little unusual this week, but by the end of the week we had fallen into a predictable pattern.  Andy would get up super early to take care of all the chickens and turkeys and drive down to Scout camp to have breakfast with Gareth.  I would get up and take an incredibly fast shower so I could be in and out by the time that Chipmunk realized I was gone and woke up.  Then I would get everybody breakfast, and we would be out the door by 8 AM-ish.  On the way there and the back, the boys would quiz me on my knowledge of dinosaurs, boa constrictors, insects, and Star Wars.  When we arrived back home, Andy would already be there, getting ready to go to work. We'd chat for a few minutes, then I'd wash dishes and do laundry while the boys watched a little TV or played. After that habits would kick in and the boys would demand to work on some kind of project.  After they were satisfied with their project work, they'd wander off to play before lunch. I'd take a quick break at lunchtime, then more dishes and laundry while the boys played, and it was off a little early to get Katydid so the boys could have a nap in the van. After this week, I have no idea how mothers of large families who have their kids in school manage. We are all very tired and ready to stay home in the mornings.

The one thing I did find very interesting this week was how deeply ingrained our "choice time" routine has become.  I suggested exactly one activity this week, and it was on a morning when some of us were recovering from a little mystery virus that has been going around -- nausea, stomach upset, and cold symptoms, all together.  Everything else was suggested -- "demanded" might be a better word -- by a child.

Here's the breakdown of what the little boys did this week:

Monday: Helped Andy build a chicken tractor. (Andy took Monday off.) Monday was mostly sunny.

Tuesday: Built spaceships out of cardboard boxes. This is the one activity I suggested.  Pip was still recovering from the sudden onset of our virus on the sidelines of a soccer game the night before, Farmerboy wasn't feeling too well, and neither was I, so I let the boys watch an episode of Star Wars: Clone Wars.  It was raining, and after the TV was turned off the boys were a little at loose ends, so I thought spaceships might be welcome.

 

This is Pip's spaceship.  We covered the outside with aluminum foil. The paper plate "steering wheels" were Farmerboy's idea, as are the feather "lasers".

Wedsnesday: Yet another TV inspired activity, I'm embarassed to say, but this one was entirely the twins' idea.  They'd watched an episode of Sid the Science kid about leaves. Pop immediately wanted to draw leaves, and then collect his own leaves. Pip really got into collecting leaves (in between rain showers). He did not want to draw them himself, so I relented and drew for him.  Both twins wanted to tape leaves on their papers. And Pop told me some stories about them to write down.

We put them on the bulletin board.

Thursday: Another cold, rainy morning. After a long discussion about fossils in the van, the boys arrived home ready to work, and my desire to load the breakfast dishes into the dishwasher was nothing but a pesky obstacle.  I decided to get with the program and do my chores later. First the boys got out the fossils, then the shells, and then the playdough to make their own "fossils":

 

 

Pop lined all his shells up below a fossil guide.

Then the boys decided they wanted to paint.

 

Pop and Farmerboy are painting dinosaurs. Pip likes to paint boxes.

 

Farmerboy's dinosaur. 

I have a whole post I want to do about painting with little ones. Hopefully soon.

Friday: Friday morning was sunny -- finally.  The boys found some earthworms and rolie-polies in the flower bed where they can play with their trucks and spent a good long while setting up worm farms and rolie-polie habitats in my good freezer containers. (All in the name of science, right?) Then Pip wanted to build a bug out of clay. They used sculpey, plastalina, and florist's wire.  (And Pip actually made a spider.)

 

Rolie-polie habitat.

 

Studying insect books.

 

Pip's spider close up.

A rolie-polie Pip made, Pip's spider, a bee Pop and I made together, and a plastalina butterfly with proboscis by Farmerboy.

This week was a lot of work, but I was pleased with the results.  I was proud of Gareth for doing so well at camp, happy that Katydid was able to follow her own interests, and very satisfied with how independent and motivated the little boys were in doing their own work.

Seven Quick Takes Friday - Wild Kingdom Edition

One

Katydid is having a birthday vacation this week.  Every year about this time her father has to make a trip to Omaha. This is why.  The last time the meeting took place on Katydid's birthday, we lived in St. Louis.  Katydid was turning five. We decided to make it a family vacation.  I remember being very impressed with myself that I took a seven year old, a five year old, and a one year old to the zoo all by myself.  This year, unfortunately, we can't drive to Omaha.  So Andy decided to take Katydid with him instead. All reports indicate that she is having a great time.  She's keeping a travel journal, taking lots of pictures at the zoo, and generally reveling in the fact that she gets to do things like take escalators and moving sidewalks, which we can't do with a fleet of strollers. (And, yes, Katydid will be attending the stockholder's meeting on Saturday. She's bringing a lot of books.)

Two

The Omaha Zoo, by the way, is awesome.  Whenever I tell people that the Omaha Zoo is awesome they usually look at me funny until I say, "Mutual of Omaha?  Wild Kingdom? Remember?" (Actually, Wild Kingdom is on the air again. According to the website, you can watch full episodes on YouTube if you miss them on Animal Planet.)  The Desert Dome is probably the most unique exhibit, but their aquarium is top-notch, too, and taking the steam train around the zoo with the prairie dogs popping up beside the track? Pretty cool stuff.

Three

As you might imagine, I have been thinking about the value of travel in education quite a bit lately.  It first struck me when I was standing in the library, in the children's non-fiction section, and I happened to find myself eye-level with all the tall grass prairie books.  It was like being ambushed.  When we lived in St. Louis, we used to visit a small island of tall-grass prairie, maintained in the rolling hills southwest of town.  What I remember most is a visit in September, the yellow stems of grass waving above our heads, woven through with goldenrod and sunflower. It was hot and dusty and the sun was the same color as the grass.  The monarchs had begun their migration, and there were hundreds of butterflies flitting from flower to flower. I was pregnant with Farmerboy, just a little sick, and very thankful that the buffalo hotdog stayed down so I could enjoy the day.  Remembering that day while standing over a thousand miles away in a tiny library in upstate New York, it hit me, Most of the kids who read these books will never see a tall-grass prairie.  The thought made me more than a little sad. But it also brought some satisfaction, because I knew at that moment that all the traveling we do is worth it. All the experiences of traveling may be hard to distill into educationese for the quarterly report (and many of them are just hard, period), but they are formative.  For me, too.

Four

However, living in a house full of boys without the presence of even one girl requires some adjustment.  It's like living inside the Military Channel.

Five

Actually, the boys have been following Farmerboy's lead over the past week and have become obsessed with all things dinosaur.  Gareth had his dinosaur obsession when he was about seven or eight, and second grade is still fondly remembered as the year when we did dinosaurs, and nothing but.  (Actually, Katydid reminded me the other day that we did a little ancient history at the beginning of that year, before it turned into the Year of the Dinosaur.)  Needless to say, we have A LOT of dinosaur books, videos, etc.  Gareth even did dinosaur math.  (It was the only way I could get him to do math, period. So I wrote booklets full of dinosaur word problems.  He wasn't reading well either, so I would make up dinosaur stories and write them line by line on a blackboard for him to read.)

Six

The big kids are going to be doing "end-of-the-year" projects this year as we wrap up the official school year in May and June.  Really, all this means is that I want them to gather up what they've been doing all year into a product... which is by no means final, really... more like a stop along the way.  The process of deciding on these projects went like this.  I started thinking about activities they'd been doing on their own that had lasted for a long time. In Gareth's case, he's been drawing and writing about his invented planet for a long time, and Katydid's nature photography is an abiding interest for her (as long time readers can attest).  So I suggested that they pull these together into books.  This suggestion was met with approval -- excitement, even.  Hopefully, we'll be able to pull it off.  Stay tuned.

Seven

As you might expect, we were asked a lot of questions on our travels about our homeschooling practices. What is an average day like? (Average??)  Do we use a boxed curriculum? (No.)  How do we manage to take off entire months during the "school" year?  Will we do school into the summer?

The answer to that last question is that I don't consider our trips all vacation.  We go to the zoo, to nature centers, to botanical gardens, to museums, to historical sites, to state and national parks... etc., etc.  They're more like field trips.  And do you know how many books a kid can read when he (or she) is stuck in the car for 20 hours?? So, while our trips do mean that we don't do our regular workbook routine, and while I do count SOME days off, I can actually count many days as present. And so, officially, we have a little less than 20 days left to log in our school year.  In our relaxed fashion, we'll go through May and part of June... and this year, I am taking July OFF. Or, well, as "off" as we get. ;-)