Nature Block Day 2

Today we headed out to hike along the ocean at the Douglas Family Preserve. There was so much to see and do. (BTW, you can see our famous coastal "June Gloom" heavily in effect. It makes for comfortable days, but not as vibrant pictures. This isn't the usual California beach view you usually see, but it is among my favorite - the little oak woodland areas on cliffs above rocky beaches with the kelp beds hugging the shore.)

(edited to add: I am having problems with the pictures as they have been fine and become broken links a few times already. Now they are too big, but I am not messing with them because they are still there and that is better then nothing.)

From Woolfairy

Trees that look like a brachiosaurus

From Woolfairy

Ocean Views

From Woolfairy

Exploring rotted tree trunks

From Woolfairy

Last Main Lesson Block of the Year

The late Spring Nature Block

Today we started it out on an auspicious note by heading to the beach for a hike between the dunes and alongside a Snowy Plover Nesting area (no actual snowy plovers were sighted today, however)

A Little Drop Spindle

Look what Z has learned to do! Pretty cool if you ask me.

Goody O'Grumpity

The book Goody O'Grumpity was a side lesson this week and we read it, Z recited the poem from it aloud, and then we all worked together to make the spice cake from the back page. Z even got some fraction work in because, instead of the several spices it called for, we only had pumpkin pie spice, so we had to add all the component spices together. A nice side lesson. And apparently Z already has a handle on fraction basics.

The cake though? It did not turn out well. And frankly, calling it cake isn't completely accurate. It is more like a sweet, heavy bread. Maybe it was our yeast, maybe not, but it came out heavy and dry and didn't rise much at all. Really unsuccessful. It did smell fantastic while it was baking though. But, not to be deterred, and refusing to waste, today we had Chocolate Bread Pudding for breakfast, made from the leftover failed bread. (oops. Cake.) This was infinitely more successful.

So a little of Goody O'Grumpity and a little of Joseph Had a Little Overcoat (Joseph had a little overly heavy Spice cake?) all in one week.

More Main Lesson stuff

Blackfoot the Elk

(Edited to add Z's completed picture)

One of the 5 Ancients from "The King of Ireland's Son" I was greatly inspired by a wonderful chalkboard drawing on Flickr done by a teacher in a Waldorf School. Now if only I could get Z to do the work without a major struggle, we'd be making progress. I don't know that we will get to form drawing today because so much energy and time has been spent trying to get main lesson work out of him. Now he's hiding in the bathroom, likely reading, to avoid the 2nd chalkboard drawing today (which happens to be the one above).

But this afternoon we will do some firewood stacking. His body could use a little exertion, especially after so much downtime over the weekend (he got sick Thursday night and kept a fever up most of the weekend.)

The King of Ireland's Son, part II

Actually, we are at the end of week 1 (of 3) and this is the most schoolish we've been all year. There is so much work to get through for him of the type that he dreads and isn't really that hard for him but it looks like a lot and therefore is The Meanest Thing I've Ever Made Him Do. 2 chalkboard drawings a day plus writing. After Saints and Heroes, which was 2 chalkboard drawings a week...

But he's made so much progress...

The King of Ireland's Son, part I

So I've mainly been twittering until I figure how to sync up my new phone with the computer (our computer is old and every time we try to update it, it crashes, so we have gotten a new laptop for Hanukkah) But we started a new Main Lesson Block this morning - The King of Ireland's Son. And Z has stunned me with the beauty of his work on this today. The artwork and the handwriting were way beyond his usual work. I am so pleased with how he settled into doing it and did it with joy (And only a few mistakes).

Some Acorn Math

We're working on place value around these parts - mostly solidifying that when you are doing stacked math, you are really subtracting a ones, tens and hundreds column instead of all ones lined up. To help us understand that a bit, I made 20(!) origami paper boxes to represent our tens, got 2 box tops to represent hundreds (because 10 of the little boxes fit in them nicely) and of course acorns for the ones. What you see here represents 148 acorns 1 box top (filled with 10 origami boxes of 10 acorns each), 4 origami boxes of 10 acorns each and 8 acorns on their lonesome. This was the starting setup for 148-52:

The solution, as you are aware I'm sure, is 9 origami boxes with 10 acorns each and 6 acorns.

2nd grade day 3

We visited with the math squirrels again today.



Here is Z's version of the chalkboard drawing.



We have been working on this project from Living Crafts magazine. First on Monday we wet felted and then Kool Aid dyed the felt. Tuesday we rinsed the dye out a bit and today we cut out the fish according to the pattern and sewed them and stuffed them.



And here is B's lapboard work. And hand. Cute!

1st day of 2nd grade!

So here are some pictures from our first day of 2nd grade. Today we went for a walk through the neighborhood and collected the seasons 1st acorns. The we came home and created a weather wheel. During music we practiced some songs for recorder and later in the day we did some wet felting a Kool-Aid dying. It was a busy and wonderful day!