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!

Pictures!

Z wants to submit this to the LEGO mazagine (as he used to say) for their Kid Creations page. Pretty cool ship.



And B wanted his pcture taken because Z got one! Go, B, Go!

Settling into Summer

We are embracing the slowdown that is summer. I bring Z to swim lessons every morning. B was supposed to go, but he is 3 and stubborn as, well, me. So we watch as Z has his daily lesson. After that though it is one long summer full of free play and playdates. And for me, decluttering our home and preparing for next school year.

I am clearing out the detritus of growing children. Broken toys, outgrown and unrepairable clothes, etc. There is simply too much stuff here in the house that we don't need or use. And it has to go. Our house always looks so cluttered even right after it has been cleaned because there is simply too much stuff. I do wish I could hire a proper professional organizer to help us because DH has a hard time with decluttering. And yet it neeeeeeeeds to be done. We'll see how it goes.

Also, I recently completed the backing for my embroidered challah cover. Can you believe DH doesn't like it. He's been very sideways in his compliments ("You must be very proud of that..." etc.) and so finally I asked him straight out if he just hated it or what. *sigh* He doesn't exactly *hate* it. Here's an image from my fantastic camera phone. Aren't you jealous? :)

BNL Field Trip

We headed to the Grove in LA yesterday for a field trip to see the family's favorite band - BNL http://www.bnlmusic.com (seriously, I' m not tying out the name. I don't need that kind of search engine traffic.) We waited at the mall for the morning and early afternoon, having a little lunch and a little B&N window shopping. And then the main event - the Ladies!

They absolutely did not disappoint at all. They were promoting their new kids cd which we had already gotten (we purchased it prior to its release and had it mailed to us) We had lovely seats and they did things from the new CD and a few old favorites (Another Postcard, One Week, and Million Dollars) They even dragged poor Weird Al out of the audience and handed him an accordian. LOL It was over far too soon and we were back on the road through LA rush hour traffic to head on home. We used to live directly across the street from the Grove while it was being built. Don't think I didn't think about that on that loooooong drive. :) The only negative thing we have to say at all was that our seats blocked Ed for most of the time. Oh, and Z wouldn't have really liked them to play Crazy ABCs. :)

Poor DH. They are hands down his favorite band and he has yet to see them live through an unfortunate lack of opportunity. And yesterday was no exception. He was unable to get off from work to drive down with us since he (and we) just got back from a huge family trip to DC.

Out on the trail again

Today was the 3rd Annual International Plant a Letterbox Day and so we got out there and did our part. In the rain! With creek crossings.

Here's some pics from our adventure:

We started here. Well sort of.

We stopped for a snack here.

And crossed the creek right after

Found the coolest "bench" about a mile in

And this arch and the following snake-like log were right across from each other. Cool, huh?

Thanks everyone

It was really nice to hear from you. Luckily the boys dodged the virus and a friend stepped in and took them for 2 days so I could get through the absolute worst of it while I was alone and DH was in the hospital.

Here's a little of Z's work this week and some of our homeschool park day friends.

Out from under

So we are just getting back to normal around here from a bout of viral meningitis for DH and I. That'll kick your butt, let me tell you.

Anyway, school this week has been difficult. Z just is a little stir crazy I think from all the sitting around the house. So instead of school today, we went hiking. We hit the trails up in Santa Barbara County and did about 2 miles up the mountain and back. It felt great to be out of doors and moving again.

Then off to the garden store for a few seedlings and soil for the containers and home to garden. ::yawn:: I'll sleep well tonight!

Homeschool Wednesday

We're working on multiplication right now, so we told this story:



And Z copied the chalkboard drawing into his main lesson book



Then we reviewed the 2 times table which we have been saying on our morning walks and Z copied that into his book as well.



So cool.

A semi-local Passover

Keeping kosher and pesadik (Passover-like) and local is an impossible affair, at least around here. There are things scattered across the globe that meet upon my Passover table (and many many others) My matza and matza products are from Israel, as is my tea, some of my cheese, chocolate, coffee and a few other sundries. Most packaged goods are from New York, especially the dairy. The meat, is, thankfully, at least from this country and processed here as well, so I don't have the concerns about South American meat and all the myriad of problems that stem from that.

But at least I have the fresh goods taken care of at the local level. Now that spring is here, the market is fairly bursting with fruits and vegetables. My bill at yesterday's farmer's market was staggering ($70), but included 5 dozen eggs, 1/2 a flat of strawberries. 10 lbs of potatoes and onions combined, kohlrabi, apples, broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, carrots, basil, tomatoes and persian cucumbers (! how can you not love living in California. They are from 15 miles away.)

Funny story about the eggs. Last week, instead of the farmer's market, we did a drive into LA, so I ran out of eggs and needed to pick up a dozen from Trader Joe's. And throughout the entire weekend, DH and I kept hitting the eggs much too hard to crack them because the eggs from the market have such thick strong shells. The eggs from TJ's shattered under the same force we use to just crack the other eggs.

Back to cleaning.

Preparing for Pesach

Another week has raced by. There is so much to do each day that I often have to choose what gets left behind. My laundry is complaining about living in baskets. And the dryer. And the washer (although I try not to do that one too often.) And don't ask about meals. *sigh* At least they are usually at home. Usually.

And Passover is coming up. In honor of that - and the fact that we live in an area where Passover food is scarce - we headed to the local megalopolis, Los Angeles, to do the shopping. With 2 small children in tow. First we stopped off at Hanna Andersson at the mall to pick up a few things because B is learning to use the potty and I wanted some of their training unders for him. I spent too much there and then we headed on to the park for a little hiking and playing to burn off the veeeeeerrry long drive. We saw loads of birds, some we had never seen before, and the kids really got to explore a little bit of the wild right in the middle of the city. Very cool. After hours of that, because we checked out the archery field, the wildlife reserve and the model airplane field, we headed off to do the Passover shopping at a place in the Valley that I thought would be great (after all, I had been to it's sister store many times and thought that was just great) But it didn't have the things I am used to buying at Passover, so I headed across the street to the Ralph's with the good Passover section (wish we had one of those) and picked up some stuff and then headed to a place a friend recommended when I called her in desperation after the 1st place didn't work out. And of course it was closed.

So we have had to regroup and I'll be heading out again to a different place, slightly closer, but not tons, to see what I can pick up there. So instead of an hour and a half, it'll just be 45 minutes drive. Yay. Hopefully I can get the most important things.

Homeschool - no excuses

None whatsoever. Not because there aren't any, but because I'm tired of the same ones. Ear infections. Strep throat. Crowns. Root canals. Everyone in the family has gotten a little something into the list. Mine is the strep and the crown.

We've done so much though. I just haven't had the energy to put it here. Here's some photos of our lives the last few weeks. in homeschooling:

First from today. We are in another Math Block starting this week. We are hitting addition and subtraction lightly this week and will move onto multiplication next and division the week after, just sharing some stories, doing some artwork, movement exercises, etc. Today on our walk we counted 100 steps forward and then turned around and counted 100 steps backward from 100. Well, I walked backwards, Z did the counting.

When we got home we had morning verse and then headed outside to fill our sidewalk with the number family for 12.

Here's what that looks like in progress:

And Z wanted his picture taken with his accomplishment because it was quite the work of will for him (although he wouldn't call it that.)

Over the last few weeks we finished up the Language Arts block, focusing on lower case letters and handwriting. He's made enormous progress over the last few months

Nosh Nosh a Hamentash

Part of Homeschool Wednesday today was getting ready for Purim (which starts tomorrow night) and so, after we finished writing and came back from today's drop-in class and ate lunch, we settled into making hamentashen. Z made lemon (with my homemade lemon curd), B made blueberry jam, and then I made nutella, because the kids got loopy at the mere idea of chocolate. Then after the kids petered out, I made the things on the little plate - they would be peanut butter cups, but I'm allergic to peanut butter, so they are sunflower seed butter cups. And the other thing that I am including in our Mishloach Manot baskets this year is fresh strawberries from the farmer's market today.

We're in the 2nd and last week of our Spring Nature Block. Last week Z and I brainstormed about one of the birds he's been learning about and this week he has been working on writing an essay based upon that brainstorming. We've also been working on the garden. We dug in the compost. Turned the soil a few times over the last week and yesterday we took a field trip to the organic gardening store in the next city over and bought some potting soil, seedlings, seeds and ogled the chicks. They were so adorable!

Homeschool Wednesday

Should I start calling this HS Thursday? lol First some photos from the 1st grader:

The park where our HS Group meets:

And this is a self portrait (I should let him know he should take the strap off of his neck 1st!)

We preempt the regularly scheduled homeschool Wednesday...

For birthday Wednesday!

My littlest is now 3. 3! (although if you ask, his answers range from 4 to 35) We had playdates at the park, and a trip to the farmer's market for birthday strawberries, and presents and a dinner out where he got chocolate cake. And balloons

As for homeschool, well, It was much of the same this week. The week got past me really quickly. We did a lot of math and form drawing and spent as much time out of doors as possible. We did form drawing in the sand at the beach, we practiced division with driftwood, we did all sorts of things, but we didn't have a whole lot to show for it to turn in except some worksheets and the essay Z just finished writing on our trip to Red Rock Canyon. I am so proud of how well he did writing it. It was a major handwriting accomplishment.

Homeschool Wednesday

Ah homeschool. Sometimes you can plan and something as simple as lunch can screw up your whole day. Poor B cut himself deeply with a butter knife at lunch today. You know, because you can't tell an almost 3-yo anything. They just need to experience it. And this time it was thisclose to being the experience of stitches. As it is, he only needed steri-strips and a few days of quiet to keep the wound from reopening, but it was close.

So our homeschool Wednesday was brief, with only a short drop-in class and a map of the neighborhood, drawn to appease the ISP coordinator.





Earlier in the week, before The Injury, we had been planning a week of all outdoor school. Monday was a day at the river, with math and form drawing and singing and bird watching. We saw a sandhill crane - truly an amazing bird. The photo is from a backpool at the river. The boys are "fishing." We were keeping an eye out for the steelhead trout that are supposed to be making a comeback in this river, but we didn't see any at the fish ladder (and we watched for quite awhile. Well, I did.)

Tuesday we spend the morning at the beach watching the high surf (because when better to go to the beach then when there is a high surf advisory, right?) and using the sand as our chalkboard practicing division and multiplication and later some form drawing. We also took a bit of time to build sand "Titanics" and to go hunting for cool rocks, shells and beach glass. At lunch we headed over to another local park because we didn't want sand in our picnic lunch. And then we rode on the swings for 40 minutes followed by some reading and bird watching - this time we saw a red tailed hawk and an acorn woodpecker.

An actual FO report

And it is sewing again. Remember when I used to knit?

Anyway, today it is the Charming Handbag from Bend-the -Rules Sewing. I want to love this book. I really do. The projects are adorable and I have made 3 of them so far since I got the book and 2 of them had serious errata issues and one of them was extremely difficult to follow (this one) The directions were spotty. It produced a very cute handbag, but required me to do a lot more thinking about construction and a bit of investigation on the internet for the errata (like missing pieces of the pattern errata)

In other news, I think this handbag is a little too cute and little for me. Tim Gunn, Fashion Guru, says that bigger women should have bigger handbags, and this one is just tiny and adorable. With a bow!

The fabric is Moda from my Local Fabric Store. Don't ask me the specific type.

Homeschool Wednesday

I would like to keep a bit of homeschool on here regularly just to keep family (Hi Grandma K!) updated. We are most definately full time homeschooling now. Come Parent/Teacher conference week (early next month) we'll do an exit "interview" of sorts with his former teacher and the academics administrator.

The photos above are from today's main lesson. We are covering the Four Processes. Z is already ahead of basic addition and subtraction, but I want to tell the stories so I can use the squirrels for more advanced math later on, so we are hitting these as a review and then working on some worksheets to advance his skills afterwards.

He is still having trouble with the drawings sometimes and especially with spacing his work appropriately on the page and writing his number sentences clearly. I am trying to slow down his tendency to rush through by requiring different colors for different things in the equation (each symbol has its own color plus= green, minus = red, equals = purple, etc.) Having to pick up the different crayons requires him to at least approach it with a touch more thought.

We are also practicing skip counting in preparation for multiplication which begins tomorrow. He can already skip count through 2s, 3s, and 4s.

We are doing a Form Drawing lesson during this week and we are working on standing forms - especially circles and squares. Today we're going to get the big chalk out and hit the sidewalks instead of the paper. And then we're going to walk the forms we draw on the sidewalk.

Then this afternoon - more knitting. My goal is to have him continue working on a large project to help him build up his ability to work towards a larger goal. It is slow going.

A FO and a peek into my house

I took this photo because I realized I don't have a Completed Projects 2008 section yet (or I didn't) and since I just finished this... I'm not even going to do a real FO report on this. It *is* just a Ball Band Washcloth. The funny part is the photo. I took the photo while the kids were sitting down to snack and I had sat down with a few things to read and saw the washcloth sitting over to the side and so I grabbed my camera to take a photo. So you have a photo of the table, the cloth, the knife used to spread the almond cream cheese on B's crackers, dripped spots from B's cup of tea which he drank exactly two sips of, but had to have a full cup like me, my Southern California Day Hikes book (with page held open by a matchbox car), the catalog from Paper, Scissors, Stone (I'm obsessing about recorders again in addition to some other art supplies), and my copy of Living Crafts magazine's 1st issue that a friend of mine put together. I love this magazine, BTW. I highly recommend it. And I need to order my subscription! The 2nd issue is out.

We're off to letterbox this afternoon as soon as DH arrives back from Mexico. Should be any time now. Yay!

Homeschool this week

R Rapunzel Chalkboard Drawing
Originally uploaded by woolfairy

Well, the end of this week anyway.

Today we finished the 1st Language Arts block and here is the chalkboard drawing from that block. And then here is Z's representation of that and our representation in braided challah. Yum!

Gone to Vegas

We headed off to Vegas this past weekend for a family wedding. It was a first trip for all of us except DH who is an old hand at Vegas. First off - it is a crazy long drive. Or maybe that is because we missed a turn off and went waaaay out of our way and travelled 352 miles instead of 316 miles (but got to see Edwards AFB) Yikes. We fixed it by the time we were headed back though. No fools we!

We got there later then we intended therefore and weren't able to hook up with the family that night. Instead we took in the sights of Paris and even went to the top of the Eiff-faux Tower. Gah! Don't look out the windows as you are going up in the elevator. Just saying. At least we chose to eat dinner afterwards.

Saturday morning after breakfast we headed out to Red Rock Canyon for a little hiking/letterboxing. This place is truly amazing. The boys watched some climbers in full gear climbing some of the rocks there and even practiced a bot of rock climbing themselves. We then took the 13 mile scenic drive and stopped off around mile 7 so Z and I could hike into ice box canyon after a letterbox. And when they say Ice Box Canyon, they aren't kidding. It must've been 15 degrees cooler there then at the car and we found a waterfall that was iced over. Z was so amazed that he couldn't stop talking about it and lists it as the very best part of the entire trip.

We raced back to the car and then back to the strip because we didn't want to be late for the wedding. We made it with minutes to spare and then proceeded to have a wonderful time and I reacquainted myself with relatives I hadn't seen in more than 2 decades. Turns out my cousin and I have most everything in common! Except that she has girls.

Sunday we hit the Shark Reef at Mandelay Bay. What a fantastic place. And then we joined the family again for a little Superbowl time. By the time we were done there, the boys had bonded with their cousins and Great aunts and uncles and we had all had a marvelous time and were exchanging contact information.

Then Monday, as if we hadn't had enough fun, on the drive home, we hit the Calico Ghost Town outside of Barstow and the boys and their dad had a blast. The Mystery Shack was the pronounced favorite, but I think they liked the rock shop pretty well too!