A day or so off

Today Daddy flew across the country to see our brand new nephew (and cousin!) who was born last week. The boys were very into planes today as a result and we spent the day in plane related activities right up until we followed along with his plane landing.

Add to that getting ready to go on the all-school campout tomorrow and you are looking at a day without any previously planned activities. I am dreading camping alone with 2 boys, but it can't be helped and they love it too much to miss it!

Rabia in her cave

Rabia in her cave
Originally uploaded by woolfairy

This is from today's final main lesson featuring Rabia of Basra. I think Z really enjoyed the clay work today. He's having a tough time with this block though because he perceives the artwork to be too difficult, although I think once he actually does it, it is lovely. And so does he.

Now onto Nandanar and Lord Shiva...

This morning, partially through the despicable fault of hormones, I totally lost my temper at my poor mischievous children who locked me out of the house while holding a rotten tomato from my Brandywine plant. I was gingerly carrying it back to the kitchen to dispose of and tried to open the door because the membrane on said tomato was barely holding. Needless to say, the very long delay of the locked door caused said tomato to lose all holding power and slide right through the skin onto the ground and my foot. So so disgusting. Seriously disgusting. I realized that I needed to remove myself only after yelling like a fishwife at my kids. I also sent them out to clean it up while I went in to recover my senses and leave DH to mitigate my temper tantrum.

Luckily it is Friday. So I realized that we needed to get out of the house and into nature and so we headed up the coast to do some hiking and letterboxing. We hiked up to a lovely spot with a picnic table (we knew it was there) and a view of the ocean. Normally I would have taken a photo, but it was much too overcast today to see anything in a photo. Although honestly I love these grey overcast days here. We found our letterbox and used the cover of our lunch spread all over the table to leisurely stamp in, etc. Of course the cover was unnecessary as no one came by. We saw a few new birds for our life list and collected more acorns and followed some little tiny lizards a bit.

Then back home to play with friends.

The infamous drawings!

Mysteriously, today this was no issue at all. Strange how that happens.



We did wet-on-wet watercolor paintings to go with this lesson. So here are our renditions of Genevieve. We both learned a new tool today on our painting. It was fun.

Here's mine:



Here's Z's



Don't forget B!

Tough day

As I was preparing today's board to illustrate the Genevieve story, I remarked to my DH that this was going to cause a fuss in Z. It is a tough one for him with 3 people and a house and a full sentence with an unfamiliar word to write twice. And boy was I right. Very very right. This one caused full scale meltdown. So I tried to help him to focus on the steps that were doable and I insisted on the background and the border being done right then on the sentence page and we would return to it after lunch and our other obligations. I made it clear to him that this was today's lesson and that real progress needed to be made on it. So after much fuss, he settled down and did it.

So we ate something, headed out to a meeting for the ISP (Independent Study Program), a dentist appointment and then a little play with a friend for an hour and it was back to work to finish the writing while I finished up dinner. This time there were no arguments at all. None. He just did it. Hopefully tomorrow goes as smoothly as this evening.

Settling in

We are getting into the swing of things around here. We got really busy towards the end of last week and, although I have taken photos, I haven't gotten them off of the camera yet. We got to odd and even numbers and the rules for adding them, plus a little form drawing, some handwork and of course a fantastic park day where we met some lovely people and saw some old friends as well.

This week we moved into the 1st language arts block of the year with Saints and Heroes. We headed off to a local park where a letterbox had been planted recently and, for walk, we followed the clues for a bit of orienteering, stamped in and replaced the box. Scootered for a bit of exercise and then settled down to hear the story of Genevieve of Paris. All the while, of course, the song from Camelot is dancing around in my head!

For math today we played a little Dominoes, but Z wasn't happy at first about playing 5s because he never wins (says he.) So we played a cooperative version where we all laid our dominoes out and helped each other figure out multiples of 5 to get the most points together as a team. He liked the new version so much that we played it 3 times! And added the numbers cumulatively up to 420. Big stuff.

Week 2, Day 1

Morning math practice (after a rousing 4 or 5 renditions of 10 in the bed)



Handling division requires standing!



And into the MLB



Can't forget form drawing review!

2nd grade day 4

I am battling a cold that has sapped me of my energy. So tree trunk math was about all I could manage. I wanted to get to form drawing, but that requires more focus and intention then I can bring right now. But Z was glad to get something concrete today. We did lots of practice on chalkboards before bringing it to the main lesson book.

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!

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