What a Wonderful Weekend!

We had a beautiful weekend, weather wise and otherwise.  We spent time with friends, helped out some family, and enjoyed the weather and great food that came with the weekend.  On Saturday CJ and Eliza convinced Daddy and our friend Justin that they needed an obstacle course.  This made me happy since I know I should be doing more physical education activities, and this fit the bill perfectly.  He started with the word start in chalk on the sidewalk, then a math problem they had to solve first.  He drew boxes they needed to jump into, built planks up for them to climb up and walk across, things for them to crawl through and under.  He even used his traffic cones for the kids to run around.  It was great, and they had so much fun, they did it for literally hours!  We decided that once a week (or weekend) we would build one based on whatever gross motor skills appropriate for them. 

 Here CJ was explaining all the rules to Eliza.

 I love this picture of her, it really shows her adorable running and walking style.

 I was amazed at how well they "walked the plank" here.  They climbed right up, walked right across, and in the dozens of times they walked it, they each only fell once.

 Eliza had a little trouble with the squatting under the finish line.  I don't think she will be a master of the limbo.

CJ did a great job jumping right into the squares he wanted to.  By the time they went to bed they were exhausted and fell right to sleep.  Plus we all had so much fun doing this together.  What a great activity for us to do instead of watching television.

Vacation From School, Not From Learning

Generally children and parents have a summer vacation from schooling.  In our house I believe it will be a spring vacation.  I have spent so much time getting the garden prepared, planted, weeded and what not that it has left me little time to devote to true lesson planning.  I have taken the kids to several classes at the library, most of which were incredibly disappointing.  They have learned a lot about seasons, weeds, insects, plant types, etc.  Yesterday CJ was looking at one of my gardening books, pretending it was a scientific field journal.  He noticed that the word flowers was on it.  He asked me what the rest of the words said, and I told him he already knew them all, and he read to me the big book of flowers.  He even opened it and recognized some types of flowers we have in the yard.  We have been doing small learning projects like finishing a book of colors and shapes.  We have been reading, and measuring the water in our rain gauge.  We have been identifying clouds and insects.  We have done some projects involving recycling, and a lot of mini lessons focusing on feelings, and appropriate ways to show feelings.  They are getting to the age where controlling their tempers is becoming extremely difficult, especially since they aren't getting nearly enough sleep.  The more tired they are the less they are able to handle disappointment, frustration and changes in schedule.  Hopefully we will have a relatively quiet and restful holiday weekend.  The garden is officially planted, and all I have to do now is keep up with weeding and watering.  The kids love watching things pop up after planting.  They are helping their Memere with an herb bed at their house.  They helped plant the seeds, and helped fill the bed with soil.  When the seedlings are big enough they are going to help plant them.  I am sure they will also help eat them! 

We have already been harvesting parsley, oregano, chives, onions, leeks, scallions, thyme, cabbage, and greens.  So much of the garden was still strong when we uncovered, and many things reseeded themselves. 

It is wonderful to finally see some green everywhere and know that soon we will have wonderful food to harvest and flowers to make us happy.  Rich even built me an arbor to grow moonflower and morning glories.  We have it on the stone patio he just put in this year, where we go at night to have a fire and relax.  It will have an evening fragrance garden.  The kids helped me pick out some beautiful plants for that area.  

Here is where CJ and Eliza learned all about perennials.  They noticed when they started seeing strawberry flowers that they were the same as last year.  We also harvested some rhubarb and they learned all about how to can strawberry rhubarb jam!  They helped me measure the sugar and the fruit.  They loved tasting the results!

I think we will have some wonderful school time in the coming weeks as the work in the yard slows down.  I am particularly excited to start Eliza reading.  CJ is coming along so quickly that he reads everywhere.  Eliza sees letters and numbers, but really wants to start reading words.  What a joy!

Themes and apologies for my absence!

So again, sorry to be so sparse in my update duties, but the computer has been acting wonky when I try to update anything, and we have been working like mad in the garden.  I will be posting pictures soon of CJ's birthday, and of the new improvements in the garden.

I really want to talk a little bit about how important using themes to teach the kids has been to me.  Today we listened to the song Scarborough Faire on my ipod.  I love the song, and I am sure you all know it.  Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme?  Well I taught them a bit about what the song means, and we went into the garden to look at all the herbs, discussing that these herbs have been used by cooks and medical practitioners for centuries.  We looked up the herbs in a book and found out what people used to think they did, and what the herb names mean and stand for.  Rosemary for example was often given as a gift and means remembrance.  We are having Scarborough Faire chicken for dinner, using all these herbs from the garden.  We talked about how they grow, and how the plants are different and the same.  We tasted them all.  We learned the words to the song.  We even read a children's book that took place in medieval times to talk about how people lived differently. 

Recently I have also done themes for Earth day and recycling.  There was a recycling program at the library for the kids, which actually wasn't very good, but helped me form a theme for the kids.  We recycled newspaper and some seeds into plantable seed pods.  We recycled dryer lint by putting it out for the birds.  We found ways to recycle many items in the house to help us with the garden and other projects.  The kids understand what recycling is, and why it is important for the earth.  We read Earth day books, and watched Sesame Street Earth day movies.  We spent a few days talking about the Earth and how to take care of it. 

Teaching in themes makes it so much easier for me to plan lessons, and I find it makes the lessons stick with the kids much more.  This is mostly because we spend so much time with one topic and we learn about it in so many ways.  We integrate all subject areas into the one topic making it a part of our entire day and week.  This makes it seem important.  I even try to integrate topics into our games and play.  For recycling we made toys to play with using old discarded items.  For today we are playing ring around the rosie, a game that originated in medieval times.  There are so many ways to integrate and use themes in everything we do.  I also love the consistency it brings to our learning. 

That is all for today, and I will be posting pictures soon, as long as my computer allows it.  Off to plant some more seeds in the garden!