Tuesday, August 30, 2005

Our First Challenge: Vacation

Tomorrow the family heads out for a 10 day vacation to visit family in Colorado. And I'm facing a dilemma - to bring the studies or not to bring the studies. My desire is to bring the studies with, as the kids act amazingly better when they have school in their day, and some semblance of routine. The other half of me says..."It is vacation. Let them vacate too." And they will, as schooling really is only 1 hour to 1 1/2 hours a day.

I think the schooling argument in my head has won. So I'm packing up our school work. I've printed up maps for them to follow as we fly out (they love maps). And we'll be going bonkers with Nature Study as grandma and grandpa own an alpaca farm, with at least four young cria on the ground to watch frollick, and kitties in the barn. Plus, the grandparents bought a boat, so "Hello, Freshwater Fish nature study!" We'll see how the whole thing goes.

Perhaps the more accurate question is, "Can Amorette stay focused for an hour teaching the kids, when those beautiful Rocky Mountains are calling my name?!"

Thursday, August 25, 2005

Allow Me To Humor You

August is almost over, and as I sat and reflected today about how well our first month back to school has gone, I had to chuckle at a few moments that come to mind that were good ideas gone bad. As I look at the titles of my August posts....there is a bigger untold picture.

Salt & Corn Meal Pies: They are fun, and they do keep the kids busy. But leave the kids for too long unsupervised with the stuff and they can be dangerous. This month Jack and Grace decided to DUMP their cornmeal pies down the heating vent. Luckily our vent does not go straight down, but has an elbow in it, so I tried my best to vacuum most of it up. However, there is now a constant film of cornmeal dust on every flat surface in the playroom since the remaining cornmeal residue floats up out of the air vent every time the air conditioning turns on.

Embossing: While we did have trays underneath all of our embossing projects, at one point, Grace must have moved her paper off the tray, heating off the lovely finish on our Pottery Barn kids table. There is now, and forever will be, a melted patch of finish on the top of the table.

The 10 Gallon Bug Tank: Remember our last additions? The grasshopper and the cockroach. I'm not sure anyone noticed, but I never mentioned the release of the cockroach. That is because I didn't. The thought of locating and trying to catch the two inch giant, just didn't go over well with me at the time of the release date for all of the bugs. So...yep...the poor ugly giant cockroach is still somewhere in that tank, probably dead. I still can't make myself look for it.

Wednesday, August 24, 2005

The Perfect Day

I think I actually experienced it.

Jack: Jack was on Mach 5 asking to do this and that with me...all things I thought were way over his head. But he really surprised me today. Today, he seemed to have grown up overnight.

He wanted to do Time and Money cards that I have for Grace. He loves the colors and different watch faces, and the pictures of toys and items with money beside them. Jack can tell whole hour time on a face clock, but today he wouldn't allow me to skip any of the cards. And here is my little 3 year old saying out loud to himself, "The little hand is between the 3 and the 4, almost at the 4, but not quite. And the big hand is down at the 6, so it is three-six."

With coins, I decided to just have him identify the types of coins on the card and tell me what they were and how many of each. He was a champ!

Then he was bringing me his Bible. Twilight zone!!!


Grace: Had zero complaints throughout her morning. But it was the afternoon that tickled me. She came running in the house yelling, "Mom, you've got to come outside, I have something really cool to show you." Once I was outside, she wanted to make sure I heard the crickets in the summer heat. Then we rounded the corner of the deck, and she wanted me to noticed how we were getting closer. She led me to the rose bush, where lo-and-behold was a green cricket you wouldn't have ever seen had you not been listening for it. She was so excited that she had tracked this cricket down with her ears.

Then later, I hear Jack and Grace both in the playroom talking about their wooden birdhouses they decorated in the winter term. Cleaning in the other room, I asked what they were doing, and they emphatically shouted, "We are getting our birdhouses ready!". Ready?? I had to look. Sure enough, they were stuffing the little entrance hole with pine straw and string.

It has been just one of those good days. Even the sink is clean, table cloth changed, and the floor vacuumed.

Monday, August 15, 2005

Sur La Terrace Complete

It was a dark and stormy evening, and Ken obsessed over the rest of the puzzle until it was complete.

We are short three pieces. A big let down. We're pretty sure we were witnesses to one more Maggie snack due to a puzzle piece falling on the floor. This is very frustrating knowledge considering the last three puzzles have been incomplete due to Maggie snacks. (Learn about our previous puzzle caper.) And we were SO much more careful too!

Sunday, August 14, 2005

You Silly Tufted Titmouse

As I was finishing up some e-mail on the our bed, the kids climbed up and snuggled around me asking to "do birds". Of course ,the first thing Jack wanted to view was his favorite online video clip of the Ivory Gull - which we did. (See below for a link, if you haven't seen it). Then I headed over to our Backyard Habitat log and quizzed the kids on which bird were which, while we listened to bird songs. Jack can immediately identify by site a Tufted Titmouse as he beat his sister to it, and Grace nailed each of my 5-6 bird quizzes! One of our most favorite affectionate phrases to each other in the family is..."You silly tufted titmouse!".

Thursday, August 11, 2005

I Am The Ultimate Dork Mom

My children have the ultimate Dork Mom. I can prove it to you.

For my birthday (I'll be 32), I asked for a microscope. How dorky is that??? What's even dorkier, is that I think this could be the best birthday gift ever! My birthday isn't until September, but since this was going to be a major science apparatus for our Fish & Crustacean study, I got to open it last night.

This microscope is a techno-geek dream. If there are any other techno-geek moms, first I'd love to hear from you, and second, if you don't already have this, you've got to get it. I'm referring to the DM-52 Digital Microscope. This is the answer to the age old problem of young children and microscope viewing. Plug this puppy into your laptop or computer and you've got an instant big screen look at whatever is on the slide - perfect clarity.

Not only that, but you can capture the image and save it as a .jpg on your computer for printing later. You can even create video.

Ken and I sat for the better part of almost two hours looking through slides last night. (I'm not the only techno-geek)

This was well worth the investment, and I can't say enough about the freebies the vendor throws in! Visit http://www.microscopeworld.com

Tuesday, August 09, 2005

Pagoo: Plankton (Chapter 1-2)

This evening, Grace and I started the story of "Pagoo". We read through chapters 1 and 2 and I can tell this one is going to quickly become a favorite for both of us. Pagoo will be our third Holling C. Holling book this year. We can't seem to get enough of them.

The first and second chapter cover the topic of how a baby crab falls under the larger and often ill-fated category of plankton at the bottom of the food chain, feeding upon algae and diadom. Holling's illustrations are beautifully done, but I'd like to be able to supplement our readings and go beyond illustration with a living book that is so heavy in biology.

Below are a few links to real photos of crab zoea, diagrams and coloring sheets you might find useful:

Microscope Slide of Crab Zoea
Animated Crab Zoea & Megalops
Common Copepods & Plankton (advanced coloring sheets including crab zoea)
Guide Sheet for 4 Plankton (elementary coloring sheet including crab)

Sunday, August 07, 2005

The Night Before Kindergarten...

It is safe to say that there is heavy anticipation for Monday morning in the house. And I am pleased that we were able to successfully achieve it - thanks to a little idea from Dad.

Throughout the county, children will be hopping on school buses and heading for their first day to school. For kindergarten, this is an especially important and excitedly nervous moment. I really wanted Grace to be able to share some of that excitement with her own school aged friends, which is why we decided to take a two week break from school and begin the new term when school started in the county.

What helped to achieve the excitement though, was while Grace and Jack could see what new purchases Mommy was pulling out of packages and boxes for the new term, they could not handle or play with them. And in the mornings, when Mom and Dad were still asleep, the playroom has been locked, to prevent any temptation to take a closer look. This has become the equivalent of putting a bunch of slowly unwrapped Christmas presents under the tree and not allowing the children to touch or play with them. Just look, drool and dream.

Grace's last words tonight in bed were, "I can't wait until I can play with all of the new school stuff tomorrow." I can't wait either.

Wednesday, August 03, 2005

Talent on Display

In two days Grace has proved herself to be an unbelievable bug catcher. She doesn't own a net. Just her bare hands or the cup off the top of her new bug box. Yesterday she caught a Silver Streaked Skipper, and today after a 10 minute search she came back to display her dragonfly.

The bugbox was a worthy purchase. For $6.00, it allows the child to look at both the top and the bottom of the bug at a magnified level.