Building Your Own Weather Station

Okay. We have to do this. It's science and recycling and crafts all at the same time.

Some Ideas

I want my kids to see education as an indespensible part of life. Not just the twelve years of intense schooling, interrupted by summers. So I need to figure out how we are going to spend our days. Of course there is breakfast first. After breakfast we should make our beds and pick up our rooms (Life Skills). Then we should probably get out of the house. Since it's hotter'n'ell right now, I think mornings would be a good time to get excercise. We could go rollerblading, and kite-flying. We could go to the park, or practice riding bikes. We could certainly take the dog for a walk, and watering the garden in the morning is a good idea. (P.E.) After that we could have a snack and do some writing. Writing letters to family and friends is always good. I need to get them to write at least three sentences a piece. I know it doesn't sound like much, but right now they are so over writing, and it doesn't come easily to either of them. Reading would be another thing we could do at this time. (Language Arts) I need to make sure they get science books at the library and actually do some of the experiments. (Science) If I get them jump-started at the beginning of the day, and have screen time only in the evening, I think they will just naturally pursue their education. All of the reading will certainly get them going on new subjects and then we can follow their interests.

T-Shirts

We've started a little field trip group with our friends, and we're going to try to get together every Friday and do something. The girls get the puppy shirts and the boys get the transportation shirts. Nine kids in all. Now, can we all say "so-cial-iz-a-tion"?

Rainforest Adventure

This is Rainforest Adventures in Pigeon Forge. Usually attractions in Pigeon Forge are tacky, but this was a very educational and exciting place to see animals, and it wasn't gimmicky at all. There were lemurs, alligators, tortoises, poison dart frogs, something called a coatimundi, lots of exotic birds, and gigantic insects. The glass enclosures were well designed so that you could see the animals up close. The animal show "host" told us that most of the animals were born in captivity and were very comfortable with people. The pink cockatoo seemed to be in love with him. It layed the feathers on its head down and made these "baby eyes" at him. It was precious.

All the kids got to hold the snake at the end of the animal show.

The doves were so beautiful. There were also blue macaws, african grey parrots, and parakeets. Parakeets, iguanas, and turtles were all on display in an "aviary" together.

You can hardly see it, but it's big and yellow and 27 feet long. Take a measuring tape and put it around a soccer ball, that's its circumference. It's little friend is only 14 feet long. Were they pythons? I read the info on the wall, but I was so blown away by the size I forgot to read the species!

That's not a monkey. It's a lemur. It followed Jake back and forth. The kids started running. It "chased" them.

Monitor Lizard.

Egyptian Spiney Mice.

Mongooses. (Mongeese?) Where the heck did that name come from anyway?

This is a gecko. He didn't try to sell me any car insurance. But he was very theatrical.

I think this is a boa constrictor.

Tuesday, May 30

Today I woke up with the feeling I had forgotten something. It's a pretty common feeling for me, but usually I surprise myself by realizing I hadn't misplaced or neglected anything, it's just post- traumatic stress disorder or something ;) Well, this morning I had neglected and misplaced something. I went out on the screened porch to check on the rats. I had let them out to play last night in their big PVC pipes, and then I fell asleep and didn't put them back in their cage. This morning they were nowhere to be found. I discovered I had left the screen door unlatched. I was lifting furniture and moving big plastic bins around, and Ray comes around back with one of the rats folded up in his shirt. It was Max, he had ben sleeping all night in a rolled-up jute rug I had laid out next to the trash can, but Petey was gone! I got dressed and looked for about an hour. I looked under the house about five times with the flashlight. Surely he has been some owl's dinner, I thought. I told Josie that she had to help me find him. She walked outside and looked under the house and found him in about three seconds. I got him to come to me with a piece of bread. He is covered in red dirt right now, but I won't traumatize him by giving him a bath today.

This afternoon we went to "Rainforest Adventure". I'll tell the story with pictures later. I am currently unable to post images on the web.

(Did you know that if you break a leg off a turantula, it will grow a new, perfectly-formed leg overnight? Weird.)

Pop Tart Geography

Josie: "Hey Mom! What African country did I bite my pop-tart into the shape of?"

Mom: "I don't know African geography Josie."

Dad: "Kenya."

Josie: "Yeah Dad. It is Kenya."

Dad: "How did you know it was Kenya?"

Josie: "Because of my world map, on my wall."

Dad: "Well, I'm glad we got you that map, Josie."

Saturday

The Little Garden That Might.

Cute puppy.

She did this for about an hour. I had to move the sprinkler into the kiddie pool so she wouldn't tear up the garden.

R.I.P

This post is dedicated to the memory of Wormzilla, who departed this life at 4:32 pm Friday afternoon. He was a good worm, and he lived a good long life (7.25 inches to be precise). We will miss him. He was a gentle giant with a big heart, and five others to match. Here he is watching an episode of Spongebob, which may explain the sudden death. Rest in peace little buddy.

Wormology

Here is Wormzilla. He's 7 inches long.

Here's a neat idea

It's called the Raku Kiln. You can make it out of things you can find at the hardware store, and it only costs about $50 to make. It would be interesting to see if I could build one.

Lowered Expectations

You know what's worse than a redneck pulling up beside you in a "pimped out" royal blue Nissan Sentra, revving his engine, and wagging his tongue?

Realizing he's tyring to get your dog's attention.

"Cute puppy!"

Ahem. " Thanks"

Did you notice?

I haven't posted anything about Asperger's yet. Seems like when we're cutting school it doesn't matter in the same way. Asperger's is much more of a gift when she's at home learning at her own pace. I can facilitate her intense interests, and validate her needs. Those things will re-build her self-esteem and her trust, then we can start at a much better place when we're working on her disability.

What We're Working On

I think I need to develop some goals that I would like my children to achieve. I'm reading on one of my groups that identifying the skills you would like to work on in your children and then working backwards from there to find all the ways to teach that skill. That sounds so much better than going to the school supply store and browsing around to find out what 2nd and 3rd graders are supposed to know. I've done that and it's such an incredible waste of money. Once I spent $500 on a first grade curriculum for my then Kindergartener, it concentrated mostly on teaching reading skills. Mom's were promised that at the end of the school year your child would be able to read "Red Robin Fly Up!". Well, my daughter was interested when the packaged curriculum came in the mail. She immediately pulled out the book with the bird on the cover. Look Mom! "Red Robin Fly Up!" Then she read it to me.

I would like to work on Life Skills with my children. Manners, taking proper care of animals, keeping yourself and your home "clean" (I have a unique definition for this), maintaining a conversation and staying on topic, using proper tone of voice when expressing themselves (not speaking Whine-ese, etc.) Riding a two wheel bike for Josie. Swimming with more confidence, hopefully both of them learning to swim in the deep end. All of our close friends have pools.

I would also like to try working on Math skills. I'm going to attempt to do a lot of this math without worksheets or curriculum. Some skills need paper, but my kids do very well without it.
Today I began teaching Jake "Fast Doubles". 1+1=2, 2+2=4, 3+3=6 etc... all the way up to 10. I will teach them in numerical order for a few weeks, then I will begin to ask him to solve these problems out of order. I also made silver dollar pancakes this morning. There are three of us, and I made 21 pancakes. How many can each of us have? Josie raised her hand (how cute). "Seven!" Now Jake knows some division too.

We are also going to do the summer reading program with the library. There is a kick off celebration at the World's Fair Park in June, and we'll go to that. We have the reading logs already and read three books each yesterday.

One book Josie was reading is called "Wormology". There are lots of projects that kids can do with worms and dirt and things you find around the house. I need to go buy some mason jars. A lot of these experiments in kids science books call for them. I also need some ammonia, supposedly worms are attracted to it and I'd like to see that experiment for myself.

So far I've covered Life Skills, P.E., Reading, Math, and Science. Surprising that I haven't gotten around to art. Josie wants to make pinch pots I know. So maybe we'll do that. Weaving is fun and good for fine motor skills. Jake needs lots of those activities.

A Fish I Can't Kill

After my children found enough bloated fish corpses to give them recurring nightmares, I decided I was no marine biologist and flushed the last fish down the bowl. "Never again!" I said, the guilt was so great. But I think I've found a solution to my fish problem. Robofish.

Tonight's Dinner Conversation

Jake really wanted to know whether "brung" was a word. I told him it wasn't. This was earlier today. Tonight at dinner he wanted to know what "chock" meant. I said "chalk?" He said, "No, 'chock' as in 'chock-full'." Little smarty.

Then Josie told me that she knew a word that was all vowels. She said "Eye". I said "I?". She replied "No E-Y-E!" I said that I thought the "y" in that word was actually a consonant. So we talked about word where "y" stood in as a vowel. Ex- Rhythm, catalyst etc. Sometimes it makes a long "e" sound. Sometimes it makes a long and short "i" sound. So we decided we would look up words that had no vowels, and words that had no consonants. I wanted to know which words had a "w" standing in for a vowel.

Here are some answers and some interesting information.

Brung is a word, but it is improper like ain't. Score 1 for mama.

Chock- adv. As close as possible.

Longest word in Oxford English Dictionary without a vowel- twyndyllings. Welsh in origin, it means twins. I guess there is debate here as to whether "y" is a vowel here.

The word queueing has five vowels in a row. But I couldn't find a word without consonants. Unless you count "a" and "I".

Longest word in which every other letter is a vowel is honorificabilitudinitatibus which occurs in a Shakespeare play and is- the state of being able to achieve honors.

The word I found in which "w" is a vowel is the Welsh word crwth that rhymes with tooth, and is a stringed instrument. This could also be a word without vowels if you disagree that "w" is a vowel.

Let's listen to a crwth, shall we?

He was right.

A bean is a seed.

Scruffy Little Flower Patch

Well this is the garden. Ain't it purdy?

Water Day

Today we left at 9am to check out the Farmer's Market on Market Square (Downtown Knoxville). Josie thought we might be able to find some pigeons there, and I thought it would be a good opportunity for them to take pictures. Market Square was a ghost town when we arrived, even the birds had better places to go, so I took them to Fort Kid, near the World's Fair Park. While they were playing, I was hearing what I thought must be Karaoke off in the distance. That seemed strange to me since it was 10am on a Wednesday morning.



We walked down to the fountains at the park and I let them play in their clothes.


There were huge tents set up with long tables and kid's wearing badges around their necks walking around with parents. I could see the karaoke stage off in the distance and some booths. I asked a man if he knew what was going on. He said they were here with "Destination Imagination". It's a program where teams of kids from all over the world get together to compete in challenges. One mother from Denver told me her son's team had to build a structure that weighed less that an ounce and a half, that could hold more that 100lb of weight. They built a structure from balsa wood that held 350lbs. I didn't find out if they were the winners. She asked me about things to do around town. I really couldn't help much. I told her that they could ride the trolley, take it to campus and go to the McClung Museum. Or walk on over to the Art Museum, that the Junior League has a place set up just for kids in there where they can create. It looked like they would be having enough fun with this convention.


After all the excitement, the kids and I walked over and watched some girls singing "Stacey's Mom", Jake took a picture. Then we went to the library and Jake got his own card. We got about 20 books and grabbed a few summer reading forms. Josie even grabbed three young reader chapter books without me prompting her. Now I just have to get her to read them.

We'll go back to the World's Fair Park soon. The dog can come too.

Garden Day

Today we decided to work in the garden. We started out a 9 am for a trip to Lowe's where we had a debate on what kind of flowers we would buy. We decided it really didn't matter whether we got annuals or perrenials, but the color scheme was a pretty hot topic. I hate marigolds. I don't know why, but they just seem weedy to me. Of course the kids love marigolds. They are so oppositional. But it's no good to argue when it's a creative pursuit. I told them they could have their marigolds if I could have my cactus rose. 8 bags of soil and two pallettes of flowers later, we were back home to dig up the ugly gravel that the previous owners put down. What were they thinking. The kids filled their toy buckets with gravel and dumped it in the wheel barrow. It took five wheelbarrows full of gravel before we had our tiny area cleared. A neighbor kid came and helped us plant our flowers. Everyone had a different idea of how they should be planted. We ended upplanting them randomly, but making sure to have more marigolds in the back because they are taller. We also had to estimate how far apart nine inches should look. Then crammed them all together when we realized we had too many.

At lunchtime we discussed whether jellyfish have eyes, brains, or can feel touch. I wondered how their digestive systems operate. Josie told me that she knows for sure that jellyfish have five eyes. Four on each corner of their bell and one in the middle. She said bees are this way too, but I wasn't sure about that. She's usually right though. About a month ago, her grandpa showed her a cute picture of a penguin trying to wake up a polar bear. She said the picture was innacurate unless the animals were in a zoo, since penguins lived only south of the equator and polar bears were arctic creatures. He looked it up and she was right.

They spent some time outside after lunch in the back yard. Josie brought me a "pregnant" roly poly to inspect. It did have a weird fat white belly. She wanted me to see the eggs emerge. I told her that I don't have the stomach for that. Later she showed me the underside of another roly poly, it was covered in little yellow eggs.

They played in the sprinklers for about an hour. We'll call this recess, since it seemed like a good time for me to sit down with a beer.

We ate thai noodles for dinner. The kids gave it a chance then opted for macaroni and cheese. We discussed all the things we eat that are seeds. Are beans seeds too? Jake seems to think that if you can break open a green bean and plant the little beans inside that they must be seeds too. Will have to look that up tomorrow.

Right now they are rounding out the day's education with 20 year old issues of Cracked Magazine. Don't judge.

Some Pictures from Last Week's Classroom

This is a nice double exposure by my son, who is 6.

This is Grotto Falls. It is a picture taken by my daughter, who is 8.

My Kid's Elementary School