Apples and Toast Shapes

I used these linzer cookie cutters to cut hearts out of strawberries for this week's lemon custard squares. Sage suggested we cut shapes out of apples and then out of toast with jam. This snack was yummy, healthy and fun.

Sage's Bunny Drawings

Sage loves to draw bunnies these days. He draws them at home and at school. We have 6 bunny stuffed animals and borrow bunny books from the library.

Free Range Learning

I really liked this book as a resource. It had a lot of lists of books, groups, and websites to check out for homeschoolers. It also made me aware of the variety of activities a child can engage in including volunteering, current events, career shadowing, distance learning, making toys out of recycled materials, and helping to preserve the environment to name a few.

After reading this book, I felt inspired to be a guide, and a facilitator toward the kids when they want to learn something. Our homeschooling style will mainly be child directed learning and Montessori with a little bit of parent directed learning. I want them to keep up with the yearly school curriculum but to do it in a fun way. Yesterday was Saturday and it was happily spent reading, playing on the playground, drawing and doing math. Addition to be exact. We found a computer program that's free online where the kids happily spent time doing basic addition. It led them to question about adding larger numbers together and what is less than 0. I talked about temperature to relate negative numbers to practical life. 

Free Range Learning has a lot of quotes from different homeschoolers. It's great to hear so many different approaches and opinions. I took a lot of notes while reading this book. I feel like I'm doing my own independent study program.

Favorite Kids Yoga Video

The boys have been doing this video for years. It's the only one that really keeps their interest. It's fun and imaginative and also promotes saving the planet. There are two yoga programs in the video- Save the Whales and Save the Condors. We like to do yoga on rainy days when it's just too yucky to get outside.

How Many More Days of School?

This question comes up every day. I found a way to visually represent how many more days of school there are. He is really looking forward to summer vacation and homeschooling. We used to do this count down chain for trips to Hawaii and Christmas. Sage did a lot of work marking measurements with a ruler, cutting strips of paper, making patterns with markers and stapling the links together. He especially loves stapling. I remember when I was younger and would spend a long time stapling pieces of paper together that wound all around the house. He loves coming home from school each day and removing a link from the chain.

Nocturnal Frogs That Meow

Sage really wanted this frog for Easter. He picked it out a month before Easter and would talk about wanting to play with it every day until Easter finally arrived. Since his show and tell day was coming up at school and they are studying India, we decided to research if frogs actually lived in India.  Not only did we learn that there are many species of frogs in India, we also found out that 12 were recently discovered. We learned that some frogs are nocturnal and then went on to discuss which other animals are nocturnal. We learned that some frogs meow and went on to watch hilarious videos on YouTube. Some frogs are endangered and we talked about extinction and endangered animals.

Sage has also really taken an interest in sewing. He wanted to make a pillow and sleeping bag for Froggy. He picked out the felt colors and chose the shapes he wanted. He stitched with the needle and thread and stuffed the pillow with cotton. I helped him with threading the needle and tying the knots. We talked about big needles vs. small needles and how the smaller ones have smaller eyes but they are sharper and easier to sew with. All of his previous sewing projects at home have been really small. We put more planning into this one to make sure it would be big enough for Froggy to fit inside. The pillow is sewn on so it won't get lost. Froggy loves his new sleeping bag.

Angel Cards- Vocabulary and Values

Looking through my box of old stuff I found these angel cards. You're supposed to pick one and the word serves as a focus or inspiration for the rest of the day. We all pick one each day. The boys usually ask what the word means and we will discuss.

The Cat in the Hat Play

We went with Sage's class to see the Cat in the Hat play last week. I was hesitant at first because 1) I wasn't sure the boys would sit still and quietly 2) It was early in the morning and Sage is usually not out of the house at that time 3) Would I be able to handle two tired boys on public transportation.

I must say though that things went very well despite my fears. We had a great time! The boys thought the play was funny. Dagan especially liked the part where Thing 1 and Thing 2 bump their kites and knock everything off of the wall in the hall. Sage liked the part where Thing 1 and Thing 2 were sad because they mischief making was over and they had to go back into the box.
 
After getting up early, the bus and walking, the play, climbing in the Kids Market tunnels, eating chocolate croissants, playing in the wooden boat, walking, and taking the bus again they still had enough energy to go to the park. Whew, mom needs a nap.

Photography: Dagan and Sage's Room

This is Dagan's view of his room and himself. He wanted to document it so he could remember what it looked like if we move again. Since he's been born he's lived in six different places.

It's As Easy As Riding A Bike

It was a journey from tricycles to balance bikes to training wheels and now officially to big kid bikes. It only took them a few tries before they were riding like champs. Now we have to run to catch up with them as they speed down the seawall bike path. Here they are in action. Click to view Dagan Rides a Bike. Click to view Sage Rides a Bike.

Easter Cookies and Letter to the Easter Bunny

 

  

We baked a batch of sugar cookies for Easter. Last week Sage had fun testing out the cutters by using play dough. On Saturday we all made the real cookie dough which involved measuring, weighing, mixing, sifting and dividing. We refrigerated it overnight and on Easter Sunday we rolled, cut, placed, decorated and baked the cookies. We observed how they grew in size in the oven and how to watch for the slight browning on the edges to know when to take them out. Click here to view the sugar cookie recipe. Click here to view the homemade play dough recipe. 

Here is a letter the boys wanted to leave for the Easter Bunny. They also left carrots and lettuce and hoped he would enjoy reading about himself in the Chicks Versus Bunnies book. We could not find the movie Hop this year so we watched Rise of the Guardians instead since it has the Easter Bunny in it. The boys loved it! On Easter morning, the boys hunted for eggs around the house and used a treasure map (house plan) the EB left to find their Easter baskets. They also had fun rehiding the eggs and taking turns finding them.

Peanut Butter Cups

Sage wants to be a pastry chef when he grows up. Here he is filling the paper cups with melted chocolate peanut butter. Click here for a video. For this project, he has helped me to chop chocolate from a brick into small shards, line muffin pans with paper liners, mix peanut butter and chocolate, and spoon mixture into paper cups with minimal mess.

Shield Crafting With Dad

The boys love shields after watching dad play the Legend of Zelda games. They researched different types of shields on the internet, went to the craft store to buy foam boards, designed and painted their shields. Dagan's is a dragon shield and Sage's is a lion shield. Both were decorated front and back with watercolors and markers. Dad helped glue handles to the back. When they make new shields they say they are, "Upgrading them".

Windowsill Projects

We currently have some science projects on our windowsill. The first is an apple decomposing. We had an apple that was starting to rot and decided to watch its changes. We noticed the crisp red flesh turning mushy and wrinkled. We watched as small mold spores started to grow near the stem. We felt the squishy texture.

The second project is growing an avocado plant from a seed. Step one: remove avocado seed from the flesh. Step two: rinse off any of the fruit still clinging to the seed. Step three: place three toothpicks in the seed about a third from the top equidistant from each other at a diagonal angle. The bump should go on the bottom. Step four: place in a container of water so the bottom half of the seed is immersed in water. Step five: place in a sunny window. We watched a few videos on how to grow these plants. One said to start it with the seed in a damp paper towel in a plastic bag. Another said it's easier to grow if you take off some of the skin from the seed near the bump. We also tried growing the avocado seed in a damp paper towel in a plastic bag.

The third project is sprouting apple seeds. We counted 7 seeds in a small apple. We washed the seeds and placed them in a damp paper towel. We placed the paper towel in a plastic bag and placed it on the sunny window sill. After a week we put the seeds in the fridge since I read that they grow in the cold but they still look the same.

 Two weeks after we started the avocado seed project, cracks are forming on the top and bottom of our avocado seeds. The top picture is of an avocado seed that has been in water and the bottom picture is of an avocado seed that has been in a damp paper towel.