Out with whales and in with the leaves~

What a week! I really should say, "What a month!" It has been full of changes. We changed out our Science topic from the Ocean and its creatures to Chemistry and the study of Matter. That meant we had the sad task of taking down our ocean room and replacing it with pumpkins, leaves, and resemblences of fall. While I do not yet have current pix of the fall room, I will post some of the ocean one. While this new one is not as elaborate, it was fun putting together and designing. Three of my grandsons on Columbus Day painted the "wallpaper" and made some of the pumpkins.

As far as the Science goes, learning about matter, and atoms and the table of elements and protons and neutrons and electrons, etc. is really quite fun. Handsome has a kit from Academy of Science for Kids which has packettes with hands-on explanations and experiments. He finds them very intersting, I find them easy to use and teach. This appears to be a very good program. I never took Chemistry in school and while I picked up some of the info along the way, it is enlightening to me as well. I think I WILL try to memorize the table of elements...just to see if I can! (Maybe you can teach an "old" granny new info!)

Girlfriend is potty-training. She is so funny when she accomplishes her task. She beams and claps and points. And announces it to Daddy and sometimes Grandpa on the phone...

There are lots of tales to share...and I shall share a many soon. As for today, I just wanted to post something and some pictures now that I have my computer figured out!

The Power of a Moment

That's all it took...a quick moment of inattentiveness...I left the scene to get a different marker since the one we were using was running low. Girlfriend had been quietly coloring with her crayons at her own desk. Upon seeing me leave, she decided to follow, at which Handsome decided to move her desk slightly.

This created a reaction which concluded by them both pushing the desk across the room. This would not have been a big issue, had not a wayward crayon gotten lodged under the leg of the desk.

YES! In a brief moment of time, the light colored carpet was hued with a dark blue streak about four feet long!

So, I spent a good deal of the afternoon trying to remove the color. In the end, I did succeed, but if you look REALLY closely, you can tell that there has been some marking. Fortunately, most of us don't look THAT closely, and if we tried to, there would be too much action of little feet dancing or playing anyway!

THis, is the power of a simple moment!

The Baby Needs You

Girlfriend is well into her twos as evidenced by her antics. And now that Hunky is attending regular Kindergarten, she requires some extra attention at times. This is fine, even wonderful, to spend special time with her. However, sometimes she prefers that one on one time to be in the middle of Handsome's instruction time.

Grandma, here, being full of antics myself, came up with a "solution"...or so I thought.

"Girlfriend! I hear your baby crying! She needs you! Go get your baby and feed her!"
This worked for a few times, with Girlfriend taking off at lightning speed to care for her baby.

But! she was not to be outdone! Later that week, when she was in need of a time out, thinking quickly to avoid "the time-out corner" she yells out "Wait! I hear my baby crying! She needs me!"

AND as if THAT wasn't funny enough...THIS week, when I tried to use the same tactic, she looks at me and says "Gramma...that baby is just fine!"

The Adventures of Girlfriend and Handsome!

I promised to try to keep this updated and I am once again failing to perform! I think it is largely because I want to be clever or funny or meaningful. alas, there are some days, and even weeks, in which I do not feel funny, clever, or even meaningful...

I will however, blog about our recent field trips...I signed Handsome up for the homeschool program at the Science Center and we attended two classes so far. This last one had to do with magnification...using all kinds of magnifiers...water, lenses, microscopes, etc. It was really fun!

But we went to the AZ Museum of Natural History a few days ago. THAT was really fun! We got to see scenes from the Old West, pan for gold, lock ourselves in a jail cell, examine a stage coach, put together a Native American pootery puzzle,toured a mine shaft set-up and much more! And that was all just in the Old West section.

There is a section on Earth Science where we met Elivs, an alligator, and an alligator turtle who snapped at us through the glass aquarium. We saw the Universe models and the star system. We saw how houses were built before bricks and plaster.

The only "bummer" was that the fantastic dinosaur section was down for repairs. We got to see the "life-size" dinos, but they did not make their noises and movements like they advertise. Oh well. they were awesome anyway! And there were plenty of skeletons too!

I would post pictures, but I forgot my camera and had to buy a one-use type at the gift shop. Not sure if I can scan those or not. This new computer has a different photo program than I am used to, which is why I have not been posting. I will figure it out and get some up soon!

Anyway, life is interesting and different with just Handsome and Girlfriend. Hunky is in regular Kindergarten and doing quite well. Girlfriend misses him. It becomes a delicate balancing act to keep her occupied while Handsome receives instructions for school. She doesn't want to miss out on anything! I need her to self-entertain somewhat, with things I provide of course, and yet, I don't want her to feel lonely or left out. She needs some 1:1 time too. Getting all the topics and proper instruction done AND meeting her needs is quite the challenge. So far, we are managing it...I hope fairly well...

She loves going with us to the field trips and Science classes. So far, she is doing well with it all. I bring along her own special activity box to the classes, which helps a lot. These are things she does not get to play with elsewhere, so they are fresh and exciting!

Hunky comes home before I leave. He gets a snack...or two...or three! Sometimes the neighbor children, with whom he rides to and from school, stay to play for awhile.

All in all, I love my job! I love being with my grandchildren. I love the learning opportunities I have. I love passing on knowlege. I think I should have been a full-time teacher years all along! But then, I loved doing ALL the things I have done in my life...career-wise anyway. What a way to "retire" (which is what my last job called my departure)...AND NOW WE HAVE NEW ADVENTURES DAILY!

Somewhere Over the Rainbows!

Aren't children great? If only we could harness their energy and their imaginations to release for them later in life. I realize that not all of the energy is directed in the most appropriate places. Nor are the tales they spin full of accurate details. But what fun they are!

I have been substitute teaching the Rainbows...3 year olds through Kindergarten on Wednesday evenings at church for about 13 weeks. Last night was my last class. They made me promise to visit and bring some of my puppets back too. We had cupcakes and Capri Sun drinks and made some messess. The great thing here is that the janitor comes on Thursday mornings. He told me to just surface clean and he would do the rest. What a guy!

Actually, last night, we made more noise than mess. We made maraccas out of two plastic cups partially filled with beans, and duct-taped together! Works pretty well, but it can get loud! Especially with more boys than girls. So I told them a story and every time they heard the word "God" in the story, they got to shake their maraccas. One boy got a little carried away and I had to limit the amounts of shakes. Some of the other children got so enrapt in the story that they forgot to shake their maraccas! All in all it was a good night!

This class has made me laugh more times than I can count! Children say such amazing things. One night we were talking about listening and were playing a game where I made two statements about something...one of which was true and one of which was not. I said silly things to keep them laughing, but one girl totally cracked me up! I had said..."girls are pretty but they have purple eyes" and she corrected me about the eyes. So my next statement was "boys are strong, but they smell bad", to which she repleid "That's not right! Boys are not strong!" I couldn't help it! I lost it! But even the boys thought it was funny. Of course, they then wanted to inform us about HOW they get smelly...but that's another story!

I have delightful pictures of them showing me their muscles when the lesson had to do with being strong and healthy. I have silly pictures of them wearing a multi-colored wig...well they story was about Joseph's COAT of many colors, but I didn't have a coat...a wig, I DID have! They loved it! We have painted with paint rollers on butcher paper, painted with jello and glue, gone rock hunting in the parking areas, picked up trash on a "hike" in the parking areas, and made many interesting crafts! And oh, the stories I heard!

Don't worry! If your child was in my class, I did NOT believe everything I heard! In fact, on several occasions, I mentioned these tales to the parents who set the record straight and got a good laugh at the same time! Such stories like..."I have four dogs, three cats, a lizard, a frog, two rats, and fourteen fish at my house!" She actually has two dogs and that is all!

I shall miss these children. But I am also glad to return to the world of the adults. It will not be so entertaining I am sure! It will have a different set of challenges and delight. And I shall visit these children often...along with puppets Ezra, Bubba, and Thing-a-ma-jig! And I might even show up in that Rainbow wig!

A Bubbly Day!

There is nothing quite like the giggles of little girls! And Girlfriend had her share of them today! She likes to be tickled lightly for a few seconds. But if I could capture a moment forever in my memory...it may well have been today. It all started when she discovered a bottle of bubbles! That may have been disconcerting had she been able to get the lid off and indiscrimently spill them. But, fortune was on our side, and she asked me to open them for her. We brought her little red plastic chair into the bathroom where I proceeded to open the bubbles. The name on the bottle said "Miracle bubbles." If one counts laughter as a miracle, then these bubbles lived up to their name!

They really were quite good as bubbles go...I was able to blow numerous ones from each single dip of the wand. And as I caught some on the wand, I was able to roll them over and over the wand, and then disperse them into even more bubbles. Girlfriend was delighted! She grasped for each one as it floated by, clapping and trying to pop them. She was oblivious to ones that landed ever so briefly on her head. She did, however, take note of the one that burst on her nose. She giggled even louder and then rubbed her sweet nose ferociously while reaching for more bubbles in the air. She probably could have done this for a very long time. Unfortunately, we had only our "recess" time from schooling. But what a recess!

Handsome spent his recess time building a house out of cardboard. He made a tiny table and television set to put inside. He got a hinge from the garage and made a door that actually swung open! He cut squares of green paper and then put stickers on them and put them on the walls for hanging pictures. He is quite a creative child! And all of this came from parts of a Creative Moments box! Guess that was another label with prophetic over-tones! Ha!

We had a bubbly day academically as well. Handsome had the best day ever as far as accomplishments go. He finished his math in record time and only missed one problem out of three pages worth! He knew the answers to the History and Science reviews. He also knew the answers to the music and health questions. Wow! And he seemed to catch on to the reading concepts well and proved it by reading new words without hesitation! We played a fishing for words game prior to the introducing the new concept. I took all his spelling words for the last few weeks as well as some new reading words and some familiar words and wrote them onto word strips that I cut into three-inch pieces. These were the "fish" once I placed paper clips on them. then from an old curtain rod, I made a fishing pole, complete with a way to reel them in! And, of course, a magnet for the hook. The game was, that if he missed the word, it would go into the "release" pile. If he corrctly read the word, it went into his "keep" pile. If the "release" pile was larger than his keep pile, he would have to write all the missed words. BUT if his pile was larger, then he did not have to write and also got to eat gummy worms! His pile had 23 and the "release" pile had 7. Good job, Handsome! (He doesn't particularly like to write words!)

So, I consider the day a success! And, oh yes! Hunky got a great report from his Kindergarten class today as well!

Yeah!!!!

Learning Is Fun!

I am learning all the time...the fun thing about homeschool teaching is that the resources are endless. There is no specifically guided curriculum limiting what angles I can research or teach from. I can explore many theories and ideas and opinions and discover the true facts and some little known ones about any subject I want. I have learned amazing facts about Science as well as many ideas. I have learned a lot about history and found humorous and serious things left out of many texts. I utilize the libraries and Internet. They are free (for the most part...I have had late fees at the library and some Internet sites do charge)and they offer a myriad of resources. I am having fun! (By the way, the local library set me up to get emails 2 days before things are due...and I also can "order"- "hold" any item I want from my computer and they will have it for me in a special place when it is available...very helpful people!)

Handsome is doing well. Today he earned a model airplane I had purchased at a yard sale as an incentive for studying the Wright Brothers. We have done that, as well as take a look at the Space program. Handsome thought it would have been incredible if the Wright brothers would have known that less than 70 years later, man would walk on the moon. One of them (my brain fails me at the moment!) did live to see jet planes and the atomic bomb.

We visited the Challenger Space Center yesterday. In addition to all the space information, they have a cockpit control panel from an airplane. That was Handsome's favorite thing. They even let him play with it, switching all the switches and turning all the knobs. They have cardboard space suits that you can take a picture with your head inside. I had to use my cell phone camera so I am not sure how well they turned out, but I will eventually try to publish them.

The history of aviation was the topic for our history class for this first couple of
weeks. We will soon move on into American History. So then, our Science topic is studying the Ocean and its inhabitants...and its features.

Today we learned about salt and fresh water. We did an experiment with salt water, letting the outside air dry it out and observing the salt left behind on the black paper...a lesson in evaporation...and we did an experiment from yesterday's lesson on tides and waves. We made a beach in a paint roller pan and made waves with a pencil and then observed whether the beach got washed away quicker with or without gravel added to the shore. Girlfriend helped make the waves. She thought it was fun!

For health class we are learning about nutrition. We had one week on posture and now we are learning what we should eat. Today Handsome made posters on vegetables and the vitamins they provide. Monday he did one on proteins. Now, if I could only get both of them to eat what they should! Handsome would eat mac and cheese or chicken nuggets everyday if I would let him...or maybe a hashbrown or two. Girlfriend nibbles on protein items and pasta...and then gobbles down everything once in awhile. Today I reiterated the need for vegetables and fruit. It is not that Handsome doesn't like them, it is just that he dislikes them for LUNCH. sounds like a reasonable excuse to me! Ha! But they do get all their vitamins!

Well, that's about all the exciting things happening around my parts. I did fail to mention that Hunky is enjoying Kindergarten and talks a lot about it when he arrives home.

Well, I shall attempt to blog more regularly...at least weekly as I have said before. I almost made it!

Keep smiling because it makes your kids think you have a secret! Ha!