Tonight, we went to see a play at the local theater. The actors were mostly young kids, they did a production of The Jungle Book.
The Princess really got into the story, I think. The first thing she said, when all of the animals were meeting at Council Rock, was that she really wanted to go up on stage with them, and that she had an animal costume, too. During intermission, she howled like one of the wolves. At the end of the play, when all of the actors were taking a bow, Shere Khan walked out, and the Princess stopped clapping. She looked concerned, or unhappy. I think she believed that the character was real. I mentioned what a good job the kid had done who pretended to be Shere Khan, and she relaxed a bit.
After the play, we got to meet the cast and congratulate/thank them. The Princess started telling "Mowgli" that she'd once had a tiger costume. He was kind and listened to her. (He was great in the play; Paul and I were reminded of a couple of movie actors, and of Peter Pan)
The Inventor thought the parts with Mowgli were the best. He mentioned that he'd thought the dagger was real, but then when we saw them in the hallway, he noticed that it looked like it was made of plastic. I've asked the kids if they would be interested in being in a play (I'll admit, that was one of the reasons we took them there; we wanted them to see what a performance was like), and the Inventor says that he would like to make some plays/stories of his own!
What else has been going on...well, the Inventor invents (with his Physics kit, mainly), and I introduced him to the Bill Nye the Science Guy TV show, he really enjoyed it.
The Princess has a birthday coming up...she'll be five, and I don't know what we'll do with her, she's so dramatic! She's been working at school with the other two, we have our first "real" schoolroom set up, and I love it. The kids want to "teach" us, though, so we give them a turn at the white board, sometimes!
All three kids are now signed up for soccer. We didn't know if the Dragon would decide to play or not, until the last minute. She loves the game, and I think she will be fine once she gets back into the swing of it, but her knees are bothering her. She's wondering if she'll play goalie again this year; she should be with the same coaches, but an older team.
We had family in over the last week, so things were really busy, but we had a lot of fun. The kids got to meet their brand-new cousin, from Texas, plus there were oodles of aunts and uncles and grandparents.
The kids and I went to a camp-out at a friend's this month, where we stayed up to watch a meteor shower. We ate S'mores, too, of course!
That's all I can recall at the moment! And plenty for one post. Onward!
Sunday, August 24, 2008
Thursday, July 17, 2008
Motorcycle Rides, and Crawly Critters
Today the kids and I took turns riding on the back of Daddy's motorcycle. The Princess and the Inventor were thrilled (they rarely get a chance, it's probably been a year since the last time), and hung on for dear life. He took them down to the end of our road and back.
The Inventor has had a "bug collection" for a few days, now. Grand-daddy longlegs, crickets, grasshoppers, moths, all living in his snail's house for a while. He's given them leaves, a plum, and a "playground" made of sticks. The snail joined our family after a visit to a friend's house in town two weeks ago. It has been through official "training", and he lets it out for exercise every day.
Some friends cut our hay the other day - oops, gotta call them!
The Inventor has had a "bug collection" for a few days, now. Grand-daddy longlegs, crickets, grasshoppers, moths, all living in his snail's house for a while. He's given them leaves, a plum, and a "playground" made of sticks. The snail joined our family after a visit to a friend's house in town two weeks ago. It has been through official "training", and he lets it out for exercise every day.
Some friends cut our hay the other day - oops, gotta call them!
Thursday, June 19, 2008
Berry Picking
Yesterday evening, the kids and I went berry picking.
We didn't find many ripe berries, but had a great time. We went to our corner lot, the Dragoness with her hat and umbrella, Mr. Inventor with his "lucky jacket". It started to rain just as we were leaving, but it was nice, without lightning, and the showers came and went for a while. Sometimes we would have to get under a group of trees, to wait out a heavier rain, but mostly it just kept things cool. Our clothes and shoes were drenched, as much from wading through tall grass and weeds as from the rain.
The Inventor and the Dragon found the few berries we did see. The Princess did much better on this walk than when she was younger. This was partly because she is taller (always before, it seemed she was at eye level with some thorn or bramble, and would disappear in a clump of weeds), but the water also helped make things easier, I think. There were fewer bugs, we were less worried about snakes, and the plants let us pass without as much of a fight.
The Dragon and the Inventor, and sometimes the Princess, were able to roam ahead, following the clear deer trails, and leaving me to take my time looking at trees. The Princess was with me when I found a solitary mulberry tree, she got some of the berries.
I also saw plum and crabapple trees loaded with fruit. This should be a good year for learning to can and preserve food.
The kids found beautiful wild roses, pink, on climbing vines, and couldn't wait to show me. The Inventor found one of those insect galls on a stick, and brought it home, we've been trying to imagine what kind of bug lived in/hatched out of it.
We stopped for a while at the pond behind our property, where we saw some deer, and several interesting birds. While we sat there, watching and listening (the kids were amazingly quiet!), the sun came out and cast a hazy, golden glow on everything - oak and locust trees, waving grass, pond algae, water.
The kids were ready to go home, then, so we trudged back up to our field, where Dad met us in the van, to give us a ride home. The Dragon had decided to walk home, and we stopped to tease her a bit.
Sort of wish I'd had my camera, but sometimes you have to just experience things fully, without stopping every few minutes to document things.
We didn't find many ripe berries, but had a great time. We went to our corner lot, the Dragoness with her hat and umbrella, Mr. Inventor with his "lucky jacket". It started to rain just as we were leaving, but it was nice, without lightning, and the showers came and went for a while. Sometimes we would have to get under a group of trees, to wait out a heavier rain, but mostly it just kept things cool. Our clothes and shoes were drenched, as much from wading through tall grass and weeds as from the rain.
The Inventor and the Dragon found the few berries we did see. The Princess did much better on this walk than when she was younger. This was partly because she is taller (always before, it seemed she was at eye level with some thorn or bramble, and would disappear in a clump of weeds), but the water also helped make things easier, I think. There were fewer bugs, we were less worried about snakes, and the plants let us pass without as much of a fight.
The Dragon and the Inventor, and sometimes the Princess, were able to roam ahead, following the clear deer trails, and leaving me to take my time looking at trees. The Princess was with me when I found a solitary mulberry tree, she got some of the berries.
I also saw plum and crabapple trees loaded with fruit. This should be a good year for learning to can and preserve food.
The kids found beautiful wild roses, pink, on climbing vines, and couldn't wait to show me. The Inventor found one of those insect galls on a stick, and brought it home, we've been trying to imagine what kind of bug lived in/hatched out of it.
We stopped for a while at the pond behind our property, where we saw some deer, and several interesting birds. While we sat there, watching and listening (the kids were amazingly quiet!), the sun came out and cast a hazy, golden glow on everything - oak and locust trees, waving grass, pond algae, water.
The kids were ready to go home, then, so we trudged back up to our field, where Dad met us in the van, to give us a ride home. The Dragon had decided to walk home, and we stopped to tease her a bit.
Sort of wish I'd had my camera, but sometimes you have to just experience things fully, without stopping every few minutes to document things.
Monday, June 9, 2008
A Beginning
I'll be blogging here about our homeschooling adventures. I've been trying to decide how to organize the posts, but it looks like I'll just have to jump in and let the organization happen (Ha! Where have I heard that before?).
Another thing I'll have to get used to is identifying where living becomes learning - I'm not quite sure there is a line, and so I'll have to play that by ear, too. I'm guessing I'll just post about what the kids and I have been doing. It'll be great to be able to look back at what we've done, and this way, we can keep the grandparents updated!
The title for this blog comes from one of my many idealistic dreams: I'd love to see us working, playing, and learning happily together; somehow the ultimate representation of that, for me, has become an image of all of us gathered on the front porch some summer evening, singing in harmony. It's a picture of a family happy to be together, enjoying each other's company.
We're a long way from that dream, and really, it's more of an inspiration than a plan; the idea is to work on the "enjoying each other's company" bit. Anyway, we are here on our place, and we are together, so we've got lots to work with.
Hopefully this blog will end up documenting the steps we make in that general direction, but in the meantime, I'll post about what we do around here that we count as learning!
Another thing I'll have to get used to is identifying where living becomes learning - I'm not quite sure there is a line, and so I'll have to play that by ear, too. I'm guessing I'll just post about what the kids and I have been doing. It'll be great to be able to look back at what we've done, and this way, we can keep the grandparents updated!
The title for this blog comes from one of my many idealistic dreams: I'd love to see us working, playing, and learning happily together; somehow the ultimate representation of that, for me, has become an image of all of us gathered on the front porch some summer evening, singing in harmony. It's a picture of a family happy to be together, enjoying each other's company.
We're a long way from that dream, and really, it's more of an inspiration than a plan; the idea is to work on the "enjoying each other's company" bit. Anyway, we are here on our place, and we are together, so we've got lots to work with.
Hopefully this blog will end up documenting the steps we make in that general direction, but in the meantime, I'll post about what we do around here that we count as learning!
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