Active week

The boys have really been into physical play this week. There's a new indoor playspace in town with a big wooden "pirate ship", moon bounce, and a bunch of other ways for the kids to stay active and have some imaginary play time. There's even a special area for Monkey to stay if she wants to be away from the big kids, although most of the time she just does her best to keep up. We spent at least 4 hours there this week. We also got Tex signed up for Homeschool P.E. class at the local YMCA and he had his first class this week; came out red-faced and sweating after playing soccer and loved it! :-) He was actually interested in moving his conflicting gymnastics class so that he could attend the Y's class twice weekly instead of once. Noodle is simply excited that we're going to start going swimming during Tex's class time, and I'm betting Monkey will be thrilled, too.

The boys have also enjoyed a lot of game playing this week. Computer games, Battleship, board games. And I've noticed that Tex has particularly delighted lately in being the teacher. He doesn't know it, but I love this b/c it helps me to know what lessons he's really absorbed. This week Tex taught Monkey about why clouds rain, he taught Noodle about the different environments that animals live in as they were building a Zoo Tycoon zoo together, and I remember hearing quite a few things I didn't know before, but apparently I need to work on MY listening skills because now I cannot recall a one! Perhaps he'll be good enough to repeat himself this week if I promise to wear my listening ears?

Today we had a field trip to a local hydroponic farm with a group of homeschool friends. The kids got to see the benefits of their vertical planting system which needs one acre for every 18 a traditional farm would use, and uses 2,600 gallons of water daily compared to the 50,000 gallons a traditional farm growing the same number of plants would need. (See, today I had my listening ears on!) We also saw a wicked huge grasshopper, ladybugs and their larvae, stink bugs, squash bugs, learned the difference between beneficial and harmful insects, between male and female squash flowers, and supported a local farm all in one fell swoop!