Just keep learning, learning, learning

I love this life. There is nothing better than being able to have my children around me and watch them learning. Sure, there are days when I would happily duct tape them all to the couch just to get a half-hour of uninterrupted Quiet Time, but I can wait a couple years until they're more capable of giving me that gift. ;-)

Only problem is: if I don't blog more often, I totally forget all the stuff I was going to mention! We've done SO much the last few weeks since getting back into our homeschool schedule after the holidays, and I'm going to try to remember as much as I can.

We got a microscope for Christmas, and it has already yielded hours of entertainment and learning. It is a compound microscope, so it can view both slides and 3-D objects with its different light sources. We've examined the difference in crystals between table salt, kosher salt, and sugar. We've looked at dead bugs up close. Today Tex and I made our own slide with mold from an old croissant (it's not bad housekeeping, it's science!), and another with water from the toilet (nothing in the water moved, which I found wonderfully reassuring), and plan to get some pond water next time we're out and about, and examine it for beasties.

Noodle was busy experimenting with some acids and bases to see what happens. Tex bought some Pucker Powder at the science museum last week and I noticed that a main ingredient was citric acid, aka the stuff that Noodle likes to mix with baking soda and water and watch it bubble. Noodle begged and pleaded and got Tex to part with one teaspoon of his Pucker Powder to see what sort of reaction it would yield. Unfortunately it didn't do much other than make colored water, but it was worth a shot! We then moved on to squeezing lemon wedges onto the baking soda, and that got a much more exciting reaction! So much fizzing! Noodle was very happy until he discovered that lemon juice and cuts on one's finger do not mix well. Sometimes science hurts. :-(

What else? Well, a couple weeks ago we had an Alabama snowstorm, which means we had actual snow that stuck on the ground and could be made into snowballs and tiny snowmen. Of course the kids had a blast, and we got out our magnifying glass to observe the crystal formation in the snowflakes. We were also completely tickled to discover that one of our nearby ponds was completely frozen over, a phenomenon I've never seen in this town. We went to explore and see how thick the ice was. I thought it couldn't be more than an inch, but after banging and digging with sticks and rocks for a good while we had to stop because we couldn't get farther than about 3 inches deep. Knowing it was that thick, I decided we could risk a little "skate" around the rim where I could actually see the dirt and grass underneath the ice. We talked about ice safety and listened to the faint creaks from the ice as we walked around the edge. The boys would have stayed all day but MonkeyGirl thought landing on her bottom on the cold, hard ice lost its luster after about a dozen times.

We've also been making a concerted effort to be sure the kids get their "P.E." every day. Of course some days that's as easy as going to a park and letting them run and climb until they're sweaty and worn out, but Tex also attends a homeschool P.E. class at the YMCA every week and attends Little Gym's homeschool class once a week as well. He's really improved his body strength and can now do a pullover on the bar and a straddle roll, and in P.E. he's started making home runs in kickball and doing better on the Presidential Fitness events. We have also begun, as a family, to use our new Wii Fit Plus that we got for Christmas every morning. Tex especially loves it and gets some good aerobic exercise doing the hula hoop, short jogs, and obstacle courses. It's a nice way to get him moving first thing in the morning.

And finally, our reading progress. I mentioned that Tex had finally had his lightbulb and realized that he could read, but I think he's been a little disappointed that every word isn't easy to read. So I mention to him that he's going to have to practice to get better at it, which is usually met with a rant about how "I don't like reading, I'm never going to read, you're going to have to read to me forever!" LOL But the other night when he lamented that he couldn't read Star Wars on his own and had to wait on pokey ol' Mommy, I mentioned it again, "honey, the more you practice reading, the more confident you'll be, and the more you'll be able to read, and before you know it you'll be flying through whatever books you want to." He seemed to think about it for a moment and then said, "ok". And since then he's been doing more spontaneous reading on his own and not taking it so badly when he's not immediately correct. We even, Tex, Noodle, and I, played gummi words for about 45 minutes yesterday and they both did amazing. I bought these cards designed to help you recognize "word families", so they have things like "___ight", or "___ump" on them. So then we just took our gummi letters and made "bright", "light", and "plump rump" (Tex's favorite). Even Noodle was doing great with the families like "_at" and "_ig". I wouldn't be at all surprised if they were both reading independently over the summer!