Taking care

There was coolmathgames.com this morning. And some My Little Pony watching and then afterward, playing.

They built with the marble maze some more.

Lilah made a card for her friend. Gavin built with Legos.

I went on a long walk along the river by myself. The kids didn’t want to go and I needed to get some exercise. There were lots of birds enjoying the cool weather.

After lunch we listened to some John Coltrane from the Ken Burns Jazz collection while reading Ponyo.

I read some more of The Wizard of Oz.

In the evening we went to our family scouts group where the kids are working on computer coding. Both of them had fun solving puzzles and Gavin was working on creating his own game at the end. They really enjoyed it and I’m going to try to help find more opportunities for similar exploration.

We spent a good portion of the next day exploring the Jordan River parkway south of us, watching ducks, testing out new playgrounds, crossing bridges.

We saw a group of ducks take off and then later floating down the stream. I pointed out to the kids that they looked like they were going fast. Gavin answered that they were going fast because of the current. A bit later we stopped at a pond and Lilah was putting a stick in the water. Gavin asked her if she could tell how deep the water was. I love taking them outdoors and watching them test things out and figure out how the forces of nature work by trying things rather than being told about things.

When we got home they played with Legos. Gavin built a car for my phone. First we tried just putting the phone on some wheels, but it rolled right off, so Gavin set out to make a phone holder on wheels. Two minutes later it was complete. Wheeee!

There was reading at the pediatricians office, waiting for a vaccination.

At bedtime, after I left the room, Gavin came out and told me “Lilah needs help. She’s sad.” She’d been quietly crying. I went in and climbed on Lilah’s bed and held her. She cried and cried. I asked her if she was just sad or if she was sad about something. She didn’t answer. So after a while she began to calm down and I told her that she could let me know when she was ready for me to go. Eventually she told me that she’d been sad because I “did not very much funny stuff”, meaning when I was cuddling with her at bedtime she felt I wasn’t playful enough and she was sad because she felt I was more playful with her brother, and then she said that I could go. So I told her I could do more funny stuff tomorrow if she reminded me and told her I loved her and left. I am grateful that Gavin let me know what was happening. He doesn’t usually need to take care of his sister but when he does he does a good job. I am grateful that I was able to just be with Lilah through her upset and eventually that she was able to put her sadness into words.

In the morning there was perler bead building.

3-D style, this time. Gavin wanted to make something for a friend who likes minecraft so we made a minecraft style box with 6 pieces that fit together into a cube. Lilah worked on a capital B for her friend.

Lilah made a necklace and crown for her stuffed bird.

Gavin’s friend came over and they played Tsuro while Lilah and I made macaroons.

Lilah tried out the keyboard, then walked away, then came back. I think we’ll be hearing some music in the next few days!

unschooling

Stories and Castles

There was marble maze building. Castles, this time. There was lots of negotiation for different colored pieces and special pieces. “Why do you really need it?” “I just do. For going down to the bottom the faster way.” “I deserve it.” I don’t think we use that word much around here and I’m guessing they don’t have a good grasp of it’s meaning. We should explore that.

I invited the kids to write stories with me today as it’s been awhile since we’ve done any writing aside from notes and the occasional list. Lilah chose to use one of our And Then… story starter cards.

Gavin chose to write a collaborative story with me, each of us writing a sentence and passing it to the other.

I was impressed that we were able to enjoy the process for the most part. Even though we don’t do a lot of writing and it’s difficult for both kids, it’s getting easier as we relax about it. Lilah gets frustrated because she doesn’t know how to spell things. Gavin gets frustrated because he has trouble thinking at the speed and in the patterns necessary for writing. Today we wrote and it was okay and sometimes even fun. I’m calling that a win.

There was more marble maze building and lego building and a game of Magic the Gathering. Both kids decided to try shuffling for the first time.

I read the first three chapters of The Wizard Of Oz to the kids.

Lilah and I headed to her gymnastics class and Gavin played Magic the Gathering, testing out a new deck he built with Dad.

After that we hurried through dinner and then headed up the mountains to the Ice Castles in Midway, Utah.

This is the last night they are open as it’s been unseasonably warm and the ice is melting. It was beautiful and though the kids were tired they had a wonderful time exploring with us and my sister and my parents. They both said their favorite part was going down the ice slide. Lilah and I got our pants wet sitting on this ice thrown with ice triangle decorations behind our heads.

unschooling

Cuttlefish and Number Games

We went to the aquarium. We saw lots of animals and tested out some new displays. We spent quite a bit of time with the cuttlefish, observing them. They are fascinating creatures, very curious. They come right up to the glass to observe us and one even sort of puffed water at us several times. We wondered aloud what the tube like part under their head does and I promised to check it out at home. Later I found it helps to propel them through the water, along with their fin. They can change color and release ink. From watching them for awhile, it seems to me to be the spots on their skin that change color, not the underlying skin itself. We know they like to cover themselves in sand and hide on the bottom of the tank, but today we only spotted swimming cuttlefish. We also saw the Gentoo penguins, lots of sharks and unicorn fish and jellyfish.

We listened to Harry Potter on the way to and from the aquarium and Gavin asked to watch the movie so we started that when we got home.

The three of us played a Magic the Gathering draft. Lilah and I were on a team since drafting is so complicated that I don’t think she could do it on her own. She was disappointed but ended up enjoying it and then leaving partway through the game, which is about right for her attention span.

Lilah read me an Elephant and Piggie book: My New Friend Is So Fun.

Gavin and I played Rat-a-tat-Cat and he won with only 4 total. I had 7.

We headed to Classic Center for some roller skating. The kids practiced skating in a crouch, stopping, turning and jumping. I practiced not hitting small kids veering wildly on scooters while trying to enjoy skating. Next time I think we’ll go earlier and avoid the crowds.

Lilah played some Spanish games with number and color words. They’d forgotten many of the ones they had learned already but they came back fast. In one of the games she has to spell the words so the visual learning kicks in there.

We got out the Math Dice and Gavin taught me how to play. It was fun to practice our addition and multiplication. He’s so good with numbers!

Lilah performed a Chapstick experiment wherein she tried all of her chapsticks together, layer upon layer. It was hilarious and I told her she smelled like a candy shop. She’s still a bit sticky.

The kids played Carcassonne with my sister while I went for a short hike and then they played with Legos and jumped on the beanbag.

There was a soccer game in the hallway.

There’s always more fun to be had. I keep learning that particular lesson, over and over! It’s a good one.

unschooling

Sunken Cities, Lego Cities, Evolution

Over the past week or so the kids have been playing Spore every morning lately. So, the rest of the time the kids conversation is including evolution, mutation, tribes and herds. (It’s a computer game where you start as a tiny sea-dwelling organism and slowly evolve and become a land-dweller. You get to choose the changes, like type of eyeballs, type of feet, size of torso…, as you slowly level up and your creature changes and develops.) Usually both of them are leaning together, planning what changes to make next, where to take their creature in search of food, shelter or allies. Here’s Lilah in a rare moment without Gavin’s sage advice on hand.

Gavin built a Lego version of Carcassonne, complete with four civilizations, Japan, China, Vikings and Rome. It has a volcano and a temple, four cities and a river that goes to the sea. I’m impressed by his building, his creativity and his interest in geography, history and game mechanics.

We finished reading Madame Pamplemousse and the Enchanted Sweet Shop and are continuing Prairie School.

We looked at a bunch of slides with the new microscope as well as some feathers from our parakeet.

Lilah went to gymnastics. She even went up to the high bar, the one up higher than my head, swung herself around and up and did her “mermaids” on that bar before swinging down and dismounting. I was impressed.

Gavin and Dad played civilization.

We built my new single-serving puzzle.

Lilah’s had a cough for weeks and the air has been really bad here so we’ve been staying in quite a bit. Yesterday and today the air is finally clear again thanks to some rain and snow.

The kids have been playing with their Hero Factory modular robot toys.

Here’s a snippet of one of their stories:

G: “I’m following you Earth Leader. All right, Sandstone. Look this is the tricky part of getting down.”

L: “Yeah but remember Kai is good at climbing.”

G: “Yeah he’s good at climbing things but not slippery things like vines.”

“‘Let’s go to the new city of Earthler which I’ve never seen’, Kai admitted.”

L: “Look, she’s fireproof and waterproof!”

We talked about sales tax because Gavin has been doing chores to earn money and is interested in spending it on a new Bionicle figure. We discussed how much sales tax is, why it exists and what its for in general and specifically here in Utah. Then we began talking about when it started and got into the Boston tea party and representation of the people in governments. It was a pretty great bunch of discussions!

We picked up our Spanish practice again, going over food words, animal words and I learned how to say, “You are so sweet my teeth hurt.”

Gavin finished knitting his hat on the loom.

Gavin asked recently about Atlantis, if it’s real or not. So I explained that actually there are plenty if cities that have sunk for different reasons and we don’t know if Atlantis is one of those. Afterward we looked at some great photos of sunken cities and read the brief descriptions of where they are, when they sank and if they know why. It’s been something that has interested me since I was a kid, so it’s fun to see Gavin interested as well. I’m glad to know and be able to pass on that there are infinite mysteries left in history, biology, physics just waiting to be discovered and puzzled over.

We went the the Museum of Natural Curiosity and climbed and read and spun and wondered and built and laughed. My favorite part this time was watching the kids dress up as pirates and put on a play.

Friends.

unschooling

Monday

We are home and back to our routine (if I can call our go-with-the-flow days routine) after a wonderful visit with family in Washington over Christmas filled with jokes, hugs, games of all varieties and lots of good food. I asked Lilah if she was happy to be home and she said, “Yes, because my green bean bag is at home and I LOVE it!” It was one of her solstice gifts from Chris and I and it is indeed well loved thus far.

This morning Lilah slept in after being a bit sick still and a long, long drive back from Washington Saturday- Sunday. Gavin and I started making pancakes and then when she woke up she helped too.

They played with their new lego set and their old lego sets. They acted out some scenes from Harry Potter and used various lego people parts to make a Dumbledore.

Lilah got out her window suncatcher set and we peeled off the butterfly she made before we left to put on our window.

It looks very bright with the snow coating everything gray and white outside.

While I went outside and shoveled snow from our steps and sidewalk, the kids played No Stress Chess together – a variation on chess where each player draws a card before playing each turn that tells her/him which piece to move (and also illustrates the way each piece moves). It makes the game more accessible and more random and they both seem to be really enjoying it.

After several games, the chess game evolved. Animals were added, with new powers. There was a borrower who borrowed things. There was a story-teller. I love watching them create together.

Gavin played with his Praxinoscope animation kit. It spins and the pictures go around and if you look through the opening on the side it looks like a moving animation of the individual images. In Gavin’s words: “It has a mirror that reflects the pictures from the flat part. The (view piece) is rectangular so it blocks out the other pictures and you only see one.”

We read some poems by Liliane Moore and Sudeep Sen.

The kids set up Lilah’s new Wildcraft game, a cooperative game about herbs, particularly healing herbs and started a game but didn’t get far before dinner time.

I read some more of a new book called Madame Pamplemousse and Her Incredible Edibles by Rupert Kingfisher. I thought it would be perfect for Lilah and got it for the trip to Washington and we’re in the middle of it, having started reading it up there. It is charming and empowering story of a girl who likes to cook.

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Busy, busy, busy

We’ve been so busy and I haven’t been documenting as much because of the holiday season but here’s a glimpse of things we’ve been doing.

We made a wreath.

Gavin’s been knitting after Lilah finished her hat on the loom that’s their size. She’s very proud of her first knitting project.

Lilah and I have been sewing the cutest owl stuffed animal/pillow for her brother.

We’ve been doing lots of reading. We started a new book: Prairie School by Lois Lenski. It follows a family in South Dakota in 1950 and is a really enjoyable exploration of how life in the 50’s in rural America was both similar and different to our current experiences.

Gavin made some gorgeous perler bead decorations and we hot glued them on barrettes for his sister.

We’ve been cuddling up watching movies since the kids have been feeling a bit sick this week; Spirited Away, Harry Potter, Castle In the Sky.

Soon we’ll be celebrating Christmas with family, Solstice with the four of us and more Christmas with more family in Washington so blogging will be on hold for a while.

unschooling

Thursday

There was Animal Jam playing.

There was lego Hero Factory building and rebuilding.

There was knitting.

We went to the Tracy Aviary and saw lots of birds as well as things to climb on and spin and read.

There were pelicans having fish.

And flamingos in swirling white waters.

We climbed giant bones.

We measured our wingspans.

And much more.

After we finished exploring the aviary, we had a snack in the car and decided to play at the playground in the park surrounding the aviary. There was climbing and hide and seek and sliding and musical exploration.

After we came home the kids watched The Triplets of Belleville, a French film. Lilah did some more knitting and Gavin helped with one row.

Then the kids decided to decorate our tree before dinner and cuddles and Julie of the Wolves and singing and sleeping followed.

unschooling

Wednesday

There was Animal Jam on the computer together. Then more lego Hero Factory play.

We visited Gilgal Gardens, a local historic outdoor sculpture garden depicting LDS founders.

It’s quite strange and marvelous. I captured some portals in Ingress while we explored.

Once we got home Gavin and I baked snickerdoodles which he’s been asking about for days while Lilah finally got started on knitting on her circular knitting loom which she’s been wanting to do for months and months.

She needed quite a bit of help to begin and support along the way while dealing with accidents and whatnot but she spent at least an hour straight working on it and has an inch or so of a lovely purple hat to show for it.

Gavin arranged the word and letter magnets on the fridge in a visual poem.

Gavin read a few pages of George’s Marvelous Medicine by Roald Dahl to us while Lilah continued to knit.

I amused the three of us by putting Lilah’s sunglasses on our pug.

Then we adventured to the park to enjoy the last of the light and the kids played at the playground and hid behind trees.

Our Spiral Scouts holiday party was next. We had some great time with friends capped by a game of Settlers of Catan, which Gavin is always jumping out of his skin to play with our friend who is equally obsessed.

unschooling

Tuesday

I’m skipping blogging about some days here and there due to holiday bustle but today was a little bit quieter than it has been.

The kids played on the computer and built lego settings for their story telling.

After breakfast they helped fold clothes, pick up and vacuum to get the house ready for friends later.

Gavin pulled out his lego Hero Factory pieces and built some new “guys”. One of them was named Huge Foot.

Lilah asked me to read The Wolves in the Walls by Neil Gaiman to her.

We took a trip to pick up a gift that we hadn’t already brought home and admired the fountains at the City Creek Center while we did.

The kids worked on some math sheets. Gavin has forgotten many of his memorized math facts. I’m not sure how I feel about that. I think we’ll practice a bit here and there if he is willing. The concepts he’s picked up, though, those are still there. He did some reading from Where On Earth (his kids atlas) to me. He still tends to skip words and tumble over himself because his brain reads faster than his mouth. At least that’s my guess.

Mid afternoon Lilah and I picked up her friend from school and they started playing with the Hero Factory constructs as soon as we arrived home. As their chosen characters, they visited the center of Egypt. They talked loudly and quietly. They climbed the biggest tree in the world (also known as our holiday tree).

After Lilah’s friend left, it was time for dinner, a quick walk around the neighborhood and then reading some more of Julie of the Wolves, which is still starring in their storytelling play in concepts and setting.

unschooling

Wednesday

Lilah rediscovered a Winnie the Pooh lamp that I had in my room when I was a kid and was looking at how it’s put together this morning.

After some lego play and pop bead story telling, the kids and I spent a lot of time playing Ingress.

It’s a brand new game to us, where you walk and capture portals which are located in specific places so you have to move to them in the real world. We did a mission which was walking along the trail to Ensign Peak. It was fun and good to be out, even though it was chilly, especially up on the very top of Ensign Peak!

We enjoyed seeing the city from way up high and reading about early settlers in the valley. Unfortunately you can’t see our house from the top because we’re right below a hill that juts above but we spotted the University and the temple and the Capitol building.

At home, we played Hedbanz, a game where you have to guess what you are without asking “What am I”? Instead you ask things like, “Am I an animal”? “What letter do I start with”? We laughed quite a bit. The kids got better at their question strategies. Gavin’s first card to figure out was purse and Lilah’s was key.

We read some more of Julie of the Wolves by Jean Craighead George. Gavin is enjoying that and Lilah is getting bits and pieces here and there. They are both intrigued by the idea of communicating with animals, as I am. They have been talking about that idea together more since we’ve been reading this, though they both have always loved animals.

We did some more rhyming with Hickory Dickory Dock.

After we’d spent much of our energy walking around, we watched a documentary called CaveDigger by Jeffrey Karoff about Ra Paulette’s life digging and carving caves solo in New Mexico.

It was fascinating, though some of the interpersonal dynamics included weren’t as interesting as the story of how and why he digs. The website for the film is: http://cavediggerdocumentary.com/index.html.

Later on we adventured up to the Capitol grounds with Dad for a bit more Ingress.

Yes is a World

Tag Archives: reading now

Taking care

Stories and Castles

Cuttlefish and Number Games

Sunken Cities, Lego Cities, Evolution

Monday

Busy, busy, busy

Thursday

Wednesday

Tuesday

Wednesday